Napoleon once said, "An army marches on its stomach", and most soldiers would agree. So in 1975, the Department of Defense created the Meal Ready to Eat, affectionately known as MREs. Over the years MRE's have become the foremost source of food for our nation's troops. Meal Ready to Eats are self-contained, complete meals. They are made for practicality inside and out, providing all the nutrition that the military has deemed as "necessary". Nutrition wise, an MRE provides 1,300 calories and one third of a day's worth of essential nutrients. A full day's worth of meals would consist of three MREs, however, one main issue with the MRE system is rationing.
[...] Military Meals Ready to Eat were created in order to provide fuel for our troops while out in the field, however, because of their often bad taste and ineffective set-up, their nutritional quality is often times compromised. Thankfully soldiers voice their complaints as they rightfully should and in turn, each year the Department of Defense creates new menus for MREs, though no vast improvement has been made so far. They are developing higher calorie meals but they will cost significantly more than the common $ 7.25 per normal MRE to produce so it is not expected that they will be widely available (Madhani). [...]
[...] It has been found that soldiers prefer spicier foods but so far their spicy dishes such as the enchiladas have not been crowd pleasers. Our soldiers deserve quality food that will not hurt them in any way or impair their performances. Works Cited Glatz, Julianne. “Send a salami to your boy in the Army.” Illinois Times 30 Aug. 2007: n. pag. Print. Talks about how since MRE's are so disliked due to lack of fiber and taste, families have been sending more and more food overseas to their sons or daughters. Madhani, Aamer. “Pentagon revising MREs amid reports of GIs losing [...]
[...] Unfortunately Meals Ready to Eat have also become outdated; they no longer provide adequate nutrition for our troops, especially those who are stationed in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan. Lieutenant David Moore visited United States troops in such an area of Afghanistan and he conducted over 150 interviews with the men and women stationed there. Moore discovered that our soldiers were losing substantial amounts of weight due to the MREs they were eating, weight that they needed in order to function. [...]
[...] Though it is true that Meals Ready to Eat were created to provide not to please, the lack of quality food drives many soldiers to toss the majority of their MRE. This causes problems with the level of their nutrition. Each MRE provides on average 1,300 calories grams of fat grams of saturated fat grams of Trans fat milligrams of cholesterol milligrams of sodium grams of carbohydrates grams of fiber grams of sugar and 34 grams of protein (MREs). When eaten three times daily and within periods of high physical activity they provide everything a soldier needs to function. [...]
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