My rss newsreader has been picking up a lot of stories about how MREs just aren’t cutting it for some of the troops in Afghanistan. I think the whole story originated from one reporter’s short blurb and quickly balloned into a raft of copycat stories all saying “MRE sucks”, “soldiers are starving”, etc. None of those articles bothered to actually expand on the suckage or what was causing the soldiers to “starve”.
So when I read this latest article from The Chicago Tribune, I thought it was going to be more of the same. But after two pages of reading, it turns out this is one of the best, most well-researched articles out there on the state of current MREs and some of their possible deficiencies.
I’ll post an excerpt but I’d encourage everyone to check out the whole story.
From: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-070325mre-story,1,2119239.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
Field rations failing soldiers
Amid reports of weight loss, troops to try meal that has more calories
By Aamer Madhani
Tribune national correspondent
Published March 25, 2007
NATICK, Mass. — When Lt. Dave Moore visited infantry units in the remote, rugged mountains of Afghanistan late last year, the Navy medical officer was surprised to hear from many soldiers and Marines that they had lost significant weight.
After conducting more than 150 interviews with medics, officers and troops on the ground, Moore concluded that the portable rations called “Meals, Ready-to-Eat”–long derided by troops, but valued by the Pentagon for their indestructibility–were not doing the job, causing the soldiers to shed pounds that they very much needed.
“The standard Meal, Ready to Eat (MRE) does not provide adequate nutrition for dismounted operations in this type of terrain,” Moore wrote in his report. “Many Marines and soldiers lost 20 to 40 pounds of bodyweight during their deployment. At least one soldier was evacuated due to malnutrition and a 60-pound weight loss.”
Moore’s conclusions have raised concern among military leaders, as well as designers of the field rations at the Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center outside Boston.
Moore stressed in an interview that the service members he surveyed represented only a small portion of those fighting in Afghanistan — infantry troops deployed to desolate locations where MREs and local cuisine were the only options–but nonetheless he concluded that up to 1,300-calorie MREs were falling short.
[Click the above link for the whole story]
