Food&culture – Marching on stomachs

Combat rations fuel the fighter, not the gourmet.

“An army marches on its stomach”, Napoleon is supposed to have said. Two centuries later, planning combat rations has become a dietary and logistical challenge, calling for continuous research and increasingly sophisticated technology. “Rations must guarantee a sufficient daily supply of calories”, explains Captain Alessandro Pini, an expert in military nutrition and Italian member of the NATO Task Group that studies the subject.

“According to the NATO Response Force, the correct caloric intake is 3,600 kcal for normal operations and 4,900 when in combat, with a correct percentage of micronutrient allocation”. He adds, “other factors come into play as well, like so-called ‘palatability’, or the fact that rations must be easily digestible and simple to use. Finally, other more subjective issues must be considered: when you’re far away from home and don’t know when you’ll be going back, a meal has an extremely strong element of socialisation to it.”

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