Food for thought.

gajinoz

gajinoz

Joined
Sep 2, 2003
Messages
11,650
... or maybe thought for food ....

Australia's Radio National has a short, 15 min., segment on Sunday mornings called Occam's Razor. Basically they get a scientist of some sort to give a short lecture on some interesting subject. Today was a guy from the Defence Science Technology Organisation, (second largest scientific org. in Oz), who told us about the science behind selecting the ration packs for Australian infantry soldiers. I was quite surprising just how much research and development goes into these things. For a start they had to develop a way to measure how much energy the average soldier expends while on patrol in some hostile area. Not an easy task it seems but they managed it by the clever measure of deuterium and oxygen 18. Quite a challeng to provide a pack that provides sufficient and the right type of energy and nutrition, make it palatable, keep the weight down, make it keep in hot humid conditions and resistent to attack by insects and rodents and such.

Fascinating little lecture.
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Did anyone ask the soldiers what they thought? :D
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Strangely enough, they did!

The guy giving the lecture talked about a recent survey among soldiers who had served in places like East Timor and, as a result, changed quite a few things. Reduced the weight, changed the drinks available and included more variety in the food.

The bloke made it sound so good I might go and get one for lunch today! :)
 
I saw a program on either Discovery or National Geographic about the MRE's. They really do all they can to get bread (The most asked for food) that tastes good with a long shelf life. Its a pitty the Brits havent woken up to the fact that hard tac isnt as good as it sounds :)
 
Temper said:
I saw a program on either Discovery or National Geographic about the MRE's. They really do all they can to get bread (The most asked for food) that tastes good with a long shelf life. Its a pitty the Brits havent woken up to the fact that hard tac isnt as good as it sounds :)
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One of the items he spoke about was chocolate. Seems the guys like a bit of choc between getting shot at but it doesn't work too well in the really hot conditions so they developed a chocolate that still tastes OK but doesn't melt in hight temperatures.
 
Radio National often put up transcripts of segments, so we might be able to find and post a link to the segment.
 
djolney said:
Radio National often put up transcripts of segments, so we might be able to find and post a link to the segment.
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Good thought.

They have podcasts of lots of things too. I'll have a look around and see what I can find.
 
LOL, did they count in the energy used for trying to swap your tin of food for your buddies. My buddies always had the nice stuff and somehow I always wound up with fish.

Temper, did you guys have doggie biscuits in your rat-packs? :thumbup: :D
 
Nordic Viking said:
LOL, did they count in the energy used for trying to swap your tin of food for your buddies. My buddies always had the nice stuff and somehow I always wound up with fish.

Temper, did you guys have doggie biscuits in your rat-packs? :thumbup: :D
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You were in the wrong army NV. :)

Here in Oz you can select fom five different menus! :)
 
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