Would you eat food cooked in your own urine? Food scientists working for the US military have developed a dried food ration that troops can hydrate by adding the filthiest of muddy swamp water or even peeing on it.
The ration comes in a pouch containing a filter that removes 99.9 per cent of bacteria and most toxic chemicals from the water used to rehydrate it, according to the Combat Feeding Directorate, part of the US Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts. This is the same organisation that created the "indestructible sandwich" that will stay fresh for three years (New Scientist print edition, 10 April 2002).
The aim is to reduce the amount of water soldiers need to carry. One day’s food supply of three meals, weighs 3.5 kilograms but that can be reduced to about 0.4 kilograms with the dehydrated pouches, says spokeswoman Diane Wood.
The pouch – containing chicken and rice initially – relies on osmosis to filter the water or urine. When two solutions of different concentrations are separated by a semipermeable membrane, with gaps that allow only water molecules to pass through, the water is drawn to the more concentrated side.
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This gives new meaning to piss-poor rations.
8 comments
Awesome!
Quite disgusting.
Reminds me of the opening scene of Waterworld
So, the food in the military is *finally* improving!?!?
I recall being in SERE training at Ft Lee, Va in 1970 (we’d gone there from the Amphib Base at Little Creek, Va – we’d been dropped off in teams to try and make our way while avoiding the “enemy” w/o being captured. Anyway – there must have been a drought because not only was there no plant food to eat (other than pokeweed) but we only found a solitary salamander which two of us promptly chopped in half and ate on the spot. Eventually we stumbled across an old National Guard camp and maanged to locate a couple of their trash pits – all we could get from them though was a single tin of jelly and another of peanut butter.
John, my hubbie went to SERE school at Ft. Bragg nearly 20 years ago. I recall him eating (everything raw) snails, a turtle plus the turtle’s eggs, and a cottonmouth snake. (At one point, I think that he also ate some other sort of snake cooked. He said that they have more flavor raw. Eewww.) He’s still in the Army. But he doesn’t think that any one would be willing to eat this “food,” himself included.
Makes me worry about what the military will come up with next!
What I want to know is how can soldiers tell the difference between the peed-on rations and regular military food.
I can’t wait for the fecal burgers!