Americans eat more processed foods than anyone else in the world. We also spend more on military research. These two seemingly unrelated facts are inextricably linked. If you ever wondered how ready-to-eat foods infiltrated your kitchen, you’ll love this entertaining romp through the secret military history of practically everything you buy at the supermarket. In a nondescript Boston suburb, in a handful of low buildings buffered by trees and a lake, a group of men and women spend their days researching, testing, tasting, and producing the foods that form the bedrock of the American diet. If you stumbled into the facility, you might think the technicians dressed in lab coats and the shiny kitchen equipment belonged to one of the giant food conglomerates responsible for your favorite brand of frozen pizza or microwavable breakfast burritos. So you’d be surprised to learn that you’ve just entered the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, ground zero for the processed food industry. Ever since Napoleon, armies have sought better ways to preserve, store, and transport food for battle. As part of this quest, although most people don’t realize it, the U.S. military spearheaded the invention of energy bars, restructured meat, extended-life bread, instant coffee, and much more. But there’s been an insidious mission creep: because the military enlisted industry—huge corporations such as ADM, ConAgra, General Mills, Hershey, Hormel, Mars, Nabisco, Reynolds, Smithfield, Swift, Tyson, and Unilever—to help develop and manufacture food for soldiers on the front line, over the years combat rations, or the key technologies used in engineering them, have ended up dominating grocery store shelves and refrigerator cases. TV dinners, the cheese powder in snack foods, cling wrap . . . The list is almost endless. Now food writer Anastacia Marx de Salcedo scrutinizes the world of processed food and its long relationship with the military—unveiling the twists, turns, successes, failures, and products that have found their way from the armed forces’ and contractors’ laboratories into our kitchens. In developing these rations, the army was looking for some of the very same qualities as we do in our hectic, fast-paced twenty-first-century lives: portability, ease of preparation, extended shelf life at room temperature, affordability, and appeal to even the least adventurous eaters. In other words, the military has us chowing down like special ops. What is the effect of such a diet, eaten—as it is by soldiers and most consumers—day in and day out, year after year? We don’t really know. We’re the guinea pigs in a giant public health experiment, one in which science and technology, at the beck and call of the military, have taken over our kitchens.

Celebrating 10 years of Lunch with Derek Hansen - a new edition of his bestselling first Lunch novel. Ramon, self-styled master storyteller, has steered his listeners down a sinister path littered with love and betrayal, secret police and death squads. But as the Argentinian's tale nears its startling conclusion, his audience is struck with horror at the possibility that Ramon's clever invention is nothing more than the cunningly disguised chronicle of his own shadowy past. Is Ramon a gifted artist of the imagination or the perpetrator of a terrible act of revenge that defies all forgiveness? 'Hansen is a great novelist. Only the bravest and most confident writer could grant his characters such intelligence and insight and still remain in command' - West Australian.

the bestselling author of Sole Survivor, Lunch with the Generals and Lunch with Mussolini returns with a gripping new novel that crosses decades and continents.Derek Hansen takes us back to Gancio\'9291s restaurant. It is a thursday and, as usual, Ramon, Lucio, Milos and Neil have gathered for their weekly lunch appointment. It is Neil\'9291s turn to take the floor - except that Milos steps in and demands to tell his story. He has no choice in the matter, he says, \'9291this story has already been too long awaiting the telling. It is not just an obligation but a repayment of a debt.\'9291 With those words he hooks the three other men - and Derek Hansen hooks his readers. We are taken back to Hungary in the 1940s, a time when Jews are persecuted and rumours of the terrifying death camps are already circulating. this is a novel with huge range, set within a real historical landscape populated by figures like Adolf Eichmann and the Russian and Hungarian secret police. It is also the story of two brothers who vie for the affections of the same girl during a time of turmoil and separation, a story which begins in Hungary and seeks its conclusion in Australia. two boys who are forced to deal, steal and kill to survive.

Celebrating 10 years of Lunch with Derek Hansen - a new edition of his bestselling second Lunch novel. Spring 1945: the quiet of a northern Italian village is shattered by an explosion of gunfire as eight innocent women are gunned down. Why have they been executed now, with the war almost over and the Germans standing to gain nothing from further reprisals? Fifty years later the daughter of one of the victims finds the German officer who ordered the executions living under an assumed name, and sets out to avenge her mother's death. 'It is no coincidence that two great novels linked with the Second World War have come out of Australia.Keneally's Schindler's Ark and now Derek Hansen's Lunch with Mussolini' - Glasgow Herald. '.as brilliant technically as it is profound thematically' - Canberra times.

This regulation encompasses garrison, field, and subsistence supply operations. Specifically, this regulation comprises Army Staff and major Army command responsibilities and includes responsibilities for the Installation Management Command and subordinate regions. It also establishes policy for the adoption of an à la carte dining facility and for watercraft to provide subsistence when underway or in dock. Additionally, the regulation identifies DOD 7000.14–R as the source of meal rates for reimbursement purposes; delegates the approval authority for catered meals and host nation meals from Headquarters, Department of the Army to the Army commands; and authorizes the use of the Government purchase card for subsistence purchases when in the best interest of the Government. This regulation allows prime vendors as the source of garrison supply and pricing and provides garrison menu standards in accordance with The Surgeon General's nutrition standards for feeding military personnel. Also, included is guidance for the implementation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Recovery Program.

Eating enough food to meet nutritional needs and maintain good health and good performance in all aspects of lifeâ€"both at home and on the jobâ€"is important for all of us throughout our lives. For military personnel, however, this presents a special challenge. Although soldiers typically have a number of options for eating when stationed on a base, in the field during missions their meals come in the form of operational rations. Unfortunately, military personnel in training and field operations often do not eat their rations in the amounts needed to ensure that they meet their energy and nutrient requirements and consequently lose weight and potentially risk loss of effectiveness both in physical and cognitive performance. This book contains 20 chapters by military and nonmilitary scientists from such fields as food science, food marketing and engineering, nutrition, physiology, psychology, and various medical specialties. Although described within a context of military tasks, the committee's conclusions and recommendations have wide-reaching implications for people who find that job-related stress changes their eating habits.

This manual, TRADOC Pamphlet TP 600-4 The Soldier's Blue Book: The Guide for Initial Entry Soldiers August 2019, is the guide for all Initial Entry Training (IET) Soldiers who join our Army Profession. It provides an introduction to being a Soldier and Trusted Army Professional, certified in character, competence, and commitment to the Army. The pamphlet introduces Solders to the Army Ethic, Values, Culture of Trust, History, Organizations, and Training. It provides information on pay, leave, Thrift Saving Plans (TSPs), and organizations that will be available to assist you and your Families. The Soldier's Blue Book is mandated reading and will be maintained and available during BCT/OSUT and AIT.This pamphlet applies to all active Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and the Army National Guard enlisted IET conducted at service schools, Army Training Centers, and other training activities under the control of Headquarters, TRADOC.

A grunt’s-eye report from the battlefield in the spirit of The Red Badge of Courage and All Quiet on the Western Front—the only known account by a common soldier of the campaigns of Napoleon’s Grand Army between 1806 and 1813. When eighteen-year-old German stonemason Jakob Walter was conscripted into the Grand Army of Napoleon, he had no idea of the trials that lay ahead. The long, grueling marches in Prussia and Poland sacrificed countless men to Bonaparte’s grand designs. And the disastrous Russian campaign tested human endurance on an epic scale. Demoralized by defeat in a war few supported or understood, deprived of ammunition and leadership, driven past reason by starvation and bitter cold, men often turned on one another, killing fellow soldiers for bread or an able horse. Though there are numerous surviving accounts of the Napoleonic Wars written by officers, Walter’s is the only known memoir by a draftee, and as such is a unique and fascinating document—a compelling chronicle of a young soldier’s loss of innocence as well as an eloquent and moving portrait of the profound effects of war on the men who fight it. Professor Marc Raeff has added an Introduction to the memoirs as well as six letters home from the Russian front, previously unpublished in English, from German conscripts who served concurrently with Walter. The volume is illustrated with engravings and maps, contemporary with the manuscript, from the Russian/Soviet and East European collections of the New York Public Library. Honest, heartfelt, deeply personal yet objective, The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier is more than an informative and absorbing historical document—it is a timeless and unforgettable account of the horrors of war.