I Hate Army Chow
every day; in ancient times this was the equivalent of three pounds of bread. http://teaching.ucdavis.edu/nut20/0041.h... Multiply that by however many troops are in your army and then step out and try to pick up that amount at the corner store. Alexander the Great campaigned in fairly arid areas with an army of around 65,000 men. That's a lot of bread.
One big problem with the old system was that it was boring. A second problem was that it didn't guarantee proper nutrition. Supplementals were always sought after, whether in garrison or on campaign to add variety. A third problem was the amount of time and effort it took to prepare meals. (Or find food in the first place. Soldiers on campaign don't get enough rest at the best of times; they have other things to do. Having to set up and cook your meal from scratch is just one more thing that robs the soldier of rest.
Prepared rations began to solve these problems but it took literally eons to even come close to getting it right. The famous hardtack of the American Civil War had its counterparts in armies around the world. and was really nothing new. Buccellatum was hardtack in the Roman army, which just shows how long it's been hard to get decent food to the troops.
Several sites detail (differing) histories of U.S. field rations from the 1920s to the 1950s. http://www.qmfound.com/history_of_ration... and http://www.ww2rationtechnologies.com/His... give a fairly detailed history.
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/1999/1999... is a book review dealing with ancient logistics and mentions many of the details of supporting an army in the field.
Current field rations are the result of years of research and the gripes of thousands of soldiers. Meals, Ready to Eat, or MREs are still maligned by the troops. They are, however, much better than their predecessors. In the 1980s the designers originally took input from backpackers (to learn how to minimize weight), real life chefs (to understand how to keep menus interesting) and even the soldiers themselves (to understand what things they REALLY hated.) They came up with a dozen menus that included vacuum packed pre cooked or dehydrated items. They managed to avoid most of the genuinely hated menus from the old C rations and have continued to add new items and improve old ones. The meals now even include vegetarian and kosher selections, though there is no guarantee you'll get the one you really want once the chips are
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