Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1895 — RATIONS FOR TROOPS. [ARTICLE]

RATIONS FOR TROOPS.

EMERGENCY DIET FQ.R UNITED STATES SOLDIERS. Wbat the Iron Ration l«--Tho Sol* diarsoftha Future To Bo Indo* pandant of Supply Traina. Within a few weeks from now United States soldiers will be provided for the first time with an ‘‘iron ration.” The boards appointed to consider the question of emergency foods, representing the various departments of the army, are sending in their reports, upon which final conclusions will be based. Problem: To make up a food package of small bulk, which shall render the fighting man independent of. supply trains for a short period in case of an exigency such as might arise from his being wounded or cut off with a detachment from the main command. “Experiments in this line are being made by all the great war powers, ” said Major Woodruff to a reporter of the Washingtou Star at the War Department yesterday. “They are trying everything imaginable for the purpose. Here, for example, is an element of the British emergency ration . It looks like a dog biscut, doesn’t it ? Three ounces it weighs and it is four inches square. It is composed simply of whole wheat, solidly compressed. A condensed loaf of bread you might call it. The French have a new ‘war bread,’ which is to replace hard tack for the use of their army. Its ingredients and the processes for making it are a secret. When a piece of it is put into hot water or soup, it swells up like a sponge and is said to be virtually the same as fresh bread.” 1 * For emergency rations evaporated vegetables have been tried, but not with great success. They are not nutritious enough, and they do not keep well. Here is a one pound can of evaporated onions. Smells strong, doesn’t it? It ought to, inasmuch as it represents ten pounds of fresh onions. In the same way potatoes,carrots, turnips and cabbages are put up. Desicated foods are now being produced on an enormous scale by many firms in this country and abroad. A g«jod thing, which we may adopt, is this desiccated beef. One ounce of it is equal to five ounces of ordinary meat, because it is absolutely water free. It la too hard to cut with a knife without trouble, and so the soldier chops off a small hunk of it. He puts the piece into a little machine like a coffee mill and grinds it up. It comes out in fine shavings, ready to be eaten on bread or to be used for soup stock. “Beef tea, used as a stimulant, is a good thing for soldiers. For an emergency ration It is put up in capsules, one of which makes a cup. Each capsule contains the necessary seasoning and costs two cents. Beef tea contains almost no nutriment, but only the flavoring and stimulating qualities of the meat. 1 ‘lt is certain that canned foods will play an important part in future wars The Belgian iron ration is a ten-ounce can of corned beef, put up in a liquor that is flavored with vegetables. The German emergency, ration is a one-pound can of preserved meat, with hard bread and pea sausage. A biscuit composed of meat and flour has been tried for the German army, but the soldiers would not eat it. The biscuit was supposed to furnish the fighting man with everything necessary for his physical support, water excepted. To be satisfactory, a ration must be palatable as well as wholesome and nutritious. A dietary for troops cannot be settled on a basis of theory only; it must be tested in practice. What will satisfy soldiers of one nation may not suit those of another. "Very likely United States soldiers would not put up with the German ‘erbswurst.’ Yet that species of pea is said to have been a leading cause of the success of the German arms in the Franco-Prussian war. Without it the troops could not have endured the fatigue to which they were subjected. The sausage is made of pea meal, fat and bacon. It was devised by a German cook, from whom the invention was purchased by the government for $25,000. The secret lies in the method of preparation, by which the article is rendered proof against decay. Each sausage is eight inches long and makes twelve plates of nutritious soup. There could hardly be a better emergency ration.”

“Among other things under consideration by our War Department are condensed soups. This little packet, which looks somewhat like a bundle of cigarettes, contains just three ounces of desiccated pea soup. You observe, it is so compressed as to be quite hard. I break it up and throw it into this saucepan. To it I add one quart of water and I place it on the gas stove here to boil.' For flavoring, though it is not necessary, let us add a small quantity of these evaporated onions. In the course of fifteen , minutes I will offer you a plate of very excellent pea soup. Soups, you understand, are most useful in rations. For health it is not sufficient to put a certain amount of nutriment into the body; the stomach must be distended. Soup does that. Incidentally, the soldier who consumes one of the rations absorbs one quart of sterilized water.

“Condensed soups may be purchased in tublets three inches square and half an inch thick. Each tablet weighs four ounces and makes six plates of soup. In food value one tablet is equal to one and threequarter pounds of potatoes. Bean, mock-turtle, green corn, barley and potato soups are desiccated in this form. Tomato, vegetable and fish chowder soups are similarly prepared. What do you suppose this is? It looks like a button, doesn’t it? It is a cup of tea condensed. All you have to do is to drop it into a cup of hot water and stir it up. The sweetening is in the button with the tea. No, the sweetening is not sugar, but .saccharine.’ Coffee is put up in the same way, with saccharine, as well as in a shape that looks like black molasses. “An iron ration is a short weight and highly concentrated diet intended to cover only a brief period. is not to be used except when the Regular food supply cannot be obtained.

Supposing the army supplies to bo regularly furnished, the fighting mas ought to return from the campaign carrying in his haversack the same emergency ration with which he started out originally. But it may happen that the regiment or brigade is cut oil from the main body, and in that case the emergency rations may be literal salvation. Or he may be left wounded on a field of battle, unable to obtain anything to eat for days, unless he has it with him. During the recent war with China the Japanese found emergency rations a necessity in active service. An army, or a large part of it, may be thrown rapidly forward to hold a position, and it takes a week or more to make roads, so as to get supplies to the front.