Today, many guys who are going to serve the required year, are seriously worried about the quality of food. Even more this question excites their parents and relatives. So to talk about how things are going with food in the army will not be out of place.
How is the diet made in the army?
To begin with, it is worth saying that products in the army are as simple as possible. Still, not a single state can feed all soldiers with delicacies. Therefore, red fish, cakes and various pickles should not be expected. But at the same time, the food is quite high-calorie, most dishes are quite satisfying.
In general, the nutrition is quite balanced - a soldier receives a strictly defined amount of carbohydrates, fats and proteins, allowing them to develop physically and intellectually. There are no gross violations leading to the development of obesity, which is often found in everyday life, in the army.
It should be noted that in the past 15-20 years, the quality of food has generally increased dramatically - soldiers are consistently receiving three hot meals a day or a worthy replacement in the form of IRP (individual diets), or, as they were called before, dry rations. Meals are standard three. We will tell you more about each of them.
What to eat for breakfast
The first meal starts at exactly 7:00. Most often, breakfast is served porridge made from oatmeal, millet or barley. In some cases, porridge can be replaced with pasta. In any case, a meat dish is served to the side dish - most likely, one sausage or cutlet. In some parts, a soldier can also rely on a boiled egg and a small amount of cheese - processed or hard. A nice addition is butter - alas, in a rather small amount, enough to make a sandwich. In recent years, butter is not given in a piece, but in the form of a small, packed briquette. Therefore, the soldier does not have to complain that the neighbor was given more oil than him.
Tea relies on sweets (sometimes with milk, plain or condensed), as well as something like cookies or gingerbread. In cases where porridge is boiled in milk, tea is served without it.
This concludes the breakfast. As you can see, it consists mainly of complex carbohydrates - proteins and fats minimum amount. This is justified - carbohydrates are absorbed much faster, without creating heaviness in the stomach. The most suitable meal for the early morning, when the body needs to get the maximum calories after night and prepare for a busy day.
Lunch Dishes
The second meal is scheduled for 13:00. Lunch is more dense - it is most noticeable for it that food in the Russian army has improved significantly in recent years.
To begin with, the first one is surely served. It can be borsch, cabbage soup, pickle, solyanka, soup with vermicelli or something like that. Of course, in many respects the quality depends on the cook and the honesty of the unit commander, but on the whole the dish is quite nutritious and even relatively tasty.
The second course serves a meat dish: roast, beef stroganoff, cutlet, chicken or liver. Complementary is a side dish - pasta, stewed cabbage or some boiled groats (rice, buckwheat, barley, millet, peas).
A nice addition in many parts is the salad. It can be prepared from fresh vegetables (in season), for example, cucumbers and tomatoes. But more often, they use more long-stored products like cabbage, beets, onions, and others. Of course, even a small cup of lettuce cheerfully raises the mood of a soldier, especially a recent volunteer, homesick.
Juice is given as a sweet, or, more often, recently boiled and barely able to cool compote from dried fruits. A bun or several cookies relies on sweets.
Quite often in the spring vitamins are added to the diet - ordinary ascorbic acid or a more complex multivitamin complex. Sometimes soldiers are served several dragees, which they must eat before eating. But sometimes vitamins are added directly to food - they do not affect the taste, but are absorbed better. True, because of this, there is a lot of speculation about what is added to food in the army (more on this later).
You see for yourself, lunch combines proteins, fats and carbohydrates. This set is not accidental at all, because they have different speed of splitting and assimilation. So, the soldier will feel full and get the necessary calories several hours after eating.
What do they have dinner in the army
The last meal of the day begins at 19:00. And many do not like dinner in the army too. First of all, due to the fact that here they often give fish as a meat dish. Of course, they try to save on it, most often serving pollock, cod, flounder or saffron cod. Sometimes it is cooked or stewed, but most often it is fried. In some cases, instead of fish give meatballs from minced fish. But still, the abundance of bones makes itself felt - the pleasure of eating is greatly reduced.
Of course, a side dish is served to the fish: mashed potatoes, stewed cabbage, buckwheat or some other cereal. Salads for dinner are usually not relied upon. Sometimes a small amount of canned corn or peas can be added to a meager dinner.
A small piece of butter is served to the bread (not always). The function of the dessert is performed by a glass of juice, compote or sweet tea, sometimes with cookies or even a bun.
Dinner, as you can see, is rather modest, so that you can digest before the end, without leading to heaviness in the stomach during sleep. Here, again, the emphasis is on carbohydrates, only slightly diluting them with lean fish - this is enough for the whole night. True, if there is a march or other “entertainment” at night, the calories obtained are clearly not enough.
What does an IRP consist of?
Providing soldiers with fresh hot food is not always obtained. During long trips or exercises you have to do with canned goods. Well, judging by them, the food of the soldiers in the army is very balanced, varied and tasty.
For example, consider the standard individual diet. Soldiers most often get IRP-3 or IRP-4 (the second is slightly better), and officers can be pampered with IRP-5, where standard dishes, in general, have several pleasant goodies like a piece of salted lard, chocolate bar or salted fish. One can already judge by this what kind of food in the army awaits young soldiers and officers.
The IRP is packed in a rather bulky box and is designed for three meals. Well, or at one time if three soldiers dine at once.
For example, consider IRP-3 as the simplest.
For breakfast, canned meat and vegetable products - peas and carrots with meat, or some kind of porridge with stew. An additional bonus is a jar of cheese.
A soldier can also have lunch with a can of meat and vegetable canned goods, but he will also receive an additional can of stew and a small package of lecho, vegetable caviar or other salad replacement.
Finally, a meat dish is relied on for dinner - minced meat, meatballs or something similar, flavored with liver pate.
Pleasant little things in the IRP
Four packs of biscuits, tea, coffee, dried cream, sugar, as well as pleasant things like an instant drink (something like fruit drinks), chocolates and jam should be added to the main meal.
Also in the box is a place for napkins - dry and wet, three spoons, an opener for canned food and a special taganka with dry fuel - you can heat food without making a fire.
So the soldiers and officers are all right with meals on camp conditions.
Is bromine in food true or myth?
But there are many legends about the fact that bromine is added to food in the army . The most common version is to suppress sexual desire. In fact, this is not true.
To begin with, bromine is an extremely dangerous substance that can lead to serious poisoning. And since they kind of add it to the boilers directly in the kitchen, cases would regularly pop up when several mouths in a particular part fell off with severe poisoning.
The lack of sexual desire is explained by completely different reasons. First of all, physical activity, to which many recruits are unaccustomed. Blood goes into the overloaded muscles to supply them with oxygen and nutrients, and not somewhere else.
And the absence of external stimuli makes itself felt - it’s easy not to think about sex, when the only woman in the part that can be regularly seen is a sixty-year-old saleswoman from the “chipka”.
So if you are interested in the question of what they add to the army for food, then most likely the conversation is about vitamins.
Are they fed the same everywhere?
Of course, food in the army is far from always the same as described above. In many respects it depends on the integrity of the commander. One, remembering himself a soldier, carefully monitors that recruits receive high-quality nutrition, not allowing cooks to warm their hands on defenseless guys. The other himself is not averse to getting an increase to an already not small salary, saving on purchases, carefully diluting the soldiers' soup, wondering what can be built into the hands of unprincipled businessmen from food in the army. Alas, this is an objective reality. Therefore, nutrition can vary greatly depending on the part.
Are soldiers starving in the army?
But still, rumors of hungry soldiers all the time go among the recruits. Do they really have no reason?
In fact, this happens even in parts with the best supply. But it’s not the greedy cooks who are to blame. Just the conscripts, yesterday’s schoolchildren and students, got used at home not only to three meals, but also to numerous snacks. After all, you can always eat a sandwich, ice cream or eat a bar. In the army, meals are strictly on schedule - at 7:00, 13:00 and 19:00 hours. And the load is much greater than in civilian life. The rest of the time, the soldier runs, jumps, exercises, shoots and tries to get used to a completely new life. The breaks between meals are large, and the possibility of a snack (except for rare trips to the "chip") is not expected. But in two or three months, the body is completely rebuilt, and a feeling of constant hunger disappears even in the most spoiled soldiers with home-made spills.
Conclusion
This can end the article. In it, we tried to tell as much as possible about the meals of soldiers in the dining room, as well as exercises and long trips. We hope that the information will be useful for you and your loved ones.