Can the Army Make Food Its Soldiers Want to Eat?

The army food was irritating and perplexed the soldiers who must eat it for about as long as there was an army. A centuries -old song on march It describes a biscuit that “is rolled from the table and killed a friend of mine”. The troops in the Second World War immortalized a dish of beef so covered with the nickname of SOS, an acronym It cannot yet be translated into this newspaper.

And at lunchtime on a recent Wednesday, a canteen ate Fort Jackson In the South Carolina he was serving Tacos full of anonymous meat that shone with Grasso. Brussels sprouts boiled the green. The room itself seemed insipid and dated.

But it only moves away Fresh victoryA small quick and elegant coffee shop that shares the kitchen of Messe-Hall, the chefs were pulling individual pizzas from a Marra Forni oven from $ 45,000. The chest had been treated and charred on site, then carved on order. The dessert included narrow cheesecake wedges, marbled mission of sweet cheese cream with bitter chocolate.

The Celebrity Chef Robert Irvinewho opened the fresh victory last year, he was finishing his lunch when an imposing figure in labors marched. The soldier, who presented himself as Sgt. The Major Joshua R. Bitle, declared that in 28 years in the army, he had never eaten as he had just had.

So a note of exasperation entered the voice of the sergeant. Why did he ask, wasn’t there a fresh victory over every base? “Nobody gave me an explanation of why we can’t do it.”

Mr. Irvine, the OneTime star of the food network shows “Dinner: Impossible” and “Restaurant: Impossible”, knows what those explanations could be: logistics, financing, institutional inertia. But think that the moment is finally right to change the army’s food culture. And the army has decided to be the man to guide this accusation.

In the last year, he has been an unpaid special consultant, a civilian has given a rare influence on politics, acting like the face and the guidance of what the army is calling a “Generational review“Of his power supply.

Mr. Irvine, 59 years old, looks like the part, with the muscles that ripple under a tight shirt and a high and accused haircut like that of a new recruit. Presentedly energetic, it seems to live mainly on a 600 jet meadow, flying as a base based on spreading the gospel of good food.

“Senior leadership is ready to listen,” he said, “because they know it’s a problem.”

About 70 percent of all members of the active service I am overweightand 21 percent are obese, second A report of 2023 From the American Security Project, a military Think Tank. The recipes at the structures for official catering (better known as DFAC or “Warrior Restaurants”) are rigidly coded to satisfy various nutritional standards, but many soldiers find the results so appropriate that they eat instead in fast food restaurants inside and outside the base.

“The most frequent and concerning problem we see is the raw or not very cooked chicken”, Robert Evans, a veteran of the army whose website Hots & Cots He collects reviews of restaurants and accommodation on US military bases, he wrote in one and -mail. “There are also occasional reports of things such as moldy bread, expired dairy products or scarcely prepared meals.”

This is far from the first attempt to improve military meals, but it could be the most ambitious.

The initial step was to open the fresh victory to Fort Jackson and a cafe similar to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Now the army is starting to transform the dining rooms, to five of its largest US bases, into something more similar to fresh victory, on a large scale. If those are successful, the army will finally renew more than 100 rooms from 35 national and foreign installations.

The goal is to make the food so delicious and convenient (with food trucks and possibly orders and online delivery) that the soldiers stop dreaming of fast food.

Perhaps the biggest change will be the staff. The soldiers who now cook in those dining rooms will be replaced by civilians, taken by private contractors who will manage the kitchens. This will free the chefs for more central tasks for the soldier, said Kimberly A. Hanson, spokesman for the army.

Can this effort be successful where others have failed?

Although the health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks of healthy diets and defense secretary Pete Hegseth has made the soldiers a physical priority, Mr. Hegseth also proposed Large cuts in the military budget for the next five years. Mrs. Hanson said: “We do not expect the work of the chef Irvine to support the army is hit”.

William H. DietzAn ex -obesity expert of the control and disease prevention and prevention centers sees another obstacle. “What the chef is proposing is fantastic,” he said. “The challenge is that he must change culture”.

Up to the ranks

The day when Mr. Irvine visited the fresh victory in Fort Jackson, an oven in turrosto that had remained unused was turning off the chicken of citrus and herbs, accompanied by a “chicken” chicken “chicken mix and beef sauce with caramelized onions Robert Irvine Foods. (Victory Fresh does not sell the company’s products, he said.)

Every day, Victory Fresh offers one of the five rotating dishes: pulled pork; Türkiye Kielbasa; turkey meatloaf with collard vegetables; dry ribs; And chest. It looks like saturated fats and calories, but Mr. Cash said that a profusion of sweet style salads, winding and sandwich of gastronomy rather than balance it. Victory Fresh opts also for more nutritious ingredients whenever possible, he said an example, using full pasta in his Mac and cheese.

The cafeteria serves about 400 people a day, said Fort Jackson officials, where 3,500 soldiers are stationed and about many civilians work. At the height of the lunch race, a line often pours out of the door. (The place is closed for dinner.)

Mr. Irvine delegated the details of the revision of the army to his Robert Irvine Foundationwhich provides food and support services for soldiers and veterans. Its operational director, Justin Leonard, praised the army officials for having granted his team so far a significant freedom – allowing them, for example, to order the ingredients from food distributors who had not been approved by the Pentagon Defense logistics agency.

“The supply is the cornerstone of all this,” said Leonard. “If we cannot get our chefs the freshest and most nutritious ingredients in a coherent way, then nothing of this can work.”

Mr. Irvine has long been an evangelist to improve food in the army. Born in an English family of the working class, he was trained in the 80s as a cook in the Royal Navy-his only formal culinary education.

In 1996, he moved to the United States, managing all the restaurants of Trump Taj Mahal to Atlantic City, NJ continued to host the Food Network series “Dinner: Impossible” He helped cook the wedding cake For Prince Carlo and Lady Diana. Plans for two Florida restaurants collapsed. So he did his marriage.

Mr. Irvine eventually returned to television and remarried. When he heard in 2023 that the army was rethinking his food operations, he asked to play an important role. Last year, his work that nourishes the soldiers was Praised by the First Lady Jill Biden In an event of the White House. Mr. Irvine also runs Fresh cuisineThe only complete service restaurant and Sit-Down of the Pentagon.

He crosses the suggestion that his military work is a redemption project. “I do not do bones to make a mistake. I own it,” he said in a telephone interview from Puerto Rico, where he joined an event of the National Guard after visiting the troops in Norway.

Working with the soldiers, he said, “he reinvigorates me every day”.

Looking for lessons

To show army officials how to increase his ideas, Mr. Irvine brought many of them last spring to Columbia University, who he said “He had the best food of any university on this planet.” He and others attribute Vicki Dunn, vice -president of the Columbia assistant for restaurants. Arriving on the campus in 2007, he quickly started to transform the dining rooms, with emphasis on freshness and variety.

Mrs. Dunn said it maintains about 87 % of students in a food plan after their first year, when they are no longer required to buy one. Insists that the army can replicate it. “It’s not that difficult,” he said.

Military cuisine is in constant conversation with its civil counterparty, said Anastacia Marx de Salcedo, author of “Fight ready -made cuisine: how the American military modeled the way you eat. “

The recommended dietary allowances that stand out nutritional guidelines for Americans they were developed in 1943 For troops fighting in the Second World War. In 2008, the military adopted Choose the greenA guide with color code for each dish-like (green), occasionally eating (yellow) and eating rarely (red) -the it was published in the canteen.

“This approach was actually in advance of the curve in the United States,” said Mrs. Marx De Salceddo. But a report from the government’s responsibility office discovered that the labeling system had been scarcely implementedWith labels in many “missing cafés, not standardized or positioned improperly”.

The efforts to convince the soldiers to eat healthier have been hindered by the embrace of the fast food army.

In 1984, Burger King signed an agreement With the Pentagon to open 185 stores in national and international installations. One awaits the recruits in Fort Jackson, as well as a Panda Express, a pizza hut and a subway. The base is played by even more fast food restaurants.

“We don’t want them to go to Burger King every day for a meal,” he said Lieutenant Gen. Christopher O. MohanDeputy Commander General of the Material Command of the Army and one of the best officials who update food. “We have to do better.”

Change the guard

Even transforming soldiers into cooks was complicated. They are often pushed in the role of “Culinary specialist“Without any experience or much desire to cook. Those who know a cuisine can avoid a job that requires them to follow the recipes of the recipes.

Since soldiers are increasingly replaced by contractors, there will be less opportunities for army chefs to shine.

“Some are talented, motivated and see the military food service as a springboard for a culinary career after the service,” said Evans, publisher Hots & Cots.

The breadth of the culinary talent of the army was on display spectacular this month a Fort Gregg-Adams In Virginia, which hosted an international competition of military cooks. Among these were Fort Cavazos soldiers in Texas who used rudimentary equipment to prepare a four -course meal that included the sole of having to have with Parmesan sauce.