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Just Add, Umm, Water
An anonymous reader writes "The US military has devised a way to ensure its troops in battle need never go hungry - with dried food that can be rehydrated using dirty water or urine. Bleh, but lightweight bleh." The original New Scientist story is available too.
Yes, and by using the clean water you have for drinking instead of for rehydrating field rations, it lasts that much longer, and therefore, you do too.
Just how effective is this filter at cleaning water? If it is cheap enough to be mass produced for soldiers' food, then it would be incredible for humanitarian purposes if it cleans water well. Many parts of the world cannot easily clean their own water.
*cough* It's being sold to the military. Who said anything about being "cheap?"
Would you mind explaining to me, Private Genius, how there's a net difference in water intake between those two scenarios?
:)
Not at all.
This allows you to reclaim water that otherwise you would have disposed of. So, if you have 2 canteens' worth of potable water and a puddle, you can drink those canteens, and then reclaim however much you need to rehydrate your meal from the puddle. This gets you 2 canteens plus part of a puddle's worth of hydration. If you don't have this, you only get 2 canteens' worth.
Alternatively you can reuse those two canteens' worth by using your urine to rehydrate your food, getting double-use out of at least some of that water.
This is just an attention (advertising) ploy. Sure, you could use urine, but it would be stupid to do so, since the salt and urea in urine would increase dehydration. If you were that short of water, the last thing you would want to do is eat; especially if it would make you even more dehydrated. A soldier could go days (weeks even) without food, but only 2-3 days without water. Using mucky water, however, makes more sense. It sounds like the new MRE package has a filter similar to the portable water filter I carry in my backack on hiking trips. It was not cheap, though, so I am guessing that most of the research is to look into how to make the filter as inexpensive as possible, so an MRE supplied with one would not go for $100 or more. Centrifuge
Does anyone else but the US call their combat rations MREs? But I digress. The taste of rations is definitely a matter of opinion. I traded for a few French rations and found them too rich for my taste. BTW, the French and Belgians were anxious to trade for MREs. It seems variety is the real scourge of combat rations. Eat enough of them and you'll crave anything else that provides variety.
The fact that you have to actually use flame to heat the Franch rations (don't know if this is still true) is a serious mitigating factor in real tactical situations. It means that you wind up eating the damned thing cold. MREs are lighter and can be stripped down more easily, heated in your cargo pocket while you're on the move, and are more practical in general for grunts.
But then I've never been a huge fan of French food anyway, so take my comparison for what it's worth. If only I could have met some Italians and traded with them. Anyone know how their combat rations taste?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I think the urine thing is over-emphasized by the press. The idea with such packages is that you can scoop up swamp water if you want. Urine could be used in an absolutely dire emergency, and if I was stranded somewhere and the only fluids I have are the last few ounces in my canteen and my urine... heck yeah, *zip.*
Then again, if the water situation is really that desperate, wouldn't eating hinder your chances of survival, not help them?
How much damage would there be, anyway? Any more than, say, regularly drinking whiskey?
But the whole thing brings to mind a guy I know who sold water filters in the early 90's. He'd demonstrate their effectiveness by pouring coffee through them. Not that anyone would *want to*, but they could. Same deal here.
It's right in the quote you used: "...in the long term it would cause kidney damage." If you're in a situation long enough that you're going to have to pee in a food pouch enough times to be considered long term and thus toxic, you're in a lot more trouble because by that time you've run out of any water source other than the kind you can make.
Given the current situation most deployed soldiers face- roadside bombs, bullets, kidnappings with beheadings, and the other ways they can be stabbed, shot and blown up, how deadly do you think one or two or even three pissings is going to be? The company that made the membranes said not to use urine unless you have to. But to read your post, it's like that is the standing order on these things: Piss in them if you want to eat. And it's not so.
It's all good in a hypothetical: "I think I'd rather steal food from natives than eat US Amry-supplied kidney damaging "food"." Seriously? You've got the balls to steal food from some guy who's only goal is to kill you, but you can't suck it up as a LAST RESORT to piss in a pouch? Please. If it came down to being that dire of a situation, just eat the food and let it "rehydrate" in your stomach.
Good luck surviving any kind of situation which might cause you to step outside the norm.
R(k)
Yes, and they also try to keep them alive. Consider this:
"The Chinese had thrown thousands of men against it, but the company held like a rock. The unit was cut off from its battalion, isolated deep in enemy territory; battered and bruised it held on, and when ammo and food ran out, the troupers lived off the land and used captured weapons. They built a barrier wall of tree branches, like the men at Valley Forge; the Chinamen came and the Chinamen went and the valient unit did not give an inch, until finally a U.S. tank force broke through and extricated it."
That was Lt. Doug Anderson's company in Korea. He was put up for the Medal of Honor, but didn't get it. If you think the men in that battle preferred eating grass to a ration that becomes edible with muddy water or urine, you should read a little military history.
Question the morals of those in charge, but thank every scientist who gives the grunts a way to get a meal better than "centipedes in chili sauce" when things go pear-shaped.
(the quote was from "About Face" by Lt Col Hackworth.)