Gut health, ready-to-eat meals and the US warfighter

The US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM) is conducting a gut health study titled ‘Effects of Meal, Ready-to-Eat consumption on gut health’.

Dr J Philip Karl, a scientist in USARIEM’s Military Nutrition Division, is heading the study and asking volunteers to consume nothing except Meals, Ready-to-Eat (MREs) for 21 straight days.

“We are looking at gut health and consumption of the MRE,” said Holly McClung, a research dietitian from MND working on the project. “What we are doing is asking volunteers to consume an MRE-only diet for 21 straight days. Twenty-one days is consistent with current field feeding policy, and research has shown that consuming MREs for this length of time does not hurt a warfighter’s nutritional status.

“But older and new research shows us that, in addition to nutritional status, a healthy gut is also important for physical and mental health,” she said. “Interactions between the millions of bacteria living in our gut and what we eat is a very important factor in gut health, but we don’t know how MRE foods interact with those bacteria to impact gut health. Ultimately, discovering how eating MREs influences gut bacteria and gut health will help our efforts to continually improve the MRE.”

McClung said this study will help USARIEM discover new nutrition-based strategies for changing gut bacteria in a way that benefits warfighter health. Yet the researchers are facing a significant problem that could affect how soon they are able to develop these strategies: getting study volunteers to eat nothing but MREs for 21 straight days.

“Anytime you limit what somebody can eat, there is a possibility of that person becoming tired of the diet. In a research study like this, that means there is going to be a possibility of dedicated volunteers wanting to drop out of the study,” McClung said. “They may get tired of the food. Even though there are 24 different meals, after three weeks, volunteers will have tried everything at least once. Many people can hit a wall.

“My idea was to put together a book of recipes that might invigorate volunteer interest in the study and the MREs. We needed to somehow increase variety within the foods available, so I thought, ‘Why not try out some new recipes?’”

What started out as McClung’s brainchild became a reality after she handed the task off to newcomer research dietitian Adrienne Hatch to cook up some concoctions. The result — a cookbook.

The book is only being released to volunteers for USARIEM’s gut health study as it is awaiting approval for copyright registration. McClung and Hatch think that the book will fulfil its original mission of keeping study volunteers engaged in the research. More than that, they also hope that the book, once it receives approval, contributes to USARIEM’s progress towards benefiting warfighter performance by encouraging consumption of the rations that their partners at the Combat Feeding Directorate spend so much time, thought and science developing.

“We want to benefit the warfighter in as many ways nutritionally and physiologically as possible,” Hatch said. “We hope that the ideas offered in this book help entice soldiers to eat the foods needed to sustain health and energy in the field and ultimately benefit them as they carry out their missions.”