Feeding Through Nutrient Patches 230
Eric Krout writes: "Thanks to the U.S. Department of Defense,
nutritional patches may be available by 2025 for a soldier in combat who (does not have access to / cannot waste time eating) a traditional meal as we know it today. The patch may consist of a tiny microchip that, after first determining exactly what your body needs, transfers vitamins to your body transdermally. Goodbye Penguin Mints, hello Penguin Patch! "
addicted to food? (Score:1)
Hey! (Score:1)
Meals Ready to Wear? (hehe) (Score:2)
Bowie J. Poag
Project Founder, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://metalab.unc.edu/propaganda [unc.edu])
Woohoo! (Score:1)
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Not good enough.. (Score:2)
Nutrient needs (Score:1)
If so, then why do i need a Boston Creme donut everymorning to take care of me in the morning? :-)
Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design
Geeks Need Some (Score:1)
-Foxxz
nope (Score:3)
Hey! No Fair! (Score:2)
Were can I get some of these?!?!
Seriously, this sound pretty cool. I think you'd still feel hungry (as the body isn't adapted to taking food through the skin and the stomach just knows that it's empty), but it's a damn good idea. I wonder how it will get along in the general civilian market. Well, I guess I'll still be around in 2025 (though I will be an old fart [note that I consider anyone over 40 an old fart, nothing personal anyone
Yes, kind of (Score:2)
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
Not everone needs the same Vitamins, food, etc... (Score:2)
Otherwise know as... (Score:1)
I'm wondering ... (Score:2)
How dows one pea? Is it also possible to, say, corn or cucumber?
cure for obesity?? (Score:3)
That would seem to me to be a pretty reasonable way to lose weight. Thoughts, comments?
My only other concern would be - do you think the U.S. army would use this as an excuse to over-exert their troops? The act of eating can not just be taken as simply getting food. It also helps comradery, fatigue, and that nagging' desire for little debby snack cakes. I doubt this would happen but it is certainly a possibility.
FluX
The perfect food already exists (Score:2)
The perfect food that provides all the physical and emotional nourishment that a person needs is already available. It is called a Lil' Debbie Nutty Bar.
Re:I'm wondering ... (Score:2)
Re:Hey! (Score:1)
That would be the ultimate "Flat Food", now wouldn't it?
Will it run Linux, or NetBSD (Score:1)
Laugh, it's a joke
Re:Meals Ready to Wear? (hehe) (Score:4)
I've spent weeks on nothing but MRE's.
The constipation they induce is sort of handy in a field environment. They are, however, bulky to anyone who makes their living out of a rucksack. They're also really hard to look at after a couple of days.
The fun part comes when you make little explosives out of the chemical heaters that come with them. 2 liter bottle + 100 mph tape + a little water + whatever the hell it is that boils when you add a little water = loud noise. Toss in some chemlight goop before sealing, and you have instant (and violent) Pollack.
------------
Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Re:Hey! (Score:1)
What we really need is... (Score:5)
Re:cure for obesity?? (Score:1)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Why vitamins? (Score:3)
I think you can stop eating vitamins for several days without suffering from any physical problem or performance insufficiency. The thing that you can't live without ingesting on a daily basis are carbohydrates and proteins, right? So, if these patches are meant to be used for one or two days, you wouldn't need to supply vitamins. (I'm no nutriologist, so correct me if I'm wrong).
The article also says that they're experimenting with some sort of patches that will give you the illusion that your stomach is full or your muscles aren't tired, but doesn't everyone with the right amount of motivation has sometime been able to stay 24 or 36 hours without eating or sleeping. And it seems to me that being in a combat situation would make you produce enough adrenaline to stop worrying about you not having a meal yet.
Finally, what about water?? That you gotta have!! Lost of it, everyday, what's the solution for that?? If you don't have access to food or cannot waste time eating you still have to carry water with you or is there gonna be a patch fot this too? Strikes me as unlikely.
It scares me that this could work. (Score:3)
It scares me becasue soldiers are taught to be something other than human during wartime, and the military encourages them to shed any emotion and replace it with dicipline.
If you take away the fundamental psychological and social funciton of eating, you've got troops who are even less human.
I don't like it.
tcd004
Re:Not good enough.. (Score:2)
Now if they could only do that for sleep... (Score:4)
that's by 2025 (Score:2)
by 2050, nutritional patches will be the new fad for girls trying to lose weight.
by 2060, dilberito finally goes out of business. Scott Adams doesnt' really care, because he's having too much fun inside the holodeck.
Re:Not good enough..??? (Score:2)
Versus two normal meals and a light breakfast at home..
I have an odd craving for barbacue pork all of a sudden..
Well... (Score:2)
Re:cure for obesity?? (Score:3)
This would work pretty well (Score:4)
(I'm not a nutritionist, but I have done the odd long distance sports event, and I know a little about this.)
Already, people involved in extreme athletic events (things like RAAM - the non-stop bicycle race across America) use a totally liquid diet for up to two weeks at a time. One of the main reasons for this is because solid foods are much harder to digest, and for events like these you really, really want to know exactly what is going into your body.
They do use vitamn suplements, though.
In things like the Tour de France they use daily blood testing to see what food you should eat, and it isn't too far fetched to be able to make an educated guess on your nutrition needs from your sweat secretions, using current technology.
Before everyone says "But you'll feel hungry because your stomach will be emtpy" - not true! You'll feel hungry for a while, but liquids and foods with a lot of bulk but low calories (eg, plain salads) will compensate for that, and your stomach will contract.
After a couple of weeks your stomach will feel fine, and a liquid diet, plus these nutrition patches would work really well. You'd still need the liquid for hydration, though.
I'd say 2025 might be pessimistic - at least for the first versions of something like this.
Cool idea, but... (Score:2)
Isn't it just a little bit early to be celebrating? Especially considering that this patch won't do *US* any good at all.
Assuming that this patch is made available to civillians in 2025, at the same time as it becomes available to the military; the only programmers that'll benefit from it are the ones just getting around to being *born* right now.
Twenty-five years from now, we'll all be over the hill and obsolete. Unless of course there's a Y2K-esque emergency that'll bring us C/C++/Java/Perl guys in from the pasture; like Y2K itself did for the COBOL and Fortran geezers. Other than that, it'll be no use whatsoever for those of us programming NOW.... oh well.
Depressing? Yeah, a little. But that's the nature of our game.
It might help our kids do those all-nighter programming sessions tho. That's definately something.
john
Re:Why vitamins? (Score:2)
Yeah, you can get that dehydrated, like in the famous Y2K survival kits... just add water and its ready in seconds!
Re:Hey! No Fair! (Score:5)
That is equivalent to three bottles of Jolt. What are they trying to do, make them all go on "I am Cornholio, I need TP for my bunghole"-type rampages?
=================================
I like MREs! (Score:2)
They're a really interesting engineering project. I'm talking about the ones that you heat with a galvanic reaction (am I thinking straight?)
The peaches and other fruit are good, so are the cookies. The crackers are
However, there's no excuse for any creamy dishes in MREs -- those are pretty foul. Chicken Ala King? barf. Chile? Turkey? They're goood! Please, if you don't like MREs, send me your extras:)
Of course, I am rarely tapped to work on the Michelen guides
timothy
p.s. The little tobasco bottles are cool, too!
Revised summary (Score:2)
There. It's fixed now.
Zack 'Vorro' Adgie
---------------------------
A wise man speaks because he has something to say.
A foolish man speaks because he has to say something.
Pretty freakish. (Score:2)
It's The Matrix! (Score:2)
From the article:
Also possible would be the infusion of "neutraceuticals" -- chemicals that would trick a soldier's brain into thinking his stomach is full or that his muscles aren't really tired.
Just like Neo thought he was in reality, but he really was in a big plastic egg filled with goo with a wire sticking out of his head.
And why stop here? If we can trick our muscles into thinking they aren't tired, why not trick your heart into always beating, even if you have high cholesterol? There goes Viagra...
And think of what these patches can do for people with low self-confidence! You can just wear a ConfidencePatch, and always feel like everyone digs you.
Good to see the military will have perfected mindfucking by 2025.
------------
Re:Why vitamins? (Score:2)
Yes, you would still have to bring water with you. However, getting water is generally quicker than preparing a meal (even army rations) as all you have to do is open your canteen and tip your head back. Also, the less you have to carry with you (and thus the lighter your pack), the more efficient you will be. Sometimes it's the little things that determine whether you live or die.
3rd world ? (Score:5)
Forget CVS as we know it. (Score:2)
From the "perhaps in another dimension" department (Score:5)
Electrolytes are important. Without proper numbers of K and Na and P, your nerves wouldn't work to well at all, hence you would have a hard time running, shooting, etc. (also, shouldn't they be working on developing world peace by 2025, not super-soldiers?)
The other most important performance indicator is the amount of glycogen stored in the muscles. Glycogen is ready-to-go fuel. I forget how much of this a typical person has at any given moment, but after several hours of hard work without refreshment, your blood sugar levels get low, as do glycogen levels, and you (as cyclists say) "bonk", ie. extreme glycogen depletion. You are pretty much useless after that point; severe performance degredation is a phrase that comes to mind.
Their patch is all well and good if it adresses these most basic issues (the article was rather brief and non-technical) or only one of them, ie. vitamins sorta implies electrolytes. However, the most severly performance limiting factor (as proven by trials in publications like Bicycling Magazine [bicycling.com] (they don't actually have it available online) is water. Performance has been shown to be affected in as little as an hour of physical activity without hydration. As the body's water content drops, blood gets thicker, resulting in poorer flow and consequently poorer delivery of oxygen and other needed chemicals to the muscles and brain.
So, in closing, yes, the patch is a good idea (but 25 years?!), but maybe a transdermal hydration system would be a bit of a better considering hydration is quicker to act and hampers performance certainly more than "vitamin" loss and probably more than electrolyte loss. Moreover, electrolytes could be intergrated into any hydration system, ie. gatorade.
Great temporary solutions for hunger, etc. (Score:4)
I wonder though, what percentage of normal, soldier types would respond to a quick shot of leptin in not feeling the need to eat for a few days? This could be very useful in war situations where you want to send troops into territories for a few days where you have not set up supply lines yet (can you say covert operations).
Anyway, I can see this sort of technology being useful in special situations ie. military, athletic events, new product rollouts, yuppie camping, Quake marathons etc.
But at the end of the day you just gotta EAT!
Re:I like MREs! (Score:2)
I remember seeing MREs for sale at what appeared to be a military surplus store in New York...they were pretty cheap, and I almost bought one or two. Just saying that they _can_ be found.
"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
Logistics. (Score:2)
I'm not in the military, but from my limited knowledge of the military the prime difference between food and water is logistics. Water is quite plentifull in most places, and can be made drinkable with the right equipment and experience. Whereas food/rations must be shipped and delivered to the battle scene. In other words, unlike water, you must have ships and/or airplanes deliver food to feed the troops. Logistics such as these are _major_ issues in even modern wars.
I didn't read the article either, but even if this thing were to only deliver vitamins, I'd imagine that'd free up meal selection substantially. In other words, they could eat all kinds of shit if they had to, and do so more sporadically, which they otherwise could not due to lack of vitamins. In pinch time, if this technology works as claimed, it just might give us an edge.
Not eating - No problem (Score:3)
I also fast 2-4 times a year for the sake of getting rid of those chemicals, pesticides etc. that are numerous in our foods and air. I only drink distilled water when I fast and nothing else for 3-10 days in a row. I can tell you, that if you are doing this right, you can go on without any food, without feeling hunger, in fact being extra fast and sort of hyper for at least first 5 days of only drinking distilled water (lots of it, which is absolutely necessary to get rid of all toxins) and you don't loose your strength as fast as most of you think. In fact, over time it seems to get easier and easier to do. (with some exceptions, when there is too much stress from exams or the weather is wrong). Human body can go on without food not without liquid for long periods of time and if you do it for short periods of time (less than 40 days) than it can help your overal health.
Cyborgs (Score:2)
A bit more complex than that. (Score:3)
In other words, it is not emotions that make Americans fat, it is our diets. We eat too much sugar, fat, etc. Our meals are high in carbohydrates. The typical American serving size is gigantic by international standards, which naturally prompts increased eating. When is the last time you've been to McDonalds? The supersize value meal soda's are like a gallon soda, a slight exaggeration, but it is truely disgusting, not to mention very unhealthy.
Re:Why vitamins? (Score:3)
This is probably less significant in the case of fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, and E, since they're stored in adipose tissue and doled out slowly. But B and C are water-soluble, and are constantly being excreted. A transdermal patch is probably superior to getting them from food or pills.
Another possibility for this technology is infusion of essential amino acids. These are required in gram quantities to enable the repair and growth of muscle tissue. Given the kind of beating muscle takes during long marches and heavy exertion, a lot of sprains and tears (and the associated loss of active time) could be prevented if we made sure that maintenance abilities were optimal.
So yes, you can get along without vitamins daily -- but the tradeoffs aren't always desirable.
- Michael Cohn
"Take a man out of a pestilential jungle where people he doesn't know are trying to kill him for reasons he doesn't understand and surprise! His need to shoot smack goes away." - Dan Baum, _Smoke and Mirrors_
The bad do bad because the bad is rewarded. The good do good because the good is rewarded.
Re:Now if they could only do that for sleep... (Score:4)
They'd keep you going for a couple of days without sleep. The speed made you a little jumpy, of course, but that wasn't really a handicap under the circumstances...
- Robin
Re:I like MREs! (Score:2)
The Wornick Company [wornick.com], which makes military MREs, will happily sell you MREs in bulk. Smaller quantities can be purchased from survival and camping suppliers. Check out Y2Kdinners.com [y2kdinners.com], which apparently overbought. The going rate is about $60 for a case of 12 meals, so they're not super-cheap. Each case contains two of each of the six standard meals. It's not a bad idea to have a few cases around, in case of storms, power outages, earthquakes, etc.
Incidentally, drink a LOT of water with MREs; they're not dehydrated food, but they're highly concentrated.
Thats not where this advancement is cool (Score:2)
First, the patch could be used on civilians to help monitor and balance their daily diet with nutrients that they may not get normally. This would help children develop more completely when young... you know all of that like "a good breakfast..." so on and so forth, well we can make sure it happens with these things.
This could also be used as a non-invasive mediacal treatment to get people healthy, instead of an IV (cant replace hydration, but not bad for nourishment).
It always seems that the military comes up with the most innovative and useful things...
--jay
War is about killing, not making you feel good. (Score:2)
Soldiers are taught to kill a person solely because they have been labeled the enemy, because the other side will do the very same thing (at a bare minimum). So again, your concern about soldiers being less than human is ill placed. War is about winning, not making you personally comfortable with what soldiers do for a living. What part of "Soldiers kill people for a living" are you having trouble groking?
Do you want warriors that hesitate to kill and end up being killed themselves, because they need to be "more human"? Or do you want highly disciplined, highly effective killing machines that will execute on the mission we the people given them and then go no further?
If you want to be conquered, you go with a the former, if you want to win a war, you go with the later and you rely on that discipline to keep those troops in line.
--
Python
Re:3rd world ? (Score:2)
The bottom line is delivering caloric intake and this as yet hypothetical delivery device cannot possibly deliver calories unless it weighed 10 pounds, covered a substantial portion of your body and was changed every couple of days.
Powdered milk however is usefull in this regard.
Wonder if it would work (Score:2)
1. Ever seen those people on 20/20 who are taking like 20000 times the RDA for various vitamins to fend off, among other things, old age, cancer, liver disease, or the plague? Those are always, invariably, the least health, most fucked up people I have ever seen. Their skin is a burnt-piss-yellow color, they have buggy little eyes. Something is wrong here. Some sort of imbalance exists.
2. I had some bad experiences with beef and became a vegetarian for about a year of my life. I basically stopped growing (I was 16 at the time, right in the middle of puberty - bad idea) because I didn't eat enough protein, even though I drank protein shakes and had plenty of protien supplements, hated beans but ate a little bit anyways, and generally had a pretty all-around balanced diet. I took up meat in a big way after that and gained about 20 lbs.
I posit that, for whatever reason, taking man-made nutritional supplements just doesn't cut it after awhile. There is something about natural vitamins and carbos and proteins that our body needs. I don't know what it is, but I know it exists. I don't think it would be possible to live on Vitapatches for an extended period even in the best of situations, not to mention humping it through the jungle/desert as a footsoldier all day long.
--
Not eating - Military Problem (Score:5)
True, the difference is that in combat the levels of physical and psychological stress are several orders of magnitude greater than anything you will encounter in your civilian life.
So, whereas it is certainly possible to survive for very long periods of time without anything but water (you can go maybe 3 days, tops, under heavy stress without water before you get into very serious trouble and will probably die from dehydration, heat stroke and so on), however the combat effectiveness of a unit diminishes as that unit is forced to go without water and food (in that order). In war, combat effectiveness, not bare minimums, is one of the keys to victory. So, unless you absolutely have no choice, feeding the troops is mandatory to suceeding, no matter how much people can "go without".
There is an old and wise saying in the military, "An army travels on its stomach". When you are buring sometimes upwards of 7000 calories a day (in winter climates, the daily ration is 7000 calories a day for deployments) you can being very cranky and tired if you don't feed those muscles. After a few days of going without, your strength is diminished and your body suffers. And when the body suffers, the mind suffers - and thats a fast path to getting killed.
So look at it this way, when you have 90 pounds of gear in your ruck, another 20 pounds in combat load, an M-60 (another 25 pounds) slung around your neck, your PASGT pulling on your body and neck, coupled with a heavy mission to knock out - food is not a luxury, its FUEL. Without fuel, you're not going anywhere.
As part of Ranger school there is alot of starving involved so that you learn first hand what your body can do in extreme circumstances and you learn you can go without food (amongst other things). However, you do not want to operate in combat like that if you do not have to, and thats what these patches are all about. Some missions move too fast to eat, and that does diminish the combat effectiveness of those units. On the other hand, with something like this nutrional patch (if it works), those units will be that much more likely to succeed in their missions - and thats what its all about.
These patches will do a great job for DRF's, SOG units, Light infantry and other high speed units that have to move fast and may not be able to feed their troops to make mission. Its too bad it will take 25 years before we see it deployed, but it still sounds like a fantastic tool for the War Fighter to have and yet another tool to enhance the combat effectiveness of US fighting forces.
--
Python
More ideas (Score:3)
(Sorry about replying to myself.. I couldn't find a better place to put it)
Since the article is talking about combat situations, I think I misinterpreted some of the issues here. What I said above is still correct, but not neccessarily relevent.
These patches aren't designed for complete nutritional replacement, but for temporary help during crisies.
Modern Combat situations normally last for maybe 48 hour max - anything more than that and I'd say you have more important thing to worry about than food.
However, in a combat situation you need your reflexes to be quick, your senses to be accurate and your judgement to be at it's best. All these things are effected by bad nutrition (and lack of sleep).
Someone in another post mentioned that they expected that adrenelin would keep you alert - not true, and not what you want, anyway. The actual hormonal/chemical adrenelin reaction only lasts for seconds (during the "fight or flight" reflex action), and while this does improve you reflexes and senses (to some degree) it impares your judgement, and leads to a let down afterwards - when you are highly vulnrable.
Unfortunatly, while it is true that not letting your energy levels (depleated though exercise) get too low will help with these problems, the more severe problem is the lack of sleep. I've read studies that show huge losses in reflex speed after around about 16 hours without sleep, and while this may be delayed in various ways, I don't think you could push it out far beyond the 24 hour barrier without chemical help.....
I suspect that these "combat patches" may contain a little more that just vitamns. I find that a little scary. Remember those tests with Speed & LSD during Vietnam?
Re:Meals Ready to Wear? (hehe) (Score:2)
Ah... nothing produces things like this faster that a bunch of bored 11B's sitting at a range playing the hurry up and wait game.
--
Python
What about stuff that can't go thru the skin? (Score:4)
Wonder if HooAh bars are available Military Surplus?
-=- SiKnight
Re:Hey! No Fair! (Score:2)
I've literally eaten the coffee grounds from my MREs on the spot to keep me awake. After awhile, I started carrying all sorts of legal stimulants to keep me awake as do alot of folks. Since its obviously needed without the rigors of the modern battlefield, someone finally clued into the fact that the military should issue it. The one thing the military is not known for is letting people get enough sleep. There is never enough time to sleep, so something like this is worth the trade off to many higher ups (and its NEEDED anyway). Mission first, sleep never. ;-)
--
Python
Behold the mighty MRE (Score:5)
Those are all foo-foo MREs and bear no resemblence whatsoever to the real thing. I know, they are the real thing now, but that doesn't make them good. The newest Johnny Quest can't hold a candle to the old Johnny Quest the same way these new MREs aren't nearly as good as the old MREs.
Oh, gone are the days when you could get real MREs. I'm talking Chicken and Rice, Turkey a la King, and the absolute best MRE ever made (if not only because of the incredible -- and I mean truly majestic smelling -- flatulence it provided) Meatballs, Beef and Rice in Spicy Tom Sauce. I lived on Spicy Tom Sauce for a while. I'd eat that breakfast, lunch and dinner if I could. I'd likely get fired, though.
The worst MRE has to be either the Scrambled Eggs or the Ham Slice (which I've actually seen hungry people refuse to eat, although it was pretty good if you could get your hands on a slice of cheese and then combine it with the MRE bread). I've got a case of 9 year old Ham Slices in my garage. I can't eat them. Anyone wants them, let me know. They're still edible (well, as edible as they ever were), and cheap. Maybe ebay would like them?
Has anyone tried the new MRE-ish things? Those ones in the white plastic trays? My parents bought a pallet of them (like thousands) wholesale before Y2K and I got my hands on some after the hangover settled. Not bad, but not right. First off, they have that weasely plastic tray instead of a pouch and you can't open them without a knife. The taste isn't right either. That cardboard top is a complete nuisance. And the most important factor: they don't bind you up enough.
To me, the best thing about MREs was that when you ate one in the morning (I'm serious: if you're in a position to subsist on MRES, you eat them in the morning and you like them in the morning) you didn't have to dump until exactly 12 hours later. Really, you could set you watch to your bowels after three days of MREs. You eat nothing but MREs and you pinch but one hefty pellet a day. It's very handy, and I even bust out an MRE sometimes when I'm feeling less than regular.
But you can counteract the retaining effects of the main meal packet with the chocolate bar. It's a laxative, and don't let anyone tell you differently. I've eaten the bars alone, and they work extraordinarily well. Too well. I know people say it's a myth, but I'll be happy to prove it to anyone that cares to watch. It only takes about six hours, and I'll buy the beer while you wait. See, I've still got some of those that I haven't eaten.
Now on to the drink packet. The Lemon flavor is best with liquor (works best with rum or vodka, not so well with Slivovitz or Pernot), the cherry is best for normal drinking. But you only have to mix the packet's contents with half the amount of water the instructions say. Then it's good and not too sticky and you get twice as much. Forget that crap about not mixing in your canteen. Do it anyway -- you don't care.
The accessory packet is worthless except for the Tabasco and the matches. You can't even blow your nose with that TP. The utensils suck. Throw everything but the sauce and the matches away. Keep the coffee/cocoa if you like that sort of thing (you can eat the coffee raw if you're desperate).
How to eat a real MRE: Easy, you tear it long ways, not sideways. Ignore those perforations they have near the top. Take your knife and cut the side of the pouch off. Then you can use that same knife to shovel the contents into your mouth. Takes about ten seconds to eat one that way. Using the perforations means you get your hands dirty and it takes forever, even if you get tricky and try to squeeze the stuff out (trust me). Oh yeah, don't forget to put the entire thing of Tabasco into the pouch, no matter what the meal. Eat the whole little bottle. It's important.
Make sure that you save the main meal pouch for holding trash. And don't bother with heaters. MREs are like revenge: best eaten cold. :-)
I miss MREs. Maybe I'll go dig one out of the garage now.
-B
Re:Meals Ready to Wear? (hehe) (Score:2)
True (although, try humping enough for a week or more... they take up more space than you think), but you still have to stop and eat those MREs, and sometimes you just can't stop to eat - so you go without. Eating is a very low priority in combat (even though you have to do it), so its get cut out of the plan sometimes - even though, as I said, you need to eat. Time is finite.
So something like this patch would do away with that problem, at least temporarily so that missions could still be met without undoly reducing combat effectiveness in those units.
--
Python
mmmm, Chicken Ala King (Score:2)
Over the course of that week I became very adept at wrenching the carrot-like biscuit root stalks from the ground with a single thrust from my bolt knife; I could fill a coffee can with those bland pseudo-carrots in under five minutes. I also managed to kill and skin an extremely cute white rabbit which we nicknamed Thumper (after the method of his demise), and even ate a few hundred black ants (delicious if you pinch their heads off first). However, despite the 'abundant' natural resources, I believe that few of us would have completed the course without our MREs.
I dream sometimes about that chicken a la king packet; I managed to save it until the 3rd night, and it was the best meal I've ever had. There was a stamp on the pack of M&M's which I clearly remember stating that they were packaged in 1978. Nineteen year old stew... and I would have killed for another. It was rich, creamy and somehow solid at the same time; even though it was freezing outside, it felt warm on my tongue. I ate it while nestled in a 2 poncho lean-to, between a boulder and a fallen tree, and the other members of my team glared while I sucked the soft essence into my mouth one miniscule drop at a time. I hated teasing them, since they had all long since finished their rations, but it was unavoidable. By the end of the journey I was wishing I had given it away, because some of the weaker members of the team were almost unable to continue. The problem wasn't physiological; they were not injured, or even badly malnourished. Most only lost around five pounds on the trip.
The problem was in their minds.
I wasn't affected nearly as badly as other members of my team; I wrestled in college (D-I) and routinely cut between 10 and 25 pounds to make weight, so starvation is a familiar demon. I've seen my skin turn yellow and lost fingernails from dehydration, while being so hungry that my stomach ached at the thought of food; and still had the strength and stamina to defeat some of the toughest people in the country in single combat. However, watching some of my survival team physically stumble, weak to the point of being unable to walk after being away from McDonalds for only a few long days, illustrates a good point: Never underestimate the psychological value of eating a full and satisfying meal. Eating is far more important than the simple intake of nutrients; swallowing a tasty bit of well-cooked cow or freshly processed chicken might sound over-rated or unnecessary while sitting at a computer terminal, but it is tremendously important to the human psyche. Especially under trying conditions, such as when being hunted or subject to enemy fire; an army with no morale is a dead army.
The only real use I see for these is to have in case of emergencies- imagine a pilot being able to carry enough packets in a pocket to survive a month without having to forage for food in case he is shot down. This would greatly increase his ability to evade capture and survive the experience. The same logic applies to soldiers cut off from the lines of supply; it is obviously better to feel hungry and thus demoralized than to be forced to surrender or die in your boots from something as banal as hunger. Everyday rations, however, call for something a little more fulfilling.
I may be trolling a bit here, but I would say that if the guys at darpa do their jobs correctly, foot soldiers should be nearly obsolete for most purposes by 2025 anyway; this is analogous to the situation with piloted fighter aircraft and UCAVs. There are/will be so many faster, better and cheaper ways to kill people than giving assault rifles to 18 year old 'men'.
Rev Neh
Re:3rd world ? (Score:2)
Instead of encouraging the feeding of babies on their mother's milk, which is by far the best food for them, at least one company encouraged the use of powdered baby milk amongst Third World mothers. This crap was purchased by those who swallowed the slick hype, and mixed with the local, unclean water supply. It spread disease and death amongst the babies.
I'll not mention the name of the company, but they are a well known very large conglomerate, and I don't eat their chocolate any more.
Re:Meals Ready to Wear? (hehe) (Score:2)
And you wonder why your 91B's get peeved at you!
They wanted to do the fun stuff themselves! Not patch you up afterward!
Well, at least you didn't gross people out with the recipie for the chocolate "field pudding" from the hot chocolate mix, creamer, sugar, and water.....
Former 91B (Medic)
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Re:Meals Ready to Wear? (hehe) (Score:2)
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Re:More ideas (Score:2)
I'll have the Pizza patch. Hold the anchovies! (Score:2)
I'm a little skeptical about this. Of course I'm a little skeptical about just about everything. So that's no surprise.
For short term situations, especially when you take into account the normal, high-calorie diet that an active soldier takes in (yes, it's quite high calorie, they burn in all in the course of an active day, though more sedentry MOS'es either tend to eat less, or fatten up).
But as a long-term soloution, I don't think that a nutrient patch and liquid suppliments will cut it. It's not a complete substitute for the raw caloric intake required by the body. After a while, even with a perfectly balanced nutrient suppliment, the body's going to break down available fat and muscle tissue to get the raw materials neede to help keep cellular regeneration going. Otherwise parts of your body are going to die.
Yeah, nutrient patches will slow this, but they won't stop it. Once a person reaches 0% body fat, the raw materials for cellular repair have to come from somewhere.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Re:Great! (Score:2)
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Re:More Ideas (Score:2)
Not sure about the Army thing - I don't think it makes much sense, unless they were working at a high level of exertion (or high altitude, maybe), for a long time.
It's true abou the athletes, though - and it's very hard to detect, becuase it really is their owne blood. That's one of the reasons (the otehr is EPO abuse) why pro-cyclists get banned for a month of two if their red blood cell count is above a certian level (For "health reasons", but it is really to stop the blood doping)
We make them third (Score:3)
I don't know about the current one (you know there are people dying from hunger in Ethiopia now, don't you?), but I heard a CARE [care.org] man on CNN that the country managed to increase food production and depend less on imports. Thus they stood longer, but not enough.
Food donation and these patches can help in emergencies (Mozambique), but they will not solve the world food problem.
Food produced in the 1st world (powder milk!) makes third world dependent of big companies.
As the worthy anonymous I am answering to says, the Earth produces more than enough to feed mankind. It's the current economical and political organization that makes the distribution so unfair.
__
Re:More ideas (Score:2)
Consumption control, not population (Score:2)
The problem is consumption growth.
India (which is leaving the third world in some aspects) has two?-fold the population of the US, but their pollution, imports, consumption is lesser.
Who is burning oil into CO2? Not Burkina Faso, certainly.
I don't remebers the numbers, but the average American (and the Europeans and Japanese and me) is worth several tens of third-worlders in energy, oil and materials consumption?
Who should try to restrain themselves?
__
Time to throw some pepper spray on this love-in (Score:4)
Us Canucks will get a kick out of the title. But, that's not what I'm going to rant about.. See, sure, there's enough food to feed everyone 1.5 times over, there's enough bombs to carpet-nuke the planet, too. That's not what the problem is.
The "people of the world" cannot just give away food. We did this here in Canada - we gave massive grain surpluses to India. Do you know what they did with their cost savings? They started a nuclear weapons research program, so that now, they can threaten global stability and Pakistan with nukes. Governments suck.
Food is one thing, resources are another. We in the 1st world consume most of the resources. That's just the way it is. To say that all the people in India, Africa and even Asia are going to live like me here in Canada is just stupid. There aren't enough resources. And I, and I doubt you, are going to go live in a tarpaper project to make sure everyone lives equally. Life sucks, don't it?
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but there are complex issues. You feed a nation's people, you upset the balance of trade, and that nation can then do things like buy arms to kill people. It isn't cut and dry - obviously the international community needs to help out, but for there to be long-term solutions these nations need their own development and place controls on populations, deal with internal strife & conflict, etc etc.
Kudos
But what... (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:Real use: skinny geeks (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:3rd world ? (Score:3)
As Lisa pointed out, affluence reduces fertility. To be more precise, reducing infant and child mortality means people can have fewer births to ensure an adequate supply of children to work the farm, family business, carry on the family name, and all the other things people need children for.
In fact, I think you have it backwards. Government sponsored birth control programs are doomed to failure unless they address improvement in the material conditions of the people. Improving the status of women along with this is also very helpful (i.e. if a woman has a choice, she's not going to let herself be used as a baby factory).
Additionally, the increased population will further degrade the Earth's resources
Of course resources are limited and wants are unlimited, but a first world person hardly has any right to criticize some piss-poor third world subsitence farmer for having a few too many kids. Take a look at what you throw out in the trash every week -- then multiply it by six (because of all the trash generated to produce the goods you turned into trash is 5x what you end up throwing out). That is the amount of virgin environmental matter you turned into waste. That probably represents years of consumption for the subsitence farmer, who makes use of everythign efficiently.
If you wanted to make a dent in the use of global resources, why not a BTU tax which increases gas prices to five bucks a gallon. What -- howls of protest? So you're going to tell the rest of the world to stop having babies?
Technology and affluence can have a positive effect on the environment. Clearly population has a detrimental effect, but it has to be balanced against the available technology.
And sometimes you just don't want to eat them. (Score:2)
^.
Re:3rd world ? (Score:2)
I wish I paid better attention in high school global history, but here goes..
IIRC, birth rates in developing countries go in 3 stages. Poor countries have a high birth rate but also a high death rate, the birth rate is required to keep the population up and parents needed lots of kids to ensure someone would survive to take care of them when they got old. As these nations develop, the death rate drops -- but the birth rate stays stable. This causes problems with overpopulation and a shortening of resources. After this the birth rate drops down to a lower level, and remains there (if all goes well), similar to what it is now in developed countries.
The problem is, education is critical at stage 2, otherwise these countries have a nasty tendancy to drop back to stage 1, instead of moving on to stage 3. This is also the most expensive period (large population, expected to actually grow old) and these countries can't rely solely on foreign aid, and even if they can, it doesn't always last long enough to push them to stage 3.
At least, that's how I remember it. Combine that with the fact that the leaders of these countries are more interested in using their aid money to buy tanks and statues of themselves than investing in education, food, and birth control. Some of these countries, in an attempt to be reasonable, use this money on infrastructure. The infrastructure is required, but not at that point in the country's development. Education and resource allocation are more importand than roads at this point.
Microneedles and Carrier Vehicles (Score:2)
http://www.gtri.gatech.edu/res-news/NEEDLES.htm
Transdermal drug delivery is currently my research topic in school. The idea is to find solvents that go through your skin (stratum corneum is the tough layer) harmlessly and carry a drug with it that goes into your blood. There's a lot of new research for this. I recommend the Journal of Controlled Release, J. of Pharmacological Pharm., and others as good resources in this field.
Re:War is about killing, not making you feel good. (Score:2)
When I reflect on the crimes of war perpitated by fighting men of all nations - yes, I do want soldiers to have some civilizing restraint.
When I realize than the soldiers are going to come home and be civilians again someday - yes, I do want soldiers to have some civilizing restraint.
When I think that maybe, just maybe, if those who killed other people in war felt bad about it, we might have fewer wars yes, I do want soldiers to have some civilizing restraint.
To quote the immortal Sam Kinison (Score:2)
depressed. I watch those kids and I go, 'Fuck, I know the FILM crew could give this kid a sandwich!' There's a director five feet away
going, 'DON'T FEED HIM YET! GET THAT SANDWICH OUTTA HERE! IT DOESN'T WORK UNLESS HE LOOKS HUNGRY!!!' But I'm not
trying to make fun of world hunger. Matter of fact, I think I have the answer. You want to stop world hunger? Stop sending these people
food. Don't send these people another bite, folks. You want to send them something, you want to help? Send them U-Hauls. Send them
U-Hauls, some luggage, send them a guy out there who says, 'Hey, we been driving out here every day with your food, for, like, the last
thirty or forty years, and we were driving out here today across the desert, and it occurred to us that there wouldn't BE world hunger, if
you people would LIVE WHERE THE FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS OUT HERE!
NOTHING'S GONNA GROW OUT HERE! YOU SEE THIS? HUH? THIS IS SAND. KNOW WHAT IT'S GONNA BE A HUNDRED YEARS FROM
NOW? IT'S GONNA BE SAND! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! GET YOUR STUFF, GET YOUR SHIT, WE'LL MAKE ONE TRIP, WE'LL
TAKE YOU TO WHERE THE FOOD IS! WE HAVE DESERTS IN AMERICA -- WE JUST DON'T LIVE IN THEM, ASSHOLES!"
--From an appearance on Rodney Dangerfield's "It's Not Easy Being Me," 1984.
--From here [comedyontap.com]
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It's a distribution problem, not production (Score:2)
Save fro the short and sudden famines that we occasionally see, starvation is a distribution problem, not a production problem.
More than enough food is produced to feed the world. More than enough is produced in or sent to countries suffering from starvation to feed them. It just doesn't get to those who need it.
By far the leading cause is corruption or malice, by governments and rebel military forces. At a distant second is central planning, which history has never found to work for anything bigger than a small village or commune--certainly not anything big enough to call a city, let alone a country [more than half of the soviet potato crop used to rot every year after being harvested do to failures of central planners].
If you want to fight starvation, gathering food isn't the way to do it. Put an infinite supply of ofod in those countries, and you will make at most a negligible difference in the number of folks starvign. Instead, look at the governments and rebels that either steal it, or prevent it from arriving to suit their own agendas.
hawk
British food (Score:3)
Britain did not take to (and rule) the seas and start an empire for commerce, nor Queen, nor glory, nor God.
Rather, the young men of England would do *anything* to get away from the food.
Placebo: the numbers don't work ! (Score:2)
But a patch is very limited. You can only absorb milligram quantities from it. Enough for pharmaceuticals and maybe some vitamines (maybe not C though).
But a combat soldier needs 4000 Calories (16.5 MJ) of food energy per day on a continuous basis. Thats 1000 grams of carbohydrates or protein, or 450 grams of fat (unlikely). Your endurance athlete is in much the same situation.
No way you can absorb 1000 grams of carbohydrates per day through your skin. Not even if you sat in a heated jacuzzi/wetspacesuit of 5% glucose.
Now a patch might be a nice placebo, or good to administer some drugs/vits, but is not going to be useful for more than a short (24h) fast.
Don't live in the fucking desert (Score:2)
There are two ways to approach this problem. We could do what's best for me (Ryan) or we could do what's best for "society" (ie most efficient global resource usage). I suppose we could do what's best for them, but that's just the first case as seen from the other end of the stick.
1 What's best for Ryan.
Starving people in deserts have negligible impact on my life. I wouldn't have known they exist were it not for television. It would be best for me to spend my money on things that impact my life.
Verdict: ignore 'em.
2 What's best for "society."
If you live in a desert you cannot grow food (that's why it's a desert). So we must either (a) move food to the people -or- (b) move the people to food. Obviously moving the people is far more resource efficient than moving their food (and their children's food, etc).
Verdict: relocate poeple to non-desert areas.
Don't bitch to me about my cars if you want to ship food thousands of miles. If I start driving three thousand miles to go to the grocery store THEN you can tell me to stop polluting. Otherwise shut up.
Ryan
Re:Not eating - Military Problem (Score:2)
This reminds me of an old cold war joke:
An American general and a Soviet general are bragging about their armies at a summit meeting.
The Russian says, 'Our great Red Army is the best fed in the world! Every one of our soldiers eats 1000 calories a day'.
The American replies, 'That's nothing! Our men eat 3000 calories a day!'.
Stunned, the Russian says "Impossible! There's no way a man can eat a whole sack of potatoes in a single day!"
(I said it was old, I didn't guarantee it'd be funny
Your Working Boy,
MILK?!?!? (OT, but.....) (Score:2)
The MAJORITY of H. sapiens are lactose intolerant from shortly after weaning. The ~80% of caucasians that can digest milk sugar are decidely in the minority of our species. On average, only something like 30% of H. Sapiens over the age of 5 can metabolize lactose.
When the US has shipped donations of powdered milk for "hunger relief" to places like SE Asia and Africa, most of it is thrown away (or, as one anthropologist discovered, used to white-wash walls) because it made the people there very, very sick to ingest it.
Powdered milk is a technology that provides food for those few (mostly caucasian) fortunates who have the genes to use it. It is poison to the rest.
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Re:Ground control to Python (Score:2)
Every time I vote. The US military is controlled by the civilian government, lock, stock and barrel.
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Python
Re:Ground control to Python (Score:2)
Except that in the US, where I am from (on that point you are correct), the military is made up of volunteer citizens (no conscription) that take an oath to uphold and defend the constitution not blindly follow orders from any president. We also have laws that restrict what the military can do and a strong ethic that runs to the core of our fighting forces that restrains what those units do.
I'm not sure what you are suggesting or complaining about. We have a well disciplined, lawful and powerful military that obeys the orders given it by our democratically elected civilian government.
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Python
Re:Ground control to Python (Score:2)
One word: speed. In combat, you don't have time for a discussion, a debate or hesitation. There are two types of people on the battlefield, the quick and the dead.
Democratic methods move slowly, so they don't tend to fare well in combat situations.
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Python
Re:Real use: skinny geeks (Score:2)
My roomie and I are the same height. He's skinny, I'm not.
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*Facts* about world population (Score:2)
- Population rates are at an all-time high because people are living longer, not because too many babies are being born. (This is not a bad thing!)
- The consequences of the wrong reaction to this growth could be serious: Over 60 countries are at or below "replacement rates", including all the major industrialized nations.
- These countries will face significant labor shortages and a declining population to support the growing number of elderly. (Utimately exposing Ponzi schemes like Social Security.)
- Only Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East are significantly above replacement rates.
- The population paranoia is not even supported by the UN itself: Almost all of the D6B press is driven by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
- The UNFPA is not a UN agency, it is an independent agency operating under UN auspices, with close ties to nongovernmental organizations like International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Marie Stopes, which have clear political agendas (and an economic interest in promoting thier point of view.)
- The UN's chief population demographers work for the UN Population Division (UNPD), which is an official entity, operating as a branch of the UN Secretariat.
- UNPD's take on population growth is *quite different*: UNPD has three growth scenarios, and they currently favor the Low Growth scenario as the most likely. This scenario shows population peaking in 2040 and declining thereafter.
Source: http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/10-09-99/inte
Sony:hardware::Microsoft:software
CompactFlash: IBM Microdrive, Flash, Ether, Modem, etc.
Re:A bit more complex than that. (Score:2)
I think the key to losing weight, at least for americans, is the same as it was 100 years ago: A low fat diet with a generous amount of excercize. Yes, there is no denying that the majority of Americans are very sedentary - that certainly explains why we have such a high degree of obese people. But i do think a "nutrient" patch would certainly help many people. It's been proven that many don't have the same "switch" mechanism in their brain that says "you're not hungry any more" - so they just keep on eating. I think to tell them to have one carrot a day (example only) and a patch could, one day, be a real solution for a real medical problem.
FluX
Re:Wonder if it would work (Score:2)
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Re:Ground control to Python (Score:2)
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Python
Re:It scares me that this could work. (Score:2)
Bah... such nonsense. You don't know how lucky you are to have people with common sense running the military. Its all fine and dandy to talk about how great it would be if the military weren't so... we'll militaristic, but then the military wouldn't be able to fight wars and do the things we pay them to do now would they?
Use your head here. War is about closing with the enemy and destroying him (or her) thru shock force, fire and maneuver. All of that requires absolute and complete order and discipline, and you don't get that with some cool, democratic mob.
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Python
Re:Meals Ready to Wear? (hehe) (Score:2)
YUMMMMMMMMMMMMM.... Ranger pudding.... aaaaaaahhhhhhh..... (drools...)
I lived off that stuff.
Former 11B3G and 11A(G). (Infantry: Enlisted and Officer, Ranger.)
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Python
Re:MILK?!?!? (OT, but.....) (Score:2)
Shrug. This is a well established fact. [exploratorium.edu]
If you want something more technical than a science museum website, try Durham, William H. Coevolution; Genes, Culture and Human Diversity. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. 1991.
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Re:Not eating - Military Problem (Score:2)