Consumer Opinion of Emergency/Assault Food Packet under Rigorous Field Conditions in a Cold Weather Environment

摘要

In an effort to study the consumer acceptability of a field ration packet containing freeze-dehydrated, reversibly compressed food bars under relatively adverse field conditions, two groups of Marines undergoing routine mountain warfare training in an arctic environment were fed freeze-dehydrated field rations of two types respectively--one group received the Emergency/Assault (E/A) Food Packet, a reversibly compressed field ration, and the other group received the Long Range Patrol (LRP) Food Packet, a noncompressed control ration. An investigator assigned to each group recorded acceptance ratings for each item on a nine-point hedonic scale. Because some items of both ration packets were designed to be consumed either dehydrated, as packaged, or rehydrated with water, ratings were collected for both modes of consumption when appropriate. In general, the responses of the two groups to the survey questions seemed to indicate a consistent preference for the Emergency/Assault (E/A) Food Packet over the Long Range Patrol (LRP) Food Packet, both in terms of convenience and overall quality of the product. The group issued the E/A Food Packet showed a significantly greater preference for that ration over the traditional MCI (Meal, Combat Individual) than did the control group for the LRP Food Packet over the MCI. Among the E/A items, the Date/Cherry bar suffered from unacceptable hardness under the severely cold conditions of the study and emerged clearly as the least preferred of the cereal/dessert bars. Of the entree bars in the E/A Packet, Chicken Stew and Chicken A-la-King emerged as highly preferred favorites.