| The Russian army is not in danger of starvation Mothers of officers (and at the same time mothers of soldiers) can rest easy - everything is fine with food in the army. Budget money for food, unlike many other military expenditure items, has been allocated, as they say, silently, one hundred percent over the past few years. Taxpayers and journalists were assured of this yesterday by the head of the Central Food Administration of the Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant General Anatoly Petrichenko.
For 2005, the food service was allocated more than 20 billion rubles. They will be enough to purchase about 618.8 thousand tons of food, technical equipment, dishes, property, technological and refrigeration equipment. The rear workers need to regularly feed 1 million 200 thousand military personnel and civil servants in the Russian army three times a day - what kind of warrior is there without calories. To achieve this, 25 thousand cooks work in 6,650 army and naval canteens in the country and abroad, 52 bakeries and 78 bakeries are in full swing.
A good food supplement is provided by former military state farms, renamed federal enterprises. There is also a quite exotic “counter-terrorist” service for removing rodents from army food warehouses. As a result, there are practically no rodents in army warehouses today. Warehouses are generally well protected - even from weapons of mass destruction, not to mention from rodents.
However, not everything is so simple and problem-free in the rear. The gradual transition of the army to a contract method of recruitment has complicated the work of the food service - you cannot send a contract soldier to a kitchen detail. But an experiment in the 76th Pskov Airborne Division showed that it is quite possible to hire a catering organization. And the commander has less hassle, and the quality of service is higher. Of course, it is more expensive (about 25-29 rubles per person), but 60% of this money returns to the budget in the form of taxes. This year, the experiment has been extended to another 24 military units and institutions, involving 30 thousand military personnel. It is expected that with the transformation of canteens into food processing plants, almost 1.5 thousand people will be freed up and about 50 million rubles will be saved.
More than 10% of conscripts enter the army underweight. For them, the father-commanders provided one and a half norms. But they soon noticed that not every skinny boy could eat this pile of pickles. And then they decided to focus on well-digestible foods - juices, milk, eggs. Yesterday's "goons" are quickly getting back into action. 7% of conscripts will soon quit smoking, because instead of the required cigarettes they are offered not only traditional sugar, but also condensed milk and candies. Well, those who still could not resist the temptation to smoke are given cigarettes with a filter. As General Petrichenko said, the times of Dymok cigarettes for 6 kopecks. passed. The absence of money problems allows us to purchase not only apples, as has always been the case, in the “fruit” section, but also tangerines and bananas.
Due to the specific nature of military service, food service employees in uniform pay special attention to organizing catering in the field. However, you cannot provide the same special forces soldiers roaming behind the militants’ lines with fresh food. You can import them, but storing them is problematic. So, canned food again? Yes, canned food, but different. They began to move away from metal cans, because the sterilization mode in them is 180 degrees for three hours. During such processing, little vitamins and organic substances remain. Now canned meat is hidden in a special material - lamister: sterilization occurs at a temperature of 150-160 degrees and for two hours. This is a step forward. And last year we received a trial batch in soft packaging made of polyethylene, foil and polypropylene (sterilization mode - 110 degrees and one hour). Such canned food retains its taste. Even tasters often confuse them with a natural product.
The adoption of rations into service is similar to a military operation. To test a new product, by order of high authorities, a special “eating unit” is created. If necessary, testers are placed in extreme conditions for a period of at least a month. The unit includes doctors who regularly take tests from their patients and evaluate how the body digests foods. To top it off, the quality of the product is checked by a veterinary and sanitary service that is independent of the food service. She has her own laboratory at each army warehouse. This is probably why the Russian ration (in scientific terms - an individual diet) is popular all over the world. It takes advantage of its taste - domestic products, unlike many others, have taste and smell that stimulate the appetite.
According to Anatoly Petrichenko, there is no point in comparing our rations with NATO, American or Bundeswehr ones, since the manufacturers of each of them took into account the country’s traditions in consuming products. We rely on bread and cereals, in the USA - on dairy products, meat and vegetables, and the French have only sweets in their packed rations - halva, jams, purees. We must also take into account that the Americans, for example, during major operations spend the first month or two on dry rations, while ours bring in field kitchens on the second day.
In total, the food service has about 300 types of rations. They are designed for different people working in different environments. Even if these are not such large groups of specialists. There are rations for the crews of airplanes and helicopters, torpedo and missile boats, even separately for donors. But the main and most widespread ones are the daily and combat diet. There are rations for the day, for one meal. The annual turnover of rations is from 4 to 5 million pieces. And the military-scientific committee of the Main Food Directorate continues to generate new ideas. Recently, scientists have been developing new nutritional standards in medical institutions to promote, in particular, bone healing and relief from shock. By the way, instant food products under the currently advertised “Gourmania” brand were developed by military specialists. These rations were intended for those who work deep underwater, and only then the product was released to the market.
Even the Supreme Commander-in-Chief highly appreciated the work of the food service, having tasted rations during the exercises. And yet, there is one omission from military supplies: the fast that Orthodox military personnel follow is not taken into account in the norms. “For us, the main thing is the norm dictated by the load placed on the soldier,” said General Petrichenko, “and this is more than 4 thousand calories.” Nikolay POROSKOV |
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