Micro Tactics

Let's talk about combat nutrition. Now, of course, everybody needs to eat, right? A human bodily functions still exist even in a combat environment. But the way we go about eating and the way we fuel our bodies needs to be given extra special consideration when we're in what you say like a non-permissive environment, aka people are trying to kill you and you're trying to kill them. You know, basic combat stuff. Uh fundamentally, like I said, the the basics don't change. Uh foods are usually broken up into three macronutrients. Carbs, proteins, fats. Carbs is like your grains, sugars, fruits and stuff. That's your quick energy, uh, easy to process. Protein is your meats, fish, a lot of dairies, uh, certain vegetables like beans and other legumes. Uh, protein is great. It repairs muscle and keeps you rebuilding, constantly cycling that stuff over. And then you have fats, uh, your olive oils, a lot of, uh, vegetables, dairies, animal fats, and stuff like that. Uh it is both very calorically dense which is good for energy but also fats control a lot of critical body functions like uh hormone production uh and keep things moving on that side of the house. Also, uh this isn't usually talked about in like food pyramid type stuff, but sodium is super super important in a tactical environment because you're going to be moving. You're going to be sweating uh in the same way that athletes can uh run into issues where they drink too much water and they flush their uh their electrolytes and their salt in their body. Um you can run into issues where if you run low on sodium, uh you can have uh difficulty uh staying hydrated and then making sure that your muscles are functioning properly. That's really important. So, in addition to the food you eat, you want may want to have some sort of like electrolyte supplement, whether that's like a Pedialyte drink mix or just like an athletic um electrolyte tablet that you take with you out and fill in a little bag. But when we actually go out and we figure out, okay, what are we actually bringing with us out into the field uh to supply us with stuff, we can go a few different routes. Uh a lot of military rations over here are all kind of built the same way. They're basically canned food. They're basically um you know it it's stuff that's put into a can and it's boiled. Whether that be like an actual piece of canned food, the old military crations, this one's from 1977. I will not be trying that for fear of botulism. Uh but even like the modern MRE is basically the same thing. It's just put in the nice compact foil packet uh and then boiled. It's basically canned in here as opposed to a metal can. Um and these are great. These are very uh they're balanced pretty much exactly the way you want. They may be a little bit uh denser on carbs and and sodium than some people like. Uh it may have a bit more candy type stuff like uh you know the first strikes which is basically like a fruit roll up but you know apple flavored or whatever. Um so some people like to strip these down to the bare essentials you know if they want to be a little more austere. But what's really cool about these is one, they're packaged really well and you can break them down further into something more compact. Uh but also this is easy to eat. Of course, they have their own internal heaters that are flameless. So that's handy in like cold environments uh and for morale. But with these, if you haven't eaten all day, it's been a crazy day and you're sitting down in your foxhole to start pulling your guard shift for the night uh and you haven't eaten, you can just peel this open and suck it down cold and you'll be able to eat. um and you're able to do that quietly while you're watching the line, while you're um being safe and tactical and you're not causing a commotion. In contrast, a lot of people like going over towards the mountainous. These are super popular in the hiking and camping world, and for good reason. They taste awesome. Um they're it's like a good hot food. It's also super light because it's freeze-dried. So, it's a different process than this stuff that's basically canned and in the foil baggie. This is freeze-dried, which helps preserve a lot of the the taste and everything. You know, it's high in protein. You can look at the nutrition facts. They're very, very good. Um, highly recommend these for the creature comforts. But the problem arises when you can't just have these on their own. You can't just open this up in a foxhole and start eating it because you need to first get your water. You need to boil that water. You need to pour it in here and then wait the 10 to 20 minutes for it to fully hydrate and get, you know, ready for you to eat, which uh in a tactical environment uh may be problematic both for time considerations also the fact that you're basically lighting a fire to boil water which has uh space and time uh requirements and it makes it problematic, you know. So, usually with these, this is something that is fun to take with the boys if you're going camping and you're doing fun stuff. This is not a great solution if you are concerned about getting shot in the face. If you're have people that are looking to fight you and you're looking to fight them, you probably want to go with something uh more uh stealthy, I guess I'll say. But if you don't have access to, you know, a bunch of cases of memes like I've acquired through my military career, uh you can certainly make your own. You know, there's lots of ways to go about it with just store-bought stuff as I've done in the past if I decided I didn't want to eat MREs for a weekend. I wanted something a little bit more uh either healthy or just um more compact if the mission required it. Uh usually what I would do is base the meals on something like tuna packets. It's the same thing, right? This is tuna as opposed to this is Asian beef strip. not as interesting or exciting, but I can pack a whole bunch of these, a bunch of chicken, you can get the the uh packaged ham or whatever protein you want. And then you supplement it with jerky, with nuts. Um, and with all these, you see, you know, in the same way that you could just suck this down at night, you can do the same with these guys. Just bring your own silverware because you won't have the MR spoon in there. Uh, but you can build it off this. I've also done stuff if I was concerned with getting more protein or carbs, you can take a uh stuff like a protein powder, put it in like a little zip lock, and then you just add a little water and you eat it like a pudding. Kind of primitive, kind of gross if you think about it, but it meets these requirements and keeps you moving in the field uh in a way that's going to keep you both concealed uh protected and fueled with the nutrients that you need. And of course, when you get nuts like this, you know, sea salt, it's got the sodium, it's got uh the stuff you need. Um, and you can supplement this as much as you want. You know, if you want a packet of Starbursts, you know, to get your your high-speed carbs, you can do that. You can build it out from there. [Music]