"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you
who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve" Albert Schweitzer

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Culinary Review Of The Humanitarian Daily Ration

The followers of the Supreme Master of Ching Hai prepared over 3000 vegan meals/day for the campus since the latter part of January.  Unfortunately, this past weekend, they all left for home.  Fortunately, prior to their departure, they worked with the Haitian cooking staff and trained them in the art of preparing meals for the masses so there remains a largely vegetarian prepared food option at least once a day. 

In the corner of the Volunteer Breakroom there is almost a case of orange Humanitarian Daily Rations that always seemed to be replenished in a mysterious fashion.

Humanitarian Daily Rations (HDRs), are food packs intended for humanitarian crises.  Each is intended to serve as a single person's full daily food supply, and contain somewhat over 2,200 calories. They have shelf-lives of about 3 years (I would have guessed much longer), and their contents are intended to be acceptable to a variety of religious and ethnic groups, including metro volunteers.
The meals are designed to be able to survive being air-dropped, without a parachute. This is safer for the refugees than parachuting large pallets of rations, as well as preventing meal hoarding by individuals.
The meals cost approximately 20 % the cost of the Army's equivalent Meals Ready to Eat (MRE).
Since volunteers may now have to rely more heavily upon these alternate food sources, we asked our resident gourmand, Pete Elsissy to critique one of the Humanitarian Daily Rations.  Although he reviewed Menu #4, they all are very similar.
There are always vegetable crackers, a fig bar, peanut butter, a fruit pastry (pop tart), a shortbread cookie, and jam in addition to two entrees.  Entree options include 2 of lentil or barley stew, vegetable rice, red beans and rice, beans and rice with tomato sauce, peas in tomato sauce, and beans with potatoes.
The bottom line is that Pete gave a big thumbs up for the crackers, cookies, and pop tart as long as they were slathered with peanut butter and jam.
Pete found the two entrees, peas in tomato sauce and rice with vegetable (singular, not plural) to be unpalatable.  As a side note, Jim regards anything soaked in ketchup highly so gave a big thumbs up to the peas in tomato sauce which proves there is no accounting for taste.
In spite of the fact that he scorned the entrees, the peanut butter/jam combo on the baked goods won Pete over and he rendered his overall endorsement to the Humanitarian Daily Rations.
In all seriousness, the Haitian beans and rice are tasty but can get a little long on the tooth  on a daily basis so Pete recommends that you exercise your culinary options...be adventurous and give the HDRs a go.

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