People will never forget that in the 1960s and 1970s, the compressed dry food developed by our army was all the rage, which seemed to become the "trump card" of fast food in the eyes of Chinese people overnight. At that time, everyone was scrambling to buy a barrel of compressed dry food, looking for acquaintances in the army to enter through the back door. It is this kind of fast food, and now its name has spread abroad, and it seems that it is not satisfactory. Not long ago, a female boss in Malaysia contacted a research institute of the Military Supplies Department of the General Logistics Department and asked for 76 1 compressed dry food to prepare for trade with Vietnamese businessmen. She kept shaking her head when the researchers introduced her to a new generation of compressed dry food. She said that Vietnamese people had eaten fast food in China and thought 76 1 compressed dry food was the best. Since the beginning of this year, some African countries have also purchased compressed dry food developed by the army from China through relevant parties.
According to the high-level introduction of the Military Food Research Office of the Military Equipment Research Institute of the General Logistics Department, the canned series developed by our army in the early days also has a prominent reputation. In the era of material scarcity, we can eat a can of military canned food, even a can of sauerkraut, which is no less than today's sumptuous meal. At that time, sailors came to visit and brought several cans of military tanks, which looked more arrogant than other arms. Some children even secretly swear that they must be sailors when they grow up, because sailors have canned food.
Director He is an expert in studying military food. He definitely told reporters that military food must be fast food, but fast food may not necessarily become military food. Fast food is only one aspect of the performance index of military food. In addition, military food also includes its nutritional structure, taste, continuous acceptability and portability, safety, shelf life and so on.
In addition to the instant noodles specially developed to resist US aggression and aid Korea, Director He summarized the research of military food in China as "three generations": the first generation was war food. It consists of three staple foods: compressed dry food, dehydrated noodles and dehydrated rice, and three non-staple foods: canned lunch meat, canned stir-fried meat and canned diced meat with sauce. During this period, military rations have formed a structure of matching main and non-staple foods. The second generation of Lu Qin series field food, such as dehydrated rice. In China, soft-packed canned food and dehydrated rice were first developed by our army in China. These foods are actually fast food, including rice, vegetables and soup, which is in line with the eating habits of officers and men. Nowadays, our military food research has entered the third generation development period, and a new type of "instant noodles" has come out, which not only tastes better than civilian instant noodles, but also can be soaked in boiling water or cold water, and its convenience has won world applause. This noodle has won two national invention patents. At the same time, our army's fast food rice has also been successfully developed and will be equipped with troops one after another.
This kind of fast food rice is packed and heated in a special way: it is packed in a zipper food bag and boiled water is added. A few minutes later, a typical Chinese fast food was formed, with supporting non-staple food and soup. At the same time, in order to solve China people's habit of eating hot food, a flameless automatic heater with small size, light weight and high efficiency has also come out with fast food rice, and will soon enter the stage of industrial production.
In order to satisfy the eating habits of China people, the development of military fast food has caught two world-wide problems.
As we all know, the eating habits of China people are fundamentally different from those of westerners. For example, American bread, cheese, jam and butter are both convenient fast food and good nutritious food. Obviously, we can't copy them. Because China's diet structure is mainly starch food, and the food pays attention to color, fragrance and taste, which is essentially different from the western food structure which is mainly protein and fat. No matter how nutritious the food is, if you can't eat it or don't want to eat it, it will lose its value. So southerners love rice, while northerners love pasta. These two basic factors must be considered in developing military fast food in China.
Rice and white flour are both starch foods, and the biggest problem is that they will become "raw" after being placed under certain moisture for a period of time, which is called "retrogradation" by professional proverbs. The retrogradated starch food not only loses its nutritional value, but also loses its normal taste. Starch retrogradation is an international problem, which has not been overcome by all countries in the world at present. The contradiction of starch retrogradation is not prominent in western countries because of the lack of starch food in their diet structure, but it is an unavoidable problem to study military fast food. Once upon a time, in order to solve this problem, generations of military food science and technology workers made unremitting efforts. They finally found an effective way to dehydrate and preserve starchy food through circuitous methods. Instant rice and instant noodles on the market now are the products of this achievement. During the period of 1999, military researchers cooperated with Wuxi University of Light Industry to explore the starch retrogradation mechanism and found a more advanced method to solve the retrogradation problem. It can be predicted that in the near future, a canned rice flour that meets the requirements of the army and will not be "thoroughly remoulded" for a long time will surely become the staple food in our army's "canned battlefield". The successful development of these varieties will push the civil fast food to a new height.
A retired senior engineer from the Military Food Research Institute of the General Logistics Department told the reporter that the second worldwide problem encountered in the research of military fast food is the brittleness of canned vegetables. Anyone who is slightly familiar with canned food processing technology knows that canned vegetables will rot and have no soul once they are sterilized. Eating this kind of canned food is like chewing a sponge in your mouth. It's not crisp at all. The way to improve brittleness is to reduce the sterilization intensity, which will affect the shelf life of canned food. In order to solve this contradiction, after many twists and turns, they finally screened out a new bacteriostatic agent and developed canned vegetables with good brittleness. After the trial of this new canned vegetable in the army, the officers and men all gave thumbs up, and the qualified rate of taste reached over 90%.