Soldiers’ dried food needs only urine

NEXT time American soldiers are given pea soup in their rations they might be getting more than they bargained for.

Food scientists have developed a dried food ration that troops can hydrate with...pee.

The ration comes in a pouch containing a filter that removes 99.9% of bacteria and most toxic chemicals from the water used to make it edible.

Besides urine, it can be hydrated using the filthiest of muddy swamp water.

The new soldier’s chow was invented by the Combat Feeding Directorate, part of the US Army Soldier Systems Centre in Natick, Massachusetts.

Two years ago the same organisation came up with the “indestructible sandwich” that stays fresh for three years.

The aim of the exercise is to reduce the amount of water soldiers need to carry, New Scientist magazine reported.

One day’s food supply of three meals weighs 3.5 kilograms, but that can be reduced to about 0.4 kilograms with the dehydrated pouches.

Prototype pouches contain chicken and rice. They work by osmosis, the natural way a dilute solution on one side of a semi-permeable membrane is drawn to a more concentrated solution on the other side.

Holes in the ration membrane, which is made of thin sheets of cellulose-based plastic, are big enough to let water molecules through but too small for bacteria.

A soldier pours water or urine into one end of a foil sachet containing two inner pouches separated by the membrane.

“The water then seeps through the membrane,” said New Scientist. “As it dissolves large molecules in the food, it creates a very high concentrated solution.”

Hydration Technology of Albany, Oregon, which makes the membrane, says soldiers should only use urine in an absolute emergency because the sachet will not filter out urea.

Although harmless in the short term, constantly rehydrating food this way could cause kidney damage.