What would soldiers eat daily?

Answer 1

In the past, could have been C-rations, or K-rations. Presently, Meals Ready to Eat (MRE).

Soldiers' food is called the Ration. It comes in four varieties:

First is the A Ration. It's fresh food prepared by cooks. When a soldier is in garrison that's what he eats.

Next is the B Ration. It's comprised of cans of ingredients that a cook has to put together. Each B Ration comes in six boxes; there's enough food in it to feed 100 soldiers, and there are two B Rations on one pallet.

The T Ration is convenience food: it comes in trays that will feed 12 soldiers. All you need do with T Rations is boil the trays, open them up and serve to soldiers.

And finally is the Meal, Ready to Eat, which is an individual ration. It comes in many varieties: regular MREs, ones for arctic environments, religious MREs for Jewish and Islamic soldiers (these are issued through Chaplain channels, not the normal supply system), freeze-dried ones for special operations troops that taste better than the old LRRP meal...

Bad war story ahead: in the old days we could obtain a meal called LRRPs. Means "long range reconnaissance patrol." It was designed to cut down weight for soldiers who had to travel fast and light, so they freeze-dried it. Obviously the five-quart canteen of water and Coleman stove you had to haul around to reconstitute this disgusting meal (yes, they were very foul) didn't weigh nearly as much as the little bitty cans C-rations came in. But anyway, you were supposed to boil water to dump over this bag of...well, they claim it was food...then wait five to ten minutes for the brick of LRRP goodness to soften up enough so you could chew it. There were supposedly all these menus available but for some strange reason the only two anyone ever got were Hash and Chili. And no one wanted the chili because the beans never rehydrated, so you had to sit there disclosing your position by crunching your way through the beans.

The classic individual ration was, of course, the Meal, Combat, Individual, or C Ration. (Or "C Rat" as we all called it. Once a wet behind the ears private asked me why everyone called them C Rats. I told him it was because they were made from rats.) This came in cans, and the army got rid of it largely because the cans were so heavy. The cans ALSO made great alert mechanisms--you used parachute cord to tie the cans to your concertina wire, and you could hear anyone trying to crawl over your wire. My insane colonel once showed me how to make a field expedient hand grenade out of a C Rat can: take the big C-rat can out of your last meal, stuff half a pound of C-4 into it, and cap it with five seconds worth of delay fuze.

Answer 2

what does soldiers eat in ww1