Meal, Ready-to-Eat

The Meal, Ready-to-Eat – commonly known as the MRE – is a self-contained, individual field ration in lightweight packaging bought by the United States military for its service members for use in combat or other field conditions where organized food facilities are not available. The MRE replaced the canned MCI, or Meal, Combat, Individual rations, in 1981, and is the intended successor to the lighter LRP ration developed by the United States Army for Special Forces and Ranger patrol units in Vietnam.

History

The first soldier ration established by a Congressional Resolution, during the Revolutionary War, consisted of enough food to feed a man for one day, mostly beef, peas, and rice. During the Civil War, the military moved toward canned goods. Later, self-contained kits were issued as a whole ration and contained canned meat, pork, bread, coffee, sugar and salt. During the First World War, canned meats were replaced with lightweight preserved meats (salted or dried) to save weight and allow more rations to be carried by soldiers carrying their supplies on foot. At the beginning of World War II, a number of new field rations were introduced, including the Mountain ration and the Jungle ration. However, cost-cutting measures by Quartermaster Command officials during the latter part of World War II and the Korean War again saw the predominance of heavy canned C rations issued to troops, regardless of operating environment or mission. The use of canned wet rations continued through the Vietnam War, with the improved MCI field ration.

Taste test

Taste Test may refer to:

Furious Pete

Peter Czerwinski, better known by his stage name Furious Pete, (born November 30, 1985) is a Polish and Canadian competitive eater. Czerwinski currently holds nine Guinness World Records in eating and is also a famous YouTuber with over two million subscribers (2.5 million as of January 14, 2016).

Early life and career

Peter Czerwinski was born November 30, 1985, in Toronto. Both his parents had health issues. As a teenager, he battled against anorexia and was hospitalized at Toronto's The Hospital for Sick Children. Bodybuilding was a major factor in his recovery.

Czerwinski has a slower digestion rate than the average person's. His daily diet comprises nine balanced meals and he exercises daily. Czerwinski realized his talent in eating when he managed to beat an eating record. Thereafter, he decided to take on more eating-related challenges and post them on YouTube. In 2015 he did the Taki challenge. Having participated in more than 90 eating competitions, Czerwinski holds six Guinness World Records in competitive eating, including that for eating a whole raw onion in 43.53 seconds, devouring seventeen bananas in 2 minutes, finishing fifteen hamburgers in 10 minutes, guzzling a 750-millilitre bottle of olive oil in 60 seconds, and consuming 17 Jaffa Cakes in sixty seconds. He also participated in season one of Canada's Got Talent. For his performance, he consumed 5 hard boiled eggs, 3 pieces of Canadian bacon, 2 bananas, and a bag of milk in 51 seconds; however, he did not make it past the Toronto Auditions.

Lakeland, Florida

Lakeland is a city in Polk County, Florida, United States, located just outside Tampa. According to the 2013 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, the city had a population of 100,710. Lakeland is a principal city of the Lakeland–Winter Haven Metropolitan Statistical Area (coterminous with Polk County), which had an estimated population of 623,009 in July 2013 based on data from the University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research. It is twinned with Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada; Imabari, Ehime, Japan; Balti, Moldova; Portmore, Jamaica; and Chongming County, Shanghai, China as part of the Sister Cities program.

The area was home to Native American tribes. Lakeland was settled in the 1870s and expanded in the 1880s with the arrival of rail service. Lakeland is home to the 1,267 acre Circle B Bar Reserve.

History

Prehistory

The first Paleo-Indians reached the central Florida area near the end of the last ice age, as they followed big game south. As the ice melted and sea levels rose, these Native Americans ended up staying and thrived on the peninsula for thousands of years. By the time the first Spanish conquistadors arrived, over 250,000 Native Americans were living on the peninsula. Some of these first early tribes were the Tocobago, Timucua, and the Calusa. In 1527, a Spanish map showed a settlement near the Rio de la Paz. The arrival of the Spanish turned out to be disastrous to these Native American tribes. Within 150 years, the majority of the pre-Columbian Native American peoples of Florida had been wiped out. Those who had not succumbed to diseases such as smallpox or yellow fever were either killed or enslaved. Little is left of these first Native Americans cultures in Polk County except for scant archaeological records, including a few personal artifacts and shell mounds. Eventually, the remnants of these tribes would merge with Creek Indians who arrived from the north and become the Seminole Indian tribe.

Military

The military, also called the armed forces, are forces authorized to use deadly force, and weapons, to support the interests of the state and some or all of its citizens. The task of the military is usually defined as defense of the state and its citizens, and the prosecution of war against another state. The military may also have additional sanctioned and non-sanctioned functions within a society, including, the promotion of a political agenda, protecting corporate economic interests, internal population control, construction, emergency services, social ceremonies, and guarding important areas. The military can also function as a discrete subculture within a larger civil society, through the development of separate infrastructures, which may include housing, schools, utilities, food production and banking.

The profession of soldiering as part of a military is older than recorded history itself. Some of the most enduring images of the classical antiquity portray the power and feats of its military leaders. The Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC was one of the defining points of Pharaoh Ramesses II's reign and is celebrated in bas-relief on his monuments. A thousand years later the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was so determined to impress the gods with his military might that he was buried with an army of terracotta soldiers. The Romans were dedicated to military matters, leaving to posterity many treatises and writings as well as a large number of lavishly carved triumphal arches and victory columns.