When a soldier is first told he or she is being sent to a war zone, what's on the menu while in the field is not likely top of mind. But for those in charge of keeping troops in good physical condition, it certainly is.

Food is fuel, and to provide hardworking soldiers enough of the right kinds of fuel to meet their nutritional requirements, careful thought goes into what's provided and how it's packaged.

I had a chance to view the military rations Canadian troops are given during a recent visit to Victoria's Bay Street Armoury. Hosting me were commanding officer Lt.-Col. Craig Cotter and troop commander 2nd Lt. Tony Manifold.

"All that you see on the table came out of that pack," Cotter said, pointing to a number of packets he removed from a foil-lined, sturdy paper package called an individual meal pack (IMP). Before soldiers go into the field, they'll open the packages, select what they want, and leave unwanted items and excess packaging behind.

"It really comes down to how much they want to carry. Individually, [the meal packs] are not that heavy, but if you pack three of these for an all-day mission, the weight can add up," Cotter said.

On the meal pack is the name of the breakfast, lunch or supper entree it contains. To ensure troops don't eat the same food every day, there are 18 different entrees in the various meal categories, such as omelette with mushroom sauce, Chinese-style beef macaroni, salmon filet nature and chicken cannelloni.

In the pack with cannelloni is also a slice of bread, instant mushroom soup, sports drink powder, granola bar, spiced apple dessert, peanut butter and jam, gum, a mint, powdered coffee and tea, coffee whitener, sugar, a spoon, napkin, wet wipes, matches, salt and even a small packet of Tabasco sauce to spice things up. Each food ration offers a slightly different mix of items to accompany the entree.

The entrees are a completely cooked product, vacuum-sealed in a foil pouch. The entree could be eaten cold but is, of course, tastier hot. To heat it, soldiers can set the unopened pouch in boiling water for five minutes, but doing so is not always possible. In that situation, the food is warmed by a chemical heat source, a fast-acting reaction set off by adding a little water to the foil pouch after opening, closing it back up and setting it in a heating pouch for a few minutes.

The names of the entrees sound tasty, but I wondered how food cooked in a foil pouch could be yummy. Manifold let me sample one called chicken breast with spicy sauce and, honestly, it tasted pretty good, and came with a small packet of chutney to enhance its flavour.

Turn the clock back to the Second World War, and you'll see that the rations provided to soldiers have improved since then. For the D-Day landings, troops were issued two 24-hour ration packets. Each pack included one tin of meat or meat block, five plain service biscuits, two small chocolate bars, two packs of boiled sweets, two tea blocks, two packs each of milk and sugar, one pack of sweet biscuits, one packet oatmeal or dried fruit, and one packet of meat broth.