Tactical Talk With Allison Barrie

Extreme. The US military works extremely hard in extreme environments, extreme weather – and often for extremely long times. A body’s ability to perform downrange can face extreme stakes. Warfighters need to be able to rely on their physical performance in life or death situations. And maximum performance requires maximum nutrition. Right now, warfighters downrange tend to eat MREs when they do not have the luxury of the big base KFCs and McDonalds. MREs have a shelf life of at least 3 years and the main operational food ration. Knowledge about food as fuel and nutrition has grown tremendously – yet MREs haven’t kept up and aren’t much better nutritionally than the rations back in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Enter a Marine in Mozambique putting his life in harm’s way to ensure food aid gets to families in need. Marine Matthew DeMaio had an idea there that he brought all the way back home to New York. He turned that idea into a business that rapidly began crushing it. After muc