Nutrition of soldiers in battle conditions: the evolution from Zaporizhzhia Sich until today

Nutrition of military personnel in the field or during combat operations is of great importance for maintaining force performance. An indispensable element in the provision of service personnel with food is individual “dry rations”, which are most often formed based on the nutrition of one soldier for one to three days. Of interest was the question of how the nutrition of the service personnel changed in combat operations meanwhile. Objective – to study the historical aspect of nutrition in battle conditions during the period from the Zaporizhzhia Sich to the present day. Materials and methods – literary sources, regulatory documents, research results. The information retrieval and the theoretical analysis method are used. The literature data, legislative and regulatory documents, the results of scientific research related to the nutrition of Ukrainian service personnel in the combat operations for the period from XVII-XXI centuries are analyzed. The evolution of “dry operational ration” over several centuries took place depending on the development of the food industry: from dry products that do not spoil with long-term keepeng (crackers, cereals, dry meat, dry fish), dry food concentrates and canned foods to ready-to-eat first and second courses. The caloric content of dry rations from the middle of the twentieth century ranged from 3100 kcal to 3350 kcal. In the Ukrainian army it is from 3,500 kcal to 3,800 kcal, and only for Joint Force Operation (JFO) – 4,100. Until recently, the energy value (calorific value) of dry rations was calculated without taking into account the actual energy consumption of service personnel in carrying out combat operations. Further studies on improving the nutritional standards of service personnel should be aimed, first of all, at establishing real energy costs when they perform their mission, including military ones.