By: Brooks Ford, MS, RD, CSSD, LD, CSCS*
As the U.S. Army implements its new Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) program to support Total Force Fitness, dietitians and nutrition experts have been finding unique ways to improve the nutritional health of Soldiers. I spoke with CPT Derek Anderson, a Registered Dietitian at Fort Drum, about some of the recent updates his team made to his brigade’s Warrior Meal Prep program. This program offers healthy to-go meals from the brigade dining facility (DFAC) complete with nutrition information and Go for Green® color codes. In this interview, CPT Anderson explains how the Warrior Meal Prep program helps address some of the main nutrition concerns within his brigade.
Brooks: Thank you for your willingness to share your experience with me. Can you provide a brief introduction to your experience as a dietitian and what you do in your current role?
Derek: I’m Captain Derek Anderson, Nutrition Program director for the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) team. The nutrition team consists of myself, one other Registered Dietitian, a military diet technician, and we’re in the process of hiring a nutrition educator. We work closely with our multidisciplinary team that includes strength-and-condition specialists, rehabilitative professionals, and mental-performance experts to maximize Soldier performance. Specifically, the nutrition team does this by teaching basic nutrition and performance nutrition, providing one-on-one appointments, assessing body composition, and working with the dining facility to provide healthier food options.
Brooks: What are the main nutrition concerns you see within your unit?
Derek: Our brigade combat team is 4,300 Soldiers large, and we really see Soldiers on both ends of the health-and-performance spectrum. On the lower end, we have Soldiers who are struggling to maintain weight and meet Army body-fat standards. And on the higher end of the spectrum, we have very accomplished infantry Soldiers who are preparing to go to Ranger Assessment and Selection Program (RASP) or Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS). Most of these Soldiers, regardless of which end of the spectrum, typically benefit from general nutrition education, performance nutrition education, and an increased availability of healthy food options within their working footprint.
Brooks: What is the Warrior Meal Prep program? What makes it unique?
Derek: The Warrior Meal Prep program is our brigade’s take on healthy to-go meals. These programs actually started in the special operations community and are something we’ve been implementing across the 10th Mountain Division over the last 6–8 months. We recently relaunched our program, completely revamped our menu offerings, and included additional nutrition, allergen, and food safety information. Each meal features a lean protein, complex carbohydrate, and vegetables. Soldiers are also allowed to grab fruit and milk (or dairy) as sides. We expanded the number of meals Soldiers could take on a day to four (2 lunch and 2 dinner), which allows them to not have to return to the DFAC for several days.
Derek: Almost all of the recipes we’re using in our current rotation are from the Go for Green® section on the HPRC website. The list helped us quickly identify performance recipes that are coded Green, and then we consolidated the nutritional information of the components for each meal. All recipes are in the Armed Forces Recipe Service (AFRS) format which drastically shortened the time it took us to implement because we could provide our food-service colleagues a proven recipe in a format they were familiar with.
Brooks: What kind of feedback have you received from Soldiers after implementing this new program?
Derek: We received a lot of positive feedback from Soldiers regarding both the program and food itself. Soldiers enjoy the convenience of being able to pick up multiple meals as it saves them time from making multiple trips. Here at Fort Drum, some units are located a decent distance from the dining facility, and not all of our Soldiers in the barracks own a vehicle, so we often see some drop-in utilization during the colder winter months. The meal prep program and bus service to the dining facilities are ways we’re trying to improve use of those services.
We received good feedback regarding the flavors of the food and options too. Registered Dietitians and food-service professionals often fight the misconception that healthy food is bland or doesn’t taste good. We aren’t just dishing out boneless, skinless, flavorless chicken breasts, plain brown rice, and a steamed vegetable. We’re doing things like citrus herb chicken with Italian roasted potatoes or salmon with herb vinaigrette and quinoa vegetable medley. The Soldiers’ compliments on the flavor are a testament to our food-service staff and the quality of the AFRS recipes.
Brooks: Anything else you'd like to add to highlight all the work you've done to make this program a success? Or perhaps highlight certain nutritional issues?
Derek: Along with our relaunch of the program, we heavily advertised it through a number of social media outlets. We posted on Facebook and Instagram, used traditional social media such as flyers and marker boards in the DFAC, and asked senior NCOs to help spread the word to try to make this program successful. When we first began, some of the food-service staff were concerned we wouldn’t use the meals, and they would go to waste. In a matter of weeks, we were running out of our initial projections and are now working to increase production. I’d encourage anyone looking at doing a similar program to use the AFRS recipes and spend some time thinking about how to advertise and market the program.
To learn more about performance nutrition and Go for Green®, visit hprc-online.org.
About the Author
Brooks Ford, of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, is a Performance Dietitian for the Consortium for Health and Military Performance (CHAMP) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU).
*The opinions and assertions expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of USUHS or DoD. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or policies of The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. Mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. The author has no financial interests or relationships to disclose.
