I wrote about food a lot in my books. Vietnam in '71 still had MCIs (what most mistakenly called C rats) and the first dehydrated LRRP meals. But as a pilot, we ate in mess halls mostly. In the General's Mess with the 173rd ABn, there were waiters and checkered tablecloths, but mediocre food. When I got to Ban Me Thuot, the mess hall was all ranks and all nationalities. They occasionally served dog or water buffalo, and twice a week we had monkey noodle soup (which is really good.) We were warned not to eat the veggies because the farmers used human excrement as fertilizer. When you are getting shot at almost every day, a few germs don't seem all that dangerous in comparison. We ate the veggies. The worst things were powdered milk and powdered eggs.
Trivia item: Do you know why every US Army base has a staff veterinarian? It's not a holdover from cavalry days. It's because the Army believes that only a veterinarian can properly judge if meat is edible. The one at BMT made sure that we were served the meat closest to being spoiled, saving the good stuff until it too was almost ready to be thrown out. Needless to say, he was not well liked.
MREs came out in 1983 and continue to evolve, with new meal items every year. Beef stew and Chili have been among the meals since the beginning, and probably always will be. There are vegetarian options now, and because they contain fewer preservatives, they are actually better tasting than the meat ones, all of which have that "MRE taste" of polysyllabic chemicals. There's even one with a tiny square of pizza now. It's not good pizza, but it's the one everybody has been clamoring for since '83. The one thing they cannot seem to get right is shelf-stable bread. Their crackers and tortillas are a lot better than the "snack" bread.
I gained weight in Vietnam, mostly because I refused to run for exercise. All I did was fly, eat, drink, and sleep.
