We’ve written about MREs before. It's a constant struggle to find better, more-appealing field rations for men with guns. Yesterday’s NY Post has a little note about the Army’s unceasing search for decent field rations.

While the ubiquitous MRE (meal, ready-to-eat) remains the combat trooper's primary food source, a new, lightweight alternative will be introduced into Iraq and Afghanistan this fall.

Unlike the MRE, which has a chemical heating element, the new First Strike Ration - FSR - features entrees, like French toast and honey barbecue beef pocket sandwiches, that are easily chowed down out of hand and on the move with virtually no preparation.

The FSR serves up three meals to a packet but is half the size and weight of three MREs, a major benefit to troops heavily laden with ammunition and gear. Its three menu options include chunk chicken, protein bars, teriyaki beef snacks and high-energy items: maltodextrin-laced "Zapplesauce" and turbo-caffeinated chewing gum.

Special Forces teams and other units operating in remote areas already have been issued what the Pentagon calls the Unitized Group Ration-Express, which feeds 18 soldiers from a box roughly the size of a computer printer.

The UGR stacks four trays of entree, vegetable, starch and dessert between heating units. A quick pull on a single tab launches saline solution to the heaters. Thirty-five minutes later, warriors have an authentic hot meal.

Field-tested in Iraq and Afghanistan, the UGRs proved so popular that troops clamored for them immediately.

"We have 2.2 million war fighters and they all carry weapons, so we don't like to antagonize them," joked Kathy-Lynn Evangelos of the Pentagon's combat feeding program.

UGR menus include Burgundy beef stew, pasta and sausage and Szechuan chicken, plus surprisingly moist and tasty desserts like dulce de leche and devil's fudge cakes.

French toast and honey barbecue beef pocket sandwiches, chunk chicken, teriyaki beef. Zapplesauce sounds like something that you might want the enemy to find, though. Turbo-caffeinated chewing gum?

My hat’s off to the Chemists at Nattick.