DR. A. S. BAWA DIRECTOR DEFENCE FOOD RESEARCH LABORATORY MYSORE

DR. A. S. BAWA
DIRECTOR
DEFENCE FOOD RESEARCH LABORATORY
MYSORE
Food Technology for Special Situations
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DFRL is one of the prestigious laboratories of
DRDO
It deals with the challenge of providing the
troops with wholesome food containing
adequate and balanced nourishment
Indian army faces one of the biggest
challenges in maintaining its troops at one of
the world’s toughest battle fields
It has altitude of more than 18,000 feet
It has to fight not only against the enemy but
also against the all odds of nature
Food Technology for Special Situations
 At high altitude, troops are exposed to
 Inclement weather
 Perilous altitude
 Difficult terrain and
 Psychological problems arising out of being away from
the main land as well as their near and dear ones
 Under such circumstances army has to keep its soldiers
physically fit and in high morale to fight against the enemy
 It has to protect the integrity of the nation
 For that it has to be supplied with palatable, healthy and
adequate nutritious food
 DFRL dealing with the challenge of providing the troops
with wholesome food containing adequate and balanced
nourishment
Food Technology for Special Situations
Normal body changes at high altitude
 Certain normal body changes happen in people who travel
to high altitude are
 breathlessness during movement
 hyperventilation (breathing fast)
 increase in urination
 awakening during the night
 strange dreams etc
 The best way to avoid illness is gaining height slowing
 Other measures to help prevent altitude sickness include
keeping warm and drinking plenty of water
 This is because the body needs more water at higher
altitudes
 One has to eat enough even if you don't feel like it
 A diet high in complex carbohydrates is generally believed
to be the best food for high altitudes.
Food Technology for Special Situations
Altitude Illness
 At high altitude, atmospheric pressure is reduced
 The consequent reduction in oxygen pressure can lead to
hypoxia
 Altitude sickness mainly occurs at heights above 2500
metres
 The main indication of altitude sickness during ascent is a
painful headache with
 loss of appetite
 nausea or vomiting
 dizziness
 sleeping problems
 fatigue or weakness
 confusion
 unsteady walking
Food Technology for Special Situations
Altitude Illness
The condition occurs because of the body trying to adjust
to lower oxygen levels
 In rare cases, the illness can lead to life threatening
conditions such as pulmonary oedema
 This can cause fluid in the lungs
 The symptom are breathlessness while resting
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a persistent cough
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an unusual chesty sound and
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cerebral oedema
 Symptoms of cerebral oedema, can be fatal
 This happens due to fluid in the brain, include irrational
behaviour, confusion and a staggering gait
 Patients with this condition need immediate evacuation
and medical attention.
Food Technology for Special Situations
Ultraviolet radiation from the sun
 The ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun includes UVA
(wavelength 315–400 nm) and UVB (280–315 nm) radiation,
 Both are damaging to human skin and eyes
 Exposure to UV radiation, particularly UVB, can produce
 Severe debilitating sunburn
 Sunstroke, particularly in light-skinned people
 Exposure of the eyes may result in acute keratitis
 Long-term damage leads to the development of cataracts
 Long-term adverse effects on the skin include: development
of skin cancers (carcinomas and malignant melanoma)
 This is mainly due to UVB radiation
 Accelerated ageing of the skin is mainly due to UVA
radiation, which penetrates more deeply into the skin
Food Technology for Special Situations
Hypothermia
Hypothermia occurs when the body loses heat faster
more than that it can produce
 It also happens when the core temperature of the body
falls
 Symptoms of hypothermia are
 Exhaustion
 Numb skin (particularly toes and fingers)
 Shivering
 Slurred speech
 Irrational or violent behaviour
 Lethargy
 Stumbling
 Dizzy spells
 Muscle cramps and
 Violent bursts of energy
Food Technology for Special Situations
Hypothermia
 It is best to dress in layers
 Silk, wool and some of the new artificial fibres are all
good insulating materials
 A strong, waterproof outer layer is essential, as
keeping dry is vital
 Carry basic supplies, including food containing simple
sugars to generate heat quickly, and lots of fluid to drink
 A space blanket is something all travellers in cold
climates should carry.
Food Technology for Special Situations
Issues related to food and DFRL’s contributions
 Normal preparation of Indian style food is extremely difficult
at high altitude due to the lack of modern cooking appliances
 Food supplies to high altitude areas encounter several
problems
 Terrain constraints limit land route and food supplies have
to be air dropped
 This poses the danger of breakage of fragile packaging
materials and loss of supplies
 The efficiency of fuel is decreased by
 Inclement weather
 Rarefied atmosphere
 Low concentration of oxygen at high altitudes
 This in combination with low boiling point of water leads to
delayed cooking
Food Technology for Special Situations
Issues related to food and DFRL’s contributions
Troops do not feel like eating and suffer from lack of appetite due
to lack of sufficient oxygen and lowered sensory perception
 In addition to this, they also complain of indigestion on taking
foods with higher fat content
 As a result troops posted at high altitude show preference towards
fresh fruits and vegetables
 Dehydrated foods are also preferred by them due to the light in
weight and longer shelf life
 Taking all these aspects into consideration, DFRL has come up
with
 Retort processed meals ready to eat ration (MRE)
 Precooked, dehydrated composite pack rations
 Emergency survival rations
 All packed in flexible polymeric film and their laminates
 Besides fresh fruits and vegetables for soldiers at high
altitudes.
Food Technology for Special Situations
Issues related to food and DFRL’s contributions
 The compo pack rations used by army are
 Full meal compo pack rations, which provide 4100 k cal
 Supplementary compo pack rations which provide 1430 k cal
 These encompass a wide variety of convenience food
products developed at DFRL
 It consists of
 Ready-to-Eat (RTE)
 Ready-to-Reconstitute (RTR) and Ready-to-Cook kind of
convenience foods
 Some such items developed by DFRL are given below
Chapaties, Parothas, Instant Vegetable Pulav, Instant Khichdi,
Instant Curried Dals, Instant Chholey mix, Instant Rajma, Instant Aial mix,
Instant Potato Peas Curry, Instant Halwa, Instant Umpa, Instant Neutro
Cereal mix, Instant Omelette, Scrambled Egg mixes, Instant Soup
Powder, Instant Fruit Juice, Beverage mixes, Instant Vermicelli Kheer mix
Food Technology for Special Situations
RTE Foods.
 The shelf life of one man compo pack ration and mini
compo pack ration are one year
 The instant food can easily be reconstituted by
immersing in hot water for 5-10 min
 The Technology involved in the ready-to-reconstitute
food products (Instant mixes) are flaking technology or
freeze thaw dehydration technology
 The process of flaking technology is based on
 Precooking
 Conditioning
 Flaking
 Drying under controlled conditions
Food Technology for Special Situations
RTE Foods.
 The flaking process reduces the case hardening and
improves sensory characteristics
 Freeze thaw dehydration technology involves
 soaking
 Pressure cooking
 Cold conditioning
 Drying under controlled conditions
 Reconstitution time 5-10 min. by putting in hot water
 They are superior to conventionally dried counterparts in
colour, flavour, texture and taste
 All the products have undergone large scale user trials by
army units based at high altitude
 They are highly acceptable and stable for more than a
year under ambient conditions
Food Technology for Special Situations
RTE Foods
 There are technologies and products available
for helping the soldiers to accommodate and
consume during operations in treacherous terrain
and cold whether
 They are retort processed, shelf stable, ready-toeat foods in laminates of aluminium with polymeric
films
 Food could be consumed as such or after
warming the pouch in boiling water
 With this intention we have developed a number
of traditional Indian foods in such retort pouches
Food Technology for Special Situations
RTE Foods
They include, Vegetable Pulav, Vegetable Khichdi, Sooji
Halwa, Potato Peas Curry, Mutton Curry, Mutton Pulav,
Chicken Pulav, Chicken Curry, Palak Paneer Curry, Avial,
Upma, Mixed Vegetable Curry, Alu Choley, Rajma Curry,
Noodles etc
 Many of the retort processed foods products are
the basis of Meals Ready-to-Eat (MRE) ration
 Constituents of MRE rations for Army and Marine
Commandoes of Indian Navy provide different menus
to avoid monotony
 The rations are suitable for high altitude region
 About 1,50,000 such rations were supplied to Army
during Kargil conflict.
Food Technology for Special Situations
RTE Foods
In meals Ready-to-eat rations, the main constituents of
rations are heated by hexamine fuel tablets
 The process is time consuming and cumbersome in
field conditions
 Hence, simple device to heat the product at different
field condition with reduced preparation time is preferable
 We have developed a Self-heating system called
"Thermopack“
 This is based on a multi step exothermic reaction
 This is found to be adequate to heat the product from
ambient to 65oC within 10-15 minutes
Food Technology for Special Situations
RTE Foods
Under sub-zero condition, the system enables
to heat the product from -10oC to 40oC
 The system consists of
 Heater pad
 Treated water
 RTE food pouch
 Amenities such as needle, blade, paper
plate, tissue paper, instruction manual etc
 The heater pad of the system does not have
direct contact with food pouch as they are placed
independently
 The system is user friendly and easy to operate
Food Technology for Special Situations
Survival Rations
 DFRL has designed speciality survival rations for Army, Navy
and Air Force for use during field operations
The army survival ration consists of two survival bars and two
types of long life chikkis
The ration weighs 500 g. and delivers 2200 k cal
The naval survival ration consists of two survival bars in a lot of
600 g to cater to one person for three days
The survival bar of Navy is based on calorie rich products
formulated from easily digestible carbohydrates
It has a shelf life of 3 years
We have also designed and developed emergency flying ration
This has survival bars weighing 330 g. providing 1320 k cal. for
48 hours
These survival rations can also be used in high altitude region
Food Technology for Special Situations
Survival Rations
Supply of fresh fruits and vegetables to high
altitude area pose real challenge due to
 The lack of established roads
 Presence of hazardous terrain
 Hostile climatic conditions
DFRL has introduced multipurpose plastic crates,
pre-treatments and packaging of fresh fruits and
vegetables to extend the shelf life of fruits &
vegetables
The usage of plastic crates is hygienic, economical
and minimises the spoilage loss
Where as the conventional packaging systems are
mulberry baskets
Food Technology for Special Situations
The chemical pre-treatment of fruits and
vegetables by washing with chlorine water
Selective use of anti-fungal paste and
ethylene scavenging sachets for delayed
ripening
Usage of perforated polyethylene pouches to
transport assorted units of fruits and vegetables
separately extend the shelf life of different fruits
and vegetables by 3-6 days under ambient
conditions
The minimally processed vegetables have
logistic utility and operational convenience to
the Armed Forces
Food Technology for Special Situations
They have a shelf-life of 10-14 days under ambient
conditions (23-36oC) and 6-8 weeks at low
temperatures
These Technologies are useful for storage and
transportation of various fruits Viz, orange,
mousambi, lemon, apple, mango and vegetables
such as tomato, carrot, turnip, radish, onion and
ginger at high altitude region
The shelf stable ready-to-eat fruit slices such as
mango, pineapple, banana, papaya, guava, etc.,
based on hurdle/intermediate moisture technologies
with a shelf life of 6-8 months are also useful at high
altitude
Food Technology for Special Situations
One of the common complaints of troops placed at high
altitude is the lack of appetite
This leads to decrease in body weight and indigestion
In order to improve their intake, inclusion of appetisers in the
ration is considered better
To overcome this we have developed a number of instant
mixes of appetisers/munches which could help the troops to
have adequate appetite for food consumption
These have received good response in the high altitude trials
Appetisers are based on spices, fruits and vegetable
Some of these are Spice drink mix, Chakota soup mix,
Spiced tomato mix, Appetising mix, Ginger munch, Fruit
munch, Pepper munch, Jeera munch, Lemon munch.
Food Technology for Special Situations
 Finger Millet (Eleusine Coracana) is rich in calcium, iron,
dietary and functional fibre
 We have adopted various technologies for the development
of calcium rich, fibre rich foods
 Ragi based nutritional products are in ready to eat, ready to
reconstitute or ready to cook form
 The biggest advantage of some ragi based products is its
ability to reconstitute using cold water
 This is a boon for soldiers deployed at high altitudes
 Some of these speciality food are sweetened millet mix and
millet cookies
 They are highly liked by the Armed Forces during field trials
conducted at high altitude
Food Technology for Special Situations
Some of the nutritional products based on ragi developed at
the lab are
 Millet ada mix
 Millet roti mix
 Millet dosa mix
 Millet pakoda mix
 Millet nippattu mix
 Millet beverage mix
 Millet sweetened cookie mix
 Functional millet beverage mix
 Functional millet cookie mix
 Sweetened millet mix
 Millet chapathi mix
 Millet halbai mix
 Millet kheer mix
 Spiced millet mix etc.
Food Technology for Special Situations
Functional Foods
 Seabuckthorn (SBT) grows widely in dry
temperate Himalayas
 Fruits and leaves are rich in bioactive
substances and high potential in health food,
pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries
 The product SBT are stress relieving at altitudes
 We have developed herbal tea formulation and
baked products with SBT Leaves
 The products are rich in polyphenols, flavonoids
and also possess free radical scavenging potency
Food Technology for Special Situations
Functional Foods
 DFRL has developed a range of products based
on seabuckthorn which are rich in antioxidants
 These products have a shelf life of 6 months
 Some of the seabuckthorn based products
(Antioxidant rich) are leaf tea, biscuits, buns, rusks
and jam
 In order to provide abdominal comfort at altitude
and other altered situations, some phytochemicals
may be useful
 Hence Aloe vera based products may be useful
 With that intention we developed ale vera based
products viz. squash, Jam Jelly, etc.
Food Technology for Special Situations
CONCLUSIONS
 DFRL, through systematic research and
development activity has developed several foods
meant for special situations , which could be easily
reconstituted and consumed by Defence forces during
operational conditions
 Several such products have already been
successfully introduced into the rations of Army, Navy
and Air Force
 These contributions of DRDO will go a long way in
boosting the morale of the forces as well as help the
civilian community to cop up with the needs of modern
busy life style.