Fires Meals: The Problem, The Reactions, The Solution.

New firefighter poll shows they are not adequate or nutritionally balanced.

Basically everyone in the fire world has been aware of this topic for decades. This story is almost as old as the one about Noah’s Ark. Except instead of animals getting loaded two by two onto a boat, it’s candy bars and Uncrustables getting loaded into a paper bag. The question remains however, “why has this problem not been addressed”. The quick simple answer is money. It’s clear that cost savings is one of the most prominent reasons for this, but with the new VIPR Contract rules there should be plenty of extra funds going around to off set better quality food products. I will explain all of this later in the article.

The Poll: First things first. I conducted a poll a little over a week ago that asked: “Do you feel your fire meals are an adequate source of nutrition and quality calories?”

Over 1,000 firefighters responded to this poll in 24 hours. The results showed 89% of respondents felt meals were inadequate and lacked quality calories. Only 11% felt fire meals were adequate.

To put this into perspective this means on average only 2 people on a Hotshot crew believe fire meals give them the nutrition they need. Again, I know this is known but now we have numbers to incorporate on top of the moaning and groaning we hear when lunches are dropped off at the trucks. One of the most common responses I received out of this was that folks were requesting the veggie lunches in hopes of maybe