The vegan/vegetarian diet problem is very real, and it is not just protein. You can very easily miss out pretty severely on a lot of things just by cutting meat out of your diet (iron, for example), and you do have to work hard to make sure you maintain a balanced diet. I don't see this as a problem for MREs, as composition has been pretty well solved, and I doubt it makes it any harder to solve the perishable problem.

Eating a balanced diet isn't hard as long as you don't eat the same thing basically every day (i.e. fast food). I think it's probably a non-issue, except for (say) naive teenage vegetarians - it's only a problem if you cut out meat but don't replace it with anything. I've done my research - if you have specific examples to the contrary, I'm all ears.

I ate a vegetarian diet for seven or eight years, a vegan diet for a few months* along the way, and have had a primarily* * vegetarian diet for years since then. I give blood regularly (I'm AB+, a rare donor blood type), and I've never, ever, ever had a problem with low iron - it's usually been quite high. While that's only one data point, it seems consistent with what I've read about nutrition - problems mostly occur when people give up meat but still eat a rather monotonous diet. ("In other news: Eating nothing but twinkies and whiskey is bad for you...Film at eleven.")

* I'm a cooking geek, and was interesting where those constraints would lead me.

* * same, plus fish and occasional Italian and French/Vietnamese charcuterie (Bánh mì!), but I cook/eat vegetarian by default.

> I'm a cooking geek

hence, you should have no trouble. :)

I wonder how many people downvoting me even know what charcuterie is, let alone have done it. :)

Besides: Lentils, spinach, and broccoli have iron. How many vegetarians don't eat at least one of those regularly? (Other cliches: vitamin B-12 - Vegans might have a problem, vegetarians are fine. Calcium - "Dark green leafy vegetables". Do vegetarians eat those? Oh. Wait...do carnivores eat those?)

A vegetarian who eats fish is no problem at all. Impossible for the army, because fish is so finicky, but in terms of nutrition ANYBODY could rock a vegetarian + fish diet.

This is, of course, because fish is just a specific kind of meat, so nutritionally it's not vegetarian in the slightest.

For years I was a vegetarian + fish guy. I hate pork, my family boycotts lamb, and I didn't have a taste for beef. Nowadays I eat the token hamburger every few weeks, because I've noticed I feel a lot better for it.

We call you a "pescatarian".

It's more a problem of people just not eating stuff that's been slogged halfway across the planet and deposited into an active combat zone. So they try to supply menu items that'll get eaten.

That being said, there's usually a vegetarian meal in every box of MREs.

Fair enough. I bet a lot of soldiers probably want to eat something that reminds them of home, and dried beans probably rank alongside powdered eggs.