Analysis Free of Charge

The US Army went out and paid this team to study bowel movements under a normal diet, and under a MRE diet  (the combat rations package).

I know....it's a total waste of time and I could have told them that.

So the study found (using 60 people) that that those who ate a normal diet....had typically one additional bowl movement a week, than the MRE group (eating at least two MRE meals a day).

I would offer this analysis....having done the MRE business a couple of times in my life.  If you get the MRE packet with the fudge bar 'desert'....it's pretty good odds that you can go a minimum of two days without a bowel movement, and maybe even three days. 

This packet, typically the one with the beef stew 'delight', and the peanut butter/cracker....combined with the fudge bar...would create a 'log-jam' of enormous proportions.   If you can imagine eating five of those over a three-day setting, and feeling all stuffed-up....it's not a pleasant experience. 

The Mexican 'delight' packet?  Oddly enough, this would slide through and you might be able to do three bowel movement in a single day (this had the beef taco, the fruity 'thing', nut and raisin 'bar', and cheddar cheese spread). 

What this all led to, is that you had to balance out your diet, and eat things that you typically didn't like....in order to maintain some type of semi-ordinary bowel movement situation. 

I could have told these folks the analysis without all this testing business.