Background: Amongst New Zealand soldiers in Gallipoli in 1915 there were reports of poor food quality and cases of scurvy. But no modern analysis of the military food rations has ever been conducted to better understand potential nutritional problems in this group.
Methods: We analysed the foods in the military rations for 1915 using food composition data on the closest equivalents for modern foods. We compared these results with other plausible diets and various optimised ones using linear programming.
Results: Historical accounts provide evidence for poor food quality supplied to these soldiers. The nutrient analysis suggested that the military rations were below modern requirements for vitamins A, C and E; potassium; selenium; and dietary fibre. If military planners had used modest amounts of the canned vegetables and fruit available in 1915, this would probably have eliminated four of these six deficits. The results from the uncertainty analyses for vitamin C (e.g., 95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 5.5 to 6.7 mg per day), was compatible with the range known to cause scurvy, but the UI for vitamin A intake was only partly in the range for causing night blindness. To indicate the gap with the ideal, an optimised diet (using foods available in 1915), could have achieved all nutrient requirements for under half the estimated purchase cost of the 1915 military rations.
Conclusions: There is now both historical and analytic evidence that the military rations provided to these soldiers were nutritionally inadequate in vitamin C, and probably other nutrients such as vitamin A. These deficits are likely to have caused cases of scurvy and may have contributed to the high rates of other illnesses experienced at Gallipoli. Such problems could have been readily prevented by providing rations that included some canned fruit or vegetables (e.g., as manufactured by New Zealand at the time).