Troops at Fort Carson say base restaurants often serve meals that lack nutritional value and are sometimes unsafe to eat. Base officials said they want to do better.

Posts on Hoods and baby bedsan anonymous Yelp-like app created by former Army Reserve and National Guard sergeant Robert Evans, shows small portions, shortages and poor quality of food at Fort Carson installations dating back to March. CPR News has not independently verified the photos, but Evans and his team said they evaluate each photo to ensure legitimacy.

Courtesy of Hots & Cots

Evans launched the app in 2023 after reading a scathing report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) that found that poor living conditions harm quality of life and readiness in military barracks.

“There (are) people who join the military because they were food insecure before they enlisted, and so part of the deal for getting in is that the military will provide your housing (and ) your food,” Evans said. “So when we don’t give soldiers and service members adequate nutrition, what does that mean?”

The poor food quality reported at Fort Carson is not an isolated problem. The 2023 GAO report reports that service members said that due to food issues at various military installations, they “typically rely on microwaveable meals or fast food, which leads to health problems.” The Hots & Cots app contains reviews from 330 military restaurants with an overall rating of 3.5 on a scale of 1 to 5 by troops using the app.

Fort Carson is home to the 4th Infantry Division, 10th Airborne Special Forces Group and the World Class Athlete Program which aims to help Soldiers compete in the Olympics while maintaining their service. Most new recruits must spend their first two to three years of service in the barracks, which can accommodate up to 8,000 personnel at any one time.

Many people living in the Fort Carson barracks earn less than $30,000 a year as junior soldiers and do not have access to cooking equipment in their shared housing. The level of pay is partly explained by basic subsistence allowance deductions that are automatically taken from troops’ salaries to pay for their access to restaurants. Every enlisted member living in the Fort Carson barracks has a BAS deduction of $460.25 per month, intended to pay for their daily breakfast, lunch and dinner.

“They have restrictions. Not everyone can have a hot plate in their barracks. They can’t have a stove or a microwave, so they have to eat in these facilities and we face food insecurity in these facilities,” Evans said.

The army has nutritional standards For the number of calories enlisted, members should be able to get at restaurants depending on their activity level. For men, the norm is 3,400 calories per day. For women, that’s 2,300 calories per day.

But images of meals published on Hots & Cots between March and November show meals lacking substance. A September 28 post shows a thermometer at a sushi station reading 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Food safety guidelines state that raw fish should be stored at 41 degrees or lower. Another post from November 19 shows a pile of dried lima beans and a piece of garlic toast served as dinner in one of the dining rooms. The poster said that was all that was left by the time they arrived at 5:38 p.m.

Courtesy of Hots & Cots

“The amount of protein you’re getting is terrible,” a November 22 poster said. “The food is: small corn barely bigger than my little finger, rice – overcooked, bread – hard. Terrible vegetable spread but don’t worry, they have chopped olives and jalapeños.

Yet other posts show completely empty kiosks that were set up in February to ease the workload of Army kitchen staff.

“I know there are leaders (at Fort Carson) trying to make things better,” Evans said. “I don’t know where things are blocking or where the bottleneck is. I hope those in our positions in Congress and the Senate will look at this issue to see where these things fall apart.

Courtesy of Hots & Cots

In an emailed statement, Lt. Col. Joey Payton, a Fort Carson spokesperson, told CPR News, “(we) recognize that we have had challenges ensuring consistency in the quality of dining experiences across our soldiers in our warrior restaurants. and kiosks… We are also reinvigorating our dining establishments council, which brings together leaders at the brigade level to ensure the importance of the leader in our dining establishments. We are committed to ensuring our Soldiers receive quality, healthy meals and can take full advantage of the dietary benefits to which they are entitled.

Articles published in late November on Hots & Cots show that Fort Carson’s facilities have been upgraded for the Thanksgiving meal, but Evans said it’s a matter of consistency across branches and installations, especially in a time of general peace for the country’s army.

“Are we going to continue to provide these high-quality meals to our military who are essentially forced to eat in these restaurants? They sign a contract, they risk their lives. I think we owe it to them to make sure they get adequate nutrition,” Evans said.