Nutritional fi tness refers to the provision and consumption of foodstuffs in quantities, quality, and proportions suffi cient to preserve mission performance and to protect against disease and/or injury. Consistent with the Joint Force Health Protection Concept of Operations, nutritional fi tness optimizes wellnessfor peacetime forces, maintains the health/fi tness of deployed forces, and facilitates physical and mental resilience of redeployed forces. Sound nutritional fi tness establishes habits that last a lifetime. As illustrated in Figure 1 , nutritional fi tness can be broken into three components: diet quality, healthy food choices, and specifi c nutritional requirements. Diet Quality Diet quality includes the nutritional composition of food, the impact of food preparation (e.g., cooking, storage), consumer acceptability, and the variety of food components available to accommodate personal food choices. Physical factors that hinder food availability and/or consumption (e.g., dining hall hours, availability of necessary utensils, food preparation procedures, consumption constraints, etc.) have an additional impact on diet quality. To be nutritionally fi t, the right food must be available at the right time and must be consumed in the right quantities.