Holiday mailing deadlines approach for troops overseas
By Carolyn Ainslie
Food & Nutrition Educational Program Specialist

The United States Postal Service has advised that Dec. 11, is the international mailing deadline for First Class Mail to ensure delivery of holiday cards and packages by Dec. 25, for most military APO/FPO addresses to troops overseas. Any mail going to zip codes beginning with 093 have a Dec. 4, deadline. These mailing dates can be accessed online at http://www.usps.com/ supporting-ourtroops/.

Here are some tips for preparing and assembling those special food items for mailing to troops far from home during the holidays:

Foods that ship well include pound cakes, cookies high in sugar and shortening, bar cookies, brownies, and fudge. Shortbread, sugar cookies and nut bars ship well. Avoid cookies with perishable fillings such as cream or custard. Fruit and nut fillings work best. Soft, moist cookies will mold quickly in humid climates.

Coffee blends are easy to pack into decorative plastic or metal containers and ship. Dried foods, nuts and dry mixes (spiced teas, herb blends, and party mixes of cereals and nuts) are good choices.

Delicate cakes that crumb easily, pies and yeast breads are fragile and spoil easily. If sending cake, do not frost before mailing. If frosting is desired, include a pack of frosting mix or commercially canned frosting in the package.

Each country has customs regulations that apply to all incoming mail. These may include prohibitions on certain kinds of foods. Military units may also have additional restrictions imposed by the unit commanders, such as those on size and weight, to ensure logistics support can handle the mail along with other necessities. The maximum length of a package in any category is 72 inches. For specific restrictions contact the Military Postal Service Agency's toll free number, 1-800-810-6098.

When sending food to military troops,

 Do not send fresh, cured or smoked meat and poultry.

 Pork and pork by-products are not allowed.

 Do not pack food in glass containers or place glass items in with food.

 Dry beef, such as beef jerky or beef slims, is safe to ship.

 Consider the weather conditions where the recipient is located - how cold, how dry, how hot and humid, etc. - and how the food item you are shipping will hold up.

 Consider commercially processed, durable foods such as canned foods (in metal cans) like tuna, chicken, and franks and beans.

 Commercially packed cakes and cookies in tins cans, fruit cakes and dry cookies like ginger snaps and crackers will hold up well in many weather conditions.

 Raisins, apricots and other dried fruits, canned nuts and fruit and commercially prepared and packaged trail mix are also recommended as food gifts for varying weather conditions.

The food gift can be placed in clean boxes, metal food tins or plastic boxes or bags. Then place inside a fiberboard packaging box. When choosing a box, make sure it's roomy enough to allow plenty of packing material on all sides. Start filling your mailing box with a layer of packing material such as newspaper, foam pieces or plastic bubble wrap. Center the gift in the middle of the mailing box. Then overfill the box with cushioning material, making sure there's no air space left in the box. Do not use popped corn or puffed cereal as cushioning packing material, as they attract insects. Include a card inside with the sender's and recipient's information along with a description of the contents in the event that an improperly wrapped package falls open during shipping. This will help in the collection of the items.

Seal the box with mailing tape or filament tape. Address labels should be readable from 30 inches. Cover the label with clear tape. Label the package "fragile" and "perishable food". These special markings should be in three places: above the address, below the postage, and on the back or bottom of your package. (Do not assume, however, that these markings alone will keep your package from getting damaged; inside packaging should be done with the utmost care to minimize damage that can occur to the contents.)

Military Addressing Tips:

Use the service member's full name (with or without rank or rating), military organization or unit, and APO/FPO address.

Do not include the country name in any part of the address

Programs that allowed the general public to send mail addressed to "Any Service Member" are no longer available.

A food gift from home is a special way to send holiday cheer to our troops overseas. Make sure that gift arrives intact and food safe. The time and effort of the giver who sends a food gift is well worth the happiness and grateful appreciation of the recipient thousands of miles from home.