Food Production In War

Food for War is a ground-breaking study of Britain's food and agricultural preparations in the 1930s as the nation once again made ready for war. Historians writing about 1930s Britain have usually focused on the Depression, appeasement, or political, military, and industrial concerns. None have dealt adequately with another significant topic, food and agriculture, as the nation moved, albeit reluctantly, from peace to war. In this new account Alan F. Wilt makes right this omission by examining in depth the relationship between food, agriculture, and the nation's preparations for war. He reveals how food and agriculture became closely linked to rearmament as early as 1936; that the government's preparations in this sector, as contrasted with other areas of the economy, were relatively well-developed when war broke out in 1936; and that rural and farm interests well understood the effect that war would have on their way of life. He argues that food and agriculture need to be integrated into the more general historical discourse, for what happened in Britain in the 1930s not only set the stage for World War II, but also contributed to a more robust agriculture in the decades that followed.

The women who kept the farms going while the soldiers were Over There

Includes statistics.

Americans eat more processed foods than anyone else in the world. We also spend more on military research. These two seemingly unrelated facts are inextricably linked. If you ever wondered how ready-to-eat foods infiltrated your kitchen, you’ll love this entertaining romp through the secret military history of practically everything you buy at the supermarket. In a nondescript Boston suburb, in a handful of low buildings buffered by trees and a lake, a group of men and women spend their days researching, testing, tasting, and producing the foods that form the bedrock of the American diet. If you stumbled into the facility, you might think the technicians dressed in lab coats and the shiny kitchen equipment belonged to one of the giant food conglomerates responsible for your favorite brand of frozen pizza or microwavable breakfast burritos. So you’d be surprised to learn that you’ve just entered the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Systems Center, ground zero for the processed food industry. Ever since Napoleon, armies have sought better ways to preserve, store, and transport food for battle. As part of this quest, although most people don’t realize it, the U.S. military spearheaded the invention of energy bars, restructured meat, extended-life bread, instant coffee, and much more. But there’s been an insidious mission creep: because the military enlisted industry—huge corporations such as ADM, ConAgra, General Mills, Hershey, Hormel, Mars, Nabisco, Reynolds, Smithfield, Swift, Tyson, and Unilever—to help develop and manufacture food for soldiers on the front line, over the years combat rations, or the key technologies used in engineering them, have ended up dominating grocery store shelves and refrigerator cases. TV dinners, the cheese powder in snack foods, cling wrap . . . The list is almost endless. Now food writer Anastacia Marx de Salcedo scrutinizes the world of processed food and its long relationship with the military—unveiling the twists, turns, successes, failures, and products that have found their way from the armed forces’ and contractors’ laboratories into our kitchens. In developing these rations, the army was looking for some of the very same qualities as we do in our hectic, fast-paced twenty-first-century lives: portability, ease of preparation, extended shelf life at room temperature, affordability, and appeal to even the least adventurous eaters. In other words, the military has us chowing down like special ops. What is the effect of such a diet, eaten—as it is by soldiers and most consumers—day in and day out, year after year? We don’t really know. We’re the guinea pigs in a giant public health experiment, one in which science and technology, at the beck and call of the military, have taken over our kitchens.