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To summarize, during World War II, food companies developed various technologies to make it easier to store food for troops to eat. To keep food edible through beach landings and long marches, new forms of packaging were created.
After the war, these foods were marketed as convenience foods, and bit by bit, consumers replaced cooking from scratch with opening a box or can. Now, ultraprocessed foods make up 70% of the US food supply, and many people have never learned how to cook.
Before reading this article, I did not know that military requirements had stimulated the development of ultraprocessed food. My father was a career military officer, and his last assignment was in quality control at the Defense Supply Agency. During that time, he talked about the development of
very uniform frozen steaks, perfectly round and equally thick. I remember eating them; we thought they were uniformly chewy and gristly.
But I never made the connection between MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat, also known as Meals, Rejected by Everyone) and ultraprocessed food. MREs are certainly ultraprocessed. I wonder if the military will someday return to real food.
