{"id":35657,"date":"2011-07-09T10:51:35","date_gmt":"2011-07-09T15:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=35657"},"modified":"2015-09-20T23:03:27","modified_gmt":"2015-09-21T04:03:27","slug":"the-culture-of-combat-rations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/07\/09\/the-culture-of-combat-rations\/","title":{"rendered":"The Culture of Combat Rations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dmitriy T.M. sent in a <em>New York Times<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2010\/09\/04\/weekinreview\/20100905_gilbertson.html?ref=weekinreview\" target=\"_blank\">slideshow<\/a> of the contents of &#8220;MREs&#8221; from different countries. \u00a0 MREs stands for &#8220;Meals Ready to Eat&#8221;; they are combat rations for soldiers. The rations are each some combination of comfort food, nutrition, and necessity. \u00a0And the different contents across countries reveal some interesting similarities and differences.<\/p>\n<p>All MREs include some sort of meat, but the type and form of the meat vary, from meatballs to pat\u00e9. \u00a0Meanwhile, almost all of the MREs include candy; it&#8217;s probably cheap, in the big scheme of things, to throw a few skittles, m&amp;ms, or squares of chocolate, but what a treat it must be. \u00a0Likewise, the fruit-flavored beverages and tea must be a taste of home. \u00a0As for practicality, countries vary in whether they provide moist towelettes, toothpicks, tooth brushes. \u00a0 Most offer matches; the U.S. includes toilet paper.<\/p>\n<p>That said, the content of rations are also strikingly consistent. \u00a0I&#8217;ve love to see a flow chart tracing the development of MREs. \u00a0Were the logics for these rations developed in isolation? \u00a0Or were some countries influential over others?<\/p>\n<p>These are my uneducated observations. \u00a0Feel free to offer more informed thoughts in the comments.<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dmitriy T.M. sent in a New York Times slideshow of the contents of &#8220;MREs&#8221; from different countries. \u00a0 MREs stands for &#8220;Meals Ready to Eat&#8221;; they are combat rations for soldiers. The rations are each some combination of comfort food, nutrition, and necessity. \u00a0And the different contents across countries reveal some interesting similarities and differences. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,2124,1770,2055,1819,8105,1791,1788,1804,1808,3920,309],"class_list":["post-35657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-culture","tag-foodagriculture","tag-nation-canada","tag-nation-denmark","tag-nation-italy","tag-nation-lithuania","tag-nation-norway","tag-nation-south-korea","tag-nation-sweden","tag-nation-ukraine","tag-nation-united-states","tag-warmilitary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35657"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67992,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35657\/revisions\/67992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}