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View Full Version : The military is responsible for a lot of what's in the grocery store



jp1
10-31-15, 4:15pm
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/war-and-pizza/

Just finished listening to this podcast. Apparently since WWII the military has spent significant and ongoing sums of money developing food technologies that make it possible for food to be stored unrefrigerated for long periods of time. They provide this technology to manufacturers of food for the general public, in large part so that there will be lots of factories ready to ramp up military production if we decide it's time for another big war. But those food manufacturers also use these technologies to make many of the products found in the center portion of the grocery store today. Those little pouches of tuna (rather than cans) are an example of this, as is anything that comes with powdered cheese, like instant macaroni and cheese. Next up, shelf stable osmoroni pizza (pepperoni that's been made not to spoil by removal of the water in it through an osmosis process) . Look for it at your supermarket probably sometime in the next couple of years!

Lainey
10-31-15, 11:21pm
I was thinking it was NASA too.

jp1
11-1-15, 12:06am
True. Tang IS the drink of astronauts!

lessisbest
11-1-15, 5:50am
Active Dry Yeast was a WWII effort. Fresh yeast was unstable for the moving forces.

Miss Cellane
11-1-15, 8:40am
It's not just food. The military has funded a lot of research over the decades. And the trickle-down effect to our day-to-day lives is pretty much unknown.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/31510/9-things-invented-military-use-you-now-encounter-everyday-life

https://www.quora.com/Do-military-expenditures-build-products-that-enhance-anyones-quality-of-life

LDAHL
11-2-15, 9:03am
It's not just food. The military has funded a lot of research over the decades. And the trickle-down effect to our day-to-day lives is pretty much unknown.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/31510/9-things-invented-military-use-you-now-encounter-everyday-life

https://www.quora.com/Do-military-expenditures-build-products-that-enhance-anyones-quality-of-life

That's true. I remember puzzling through Darpanet at USAF Space Division back in the early eighties. Some bright sparks in the building I worked in were working on GPS (we called it NAVSTAR back in the day).