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Comment by namdnay | Hacker News Reader

I’m wondering why on earth the military was storing cheese as a powder… the whole point of cheeses is that they are a great way to store milk. Why didn’t they just store cheese wheels? Surely powdering it makes it go off much faster?

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Military food is a really fascinating logistics problem - how do you feed people, potentially across a long period while engaging in calorically demanding tasks? Foodstuffs need to last as long as possible because supply lines are targeted or have been destroyed. That shipment you received may be one of your last. Cheese, like any food with significant moisture, can ultimately rot.

Much of our modern processes are to somehow extend the life of the foodstuff over long periods. This boomed the overly processed food economy we currently have, but it was first built to simply make sure we had food for the long haul. Curing meats in salt is roughly the same process.

In turns of cheese, powder has less moisture stored in the individual cheese granule but may also be reconstituted with added moisture. Powdered forms are easier to package for individual soldiers to carry for themselves rather than a large, bulkier wheel that needs its own storage and transportation methods.

It goes further back. Napoleon offered a prize in 1795 for some way to preserve food for soldiers.[1] The result was "canning" - heating, boiling, and sealing in an airtight container. Originally in glass jars. Later metal cans. Finally vacuum-packed plastic.

Current products include MREs for the military, which are actually somewhat hard to buy commercially since Warnock got tired of dealing with preppers. They really want to sell these things by the container load. There are all kinds of knock-offs available. The real military MREs are designed for young soldiers in good condition doing heavy work, so three of them contain almost 4,000 calories. Civilian versions tend to be smaller portions.

There's also the Humanitarian Daily Ration. It's kosher, halal, vegetarian, lactose-free, and nut-free. Also air-droppable without a parachute. It's basically lentils and beans. It's intended for people on the edge of starvation. The US military used to give out MREs in crises, but that was too much concentrated energy food for someone nearly starving and could sicken them.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/03/01/147751097/why-...

There's a really good episode of 99% Invisible that explains how much of the technology used to produce food in grocery stores was developed by the military. One of the most surprising, for me, was chewy chocolate chip cookies.

It says in the article. Powdering involves further dehydration, reducing weight and size. I’m guessing it also improves shelf life.

This. Nescafe was great for the same reason, as it weighed much less than coffee grounds.

It's impossible to overestimate how important this was. The U.S. military in WWII had to support an enormous force overseas, to a degree and extent that no other power had to approach. Everything that the force needed in the field had to first go on a ship to be sent overseas. With the U.S. Twelfth Army Group numbering over a million men alone in Europe, small changes to products were magnified at scale, saving tons of weight in the logistics chain.

It's also worth noting that WW2 by and large predates intermodal shipping containers. Apart from some experiments late in the war, the U.S. military did not use containerized shipping to any significant degree. Everything was shipped "break-bulk" which meant that every individual parcel had to be loaded/unloaded by hand every time it changed transportation mode. Also, the ships that carried these goods were tiny by modern standards. Every bit of extra volume and weight mattered much more than it does today.

There's a probably apocryphal story that a Japanese higher-up realized the war was lost when they found out the US had enough spare capacity to build ice cream ships for in-theater cold treats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge).

Probably apocryphal, but I'm sure there were similar conversations. Though from what I've read, many in the Japanese High Command were fully aware of the disparity in war-making potential between the U.S. and Japan. That Japan decided to go to war anyways despite knowing this is still discussed.

There's a page over on combinedfleet.com (great resource and discussion) that goes into the numbers, and it's truly astonishing. U.S. output could be described as terrifying. http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

I think there is a real story about a British/Australian general at Hamel arranging for hot meals in the trenches

e: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Monash

First of all I don't think that's the whole point of cheese. Secondly, dehydrating and powdering dramatically extends shelf life and makes shipping cheaper.

It’s not the whole point of cheese in most cultures, but it’s a very effective method of turning summer grass into winter food. Which, especially in Alpine climates, is important.

Native Americans, lacking domesticated ruminants, achieved similar results with pemmican, which is the same principle: protein + fat + dehydration = long-lasting nutritious food for survival. Not apparently very tasty, and they would certainly supplement it with anything else they could find, but it kept you from starving.

Why do you think herders would go through all the effort?

‘Not starving to death’ seems like a good reason, eh?

What? What would make you think that dehydrating a food would make it go bad quicker?

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