What's In A Military Can?

War is a comprehensive contest of population, resources and financial resources. Due to the huge disparity in comprehensive national strength, the military food products of various countries during World War II were very different, especially canned military food. At that time, the best military cans should be used by the US military, and the worst ones were rationed by Japan. Let's take a look at the gap between the two.

Due to its unique geographical advantage, the United States has basically not suffered the influence of the Warring States since its founding. In addition to its vast territory, its development status has been relatively good, and it has even ranked among the top in the world. By the time of World War II, in the military rationing of the US military, military canned food was world-class.

Generally speaking, the military canned food eaten by soldiers is made of real materials, and the most famous one is canned Spam. This canned food is known internationally and is not only used by the U.S. military, but also supplied or sold to Allied forces.

In a nearly rectangular can, there is a ham-shaped meat slice, which is mixed with meat and starch, and sometimes the meat content can be as high as 70% or more. It shows that the old American has a lot of money and is full of confidence.

However, despite this, due to preservative considerations, this canned food is higher in salt and does not taste as good. What's more, soldiers use every day, no matter how delicious things are, they are tired of it.

There is a world of difference between the canned food used by the U.S. military and the "canned beef" rationed by the Japanese army. Although Japan called it canned beef, due to the blockade of the Japanese economy at that time, there was no such beef in the country at all, and even pork was difficult to match. Therefore, no beef is used in the can at all.

So what's inside? It's funny, at that time the Japanese army used the blood of various livestock to make canned food, and sometimes a certain amount of meat was added, but it was basically a mixture of blood, inferior meat, grains and vegetables. To put it bluntly, this kind of canned food is a hodgepodge of food. It is not only nutritious, but also has a very poor taste, so it is called "pig food" by soldiers.

Of course, sometimes the quality of Japanese military cans will be good, especially when they newly conquered certain places, they will carry out economic plunder and use the looted materials to support the war. However, in the later stage, Japan's military rationing became more difficult, and the soldiers could only eat "pig food" by gnashing their teeth.