Combat-Ready Kitchen: How the U.S. Military Shapes the Way You Eat

You probably don't realize that your supermarket is filled with foods that have a military origin: canned goods, packaged deli meats, TV dinners, cling wrap, energy bars . . . the list is almost endless. In fact, there's a watered-down combat ration lurking in practically every bag, box, can, bottle, jar, and carton Americans buy.

Anastacia Marx de Salcedo shows how the Department of Defense Combat Feeding Directorate plans, funds, and spreads the food science that enables it to produce cheap, imperishable rations. It works with an immense network of university, government, and industry collaborators such as ADM, ConAgra, General Mills, Hershey, Hormel, Mars, Nabisco, Reynolds, Smithfield, Swift, Tyson and Unilever. It's a good deal for both sides: the conglomerates get exclusive patents or a headstart on the next breakthrough technology; the Army ensures that it has commercial suppliers if it ever needs to manufacture millions of rations.

And for us consumers, who eat this food originally designed for soldiers on the battlefield? We're the guinea pigs in a giant public health experiment, one in which science and technology, at the beck of the military, have taken over our kitchens.

"A well-researched effort that will undoubtedly add to general readers' knowledge about the food they consume on a daily basis." ---Kirkus

An eye-opening examination of the U.S. military's influence on the American food industry and the way we eat.

Anastacia Marx de Salcedo is a food writer whose work has appeared in Salon, Slate, the Boston Globe, and Gourmet magazine and on PBS and NPR blogs. She's worked as a public health consultant, news magazine publisher, and public policy researcher. Anastacia lives in Boston.C. S. E. Cooney is a writer, actor, poet, and singer-songwriter. She narrates for Podcastle, the world�s first audio fantasy magazine; Uncanny Magazine, an online science fiction and fantasy magazine; and the poetry journals Goblin Fruit and Stone Telling. She is also the narrator of �The Red Empress,� the first part of The Black Fire Concerto by Mike Allen.