Aren’t you surprised to know about these brutal foods soliders had to eat in war? Please share your thoughts 💭

My last night in the service. For lunch we had beans and weenies. Our unit was camped out in tents lined up. I was on a hill sleeping on top of an armored vehicle on top of the warm engine. Looking over a field of tents. In the middle of night it turned into a field of farts. 😅

If soldiers are not complaining about their rations, there is something wrong. As much as WWII C and K rations were complained about they were prized fortunes of war for German troops because they were better than their rations.

For all WW2 vets: You suffered far too much. You deserved much better than this. Seriously. I do hope you are well as you can be. Your service is greatly appreciated and you, each one of you, will never be forgotten.

My grandpa told me that during his time in Germany in 1944-1945 they ate mostly marmalade and bread. Everything tasted like engine oil.

We got plenty SOS served to at Ft. Bragg . I was there 1974-76 . Instead of chipped beef the Mess Cooks would use Hamburger, Good stuff Maynard.

My family and I used to eat Chipped Beef on Toast all the time. It was so good!

Mom, [who'd served in the USMC] had 2 choices @ mealtime: "Take it or leave it"

My stepfather would occassionally cook creamed chipped beef on toast ( S. O . S . ) on the weekend . He would sometimes substitute sausage instead of the creamed chipped beef .

Corned Beef in Britain has always come in square cans,love it😊

SPAM does not belong on this list. SPAM is terrific.

#9 Spam was Like Steak in a Can.

On desert survival training in special forces, you got nothing! You were dumped in the desert for 1 wk eating anything you can find (scorpions, snakes, lizards, cactus, etc.) These foods would have been a delicacy. You'd be surprised what you can eat in adverse conditions. 👍👍👍

I joined the U. S. Navy in 1984 and whenever I ate the food from the chow hall ( "galley" ) , I passed gas nearly everyday that I was in boot camp . Guys that marched behind me hated me because of this .

SPAM is great when you put it under the oven broiler or fry it and have it with scrambled eggs.

Steve1989MREInfo enters the chat

chipped beef gravy on toast is awesome actually

Fried Spam an eggs is good eating. I love creamed chipped beef, I can eat that stuff by the gallon.

Spam makes the best fried rice

I'm just guessing this guy and his bad AI program have never met Steve1980Mreinfo. Edit: MCIs and K rats stopped being issued in the regular military 1980. Reserves, National Guard units and some college ROTC programs were given what remained once the first gen MREs started reaching the regular military.

Not surprised, in times of war many unfortunate slips in supplies occur. Many a blind eye is cast upon the world of supply, traffic, and transport. It's the perfect situation for skimming, graft, and chicanery

I ain’t gonna lie. SOS is good if you make it right all you need is ground beef, gravy, and bread.

In the C-rats, I like the Beenie Weenies the best. They weren't bad cold. And they always had the pound cake with them. Plus, almost always had a P-38 too.

MRES came out in the early 1980's (1981) not 1958. They were in a dark brown bag.

During WWII the U.S. sent large quantities of SPAM to the Soviet Union through Lend-Lease. Often being short of food, the Soviet soldiers loved it. I remember reading the memoir of a WWII Soviet artilleryman. He talked about how much they loved eating SPAM with bread and their daily ration of vodka.

In my hometown of 1000 people. In the once a week paper. They post the weekly school lunch menu. And it says. Thursday- S.O.S.

i feel so spoiled.in the navy i had access to steaks, pizza, lobster , ice cream bar, and soo on . i was a culinary specialist

Budae jjigae translates to "army base stew" in English> It's excellent, especially with glasses of beer and soju late at night.

Potato bread is still sold in grocery stores. I like it's taste and texture.

"Never give up a chance to eat or to pee!" was a saying I heard over and over as a young service member. I learned quickly after days of patrol to enjoy whatever food I was given (from C-Rats to MRE). And whenever we would "land" on a ship, we would gorge ourselves. The military made us very "versatile eaters". Great video, Ciao, L (Veteran)

The British stew is pronounced Makon-a-kee, as in the Scottish.

Don't you dare badmouth SOS! My dad was a cook in the Air corps during World War II and we ate SOS frequently as kids and enjoyed it immensely. I still do even though it's hard to find the chick beef.

I loved the ham and eggs C- rats that most folks didn't. Same with the lima beans. Fruit cocktail was for me a trade away item. The little packs of smokes were a nice thing too. The little round chocolate bars with the rice crispys in them I enjoyed more than those huge chunks of what was supposed to be fudge. All in all it could have been much worse.

Thanks 👍 Good video. I've had quite a few of the items you covered.

I still eat SOS. The recipe taught to me by my WW2 veteran father who served in the South Pacific, so I'm sure he ate a lot of it. Whenever I feel the need of some comfort food I go get the frozen version.

"dinner" = lunch "Supper" = dinner

As a US veteran, I'd gripe about the "food" we'd be given. But. In all honesty. "Something approaching foood" was better than nothing

My dad was in the Navy, do you know what turds on tar paper is, S O S but the toast was burned.

Early in my career in the USAF, 1978-90, we had C-Rations in the field. One of them was Beef and Potatoes...AKA boiled Corned beef with potatoes. It was so starchy and salty that you had to heat it up to eat it. If you didn't you had a pasty film in your mouth for hours or until you drank something hot to break it up. We also had A-Rations, which were a little better out in the field. The new MREs were not much better either.

BEST CARDBOARD THAT I HAVE EVER EATEN! I would have been disappointed if SPAM and hard tack had been omitted from your list.

Why do you seem to find horse meat so odd? Some of the finest steaks that I have ever eaten have been horse, and they are every bit as good in a stew.

I honestly thought Hard Tack wasn't eaten after the U.S. Civil War.

When i was in the army back in the 70's, SOS was made with ground beef instead of chipped. I still make it this way today. Sometimes, my late wife would serve it in my old mess kit on veterans day. lol

I have always loved SOS and I still do! I like the chipped beef version but it is impossible to find where I live. I use ground beef and make it often.

A decent version of SOS and coffee has got to be one of the world's best hangover breakfasts.

supplying troops on the battlefield is a challenging task, not only do you need to transport supplies, you also have to prepare the food, another challenge that was present even during the 2 world wars was the fact that food needed to be edible for long periods of time and not spoil quickly in harsh environments which is why canned foods were so heavily used as rations during the world wars

Let's see you never talked about spam you never opened a can of spam you did not eat a Spam sandwich in front of my dad spam was a subject you did not talk about. The servicemen got spam, the other servicemen were eating steak.

This isn't just a WW2 video.

My father was in the Medical Service Corps during WWII, stationed at that facility at the University of Chicago. They had shown me their "Guinea Pig" licenses. For all the meals that made it out to the troops, there were many others which were so bad they were not used. The people who worked at the Nutrition Labs were the taste testers. Mother said it was hard to believe how ghastly some of the food items were that they had to eat.

in 1978 during combat training, we were given old boxes of Cration's to eat at mid day while training. once i received a box of tuna that had been packaged in 1957. the tuna had turned an odd olive drab green color from the ink that was used to dye the can it was packaged in. i must say after eating it i was surprised to find it was some of the best tuna I've ever had....21 year old canned tuna! i had the can opener from it (called a P38) for several decades until i eventually lost it along with the key chain it was attached to. and no, we were not allowed to heat any of those rations during the entire training sessions.

Please fix the title. It should read " TOP 20 Brutal Foods SOLDIERS Ate During Past Wars".

Interesting history, but I have a suggestion for the video - I would leave out the clips of modern soldiers except for when they are specifically mentioned. The clips that were in context of their history were perfect, but then it constantly kept shifting to pictures and videos of modern soldiers while talking about world war II. I found it to be a little off-putting and it broke up my concentration of what was being said. Stick with photos of the time period and people being discussed, and I think it would be a lot better.

Several of these had absolutely nothing to do with ww2 and were not eaten by anyone at that time

I still love SOS and make it often. I once took a Navy life raft survival biscuit and put it in water. Thing expanded 10x it's original size, like one of those novelty dollar bill sponges!

SOS on toasted raisin bread is super!

Hey, I like SOS!

Thanks for the very interesting post ....

Cream chipped beef on toast 😂😂😂 In my Dad's day on aircraft carriers before, during and after Korea, He fondly recalled this as "Puke on a running board"! Hahaha 😂

Tradtonal German soldiers meal was Erbsensuppe/ pea soup from 1870 to 1945.

I feel like you can't bring up hardtack on KZfaq these days without the obligatory Max Miller "Clack! Clack!" snippet.

I'm beginning to think that you are not ever in the military. Because so many of the things you're talking about here were actually very good. After my years of service I actually went to Army surplus stores looking for C rations just to introduce my kids to the stuff that we ate in Vietnam.

What Nutella in modern Danish rations has to do with ww2?

Believe me when hungry all of this stuff taste great.

The first meal I ate in basic training was chipped beef on toast. I liked it! I still eat it once in a while.

During the war in Vietnam US Army Long Range Rcon Patrols were given freeze dried foods like the ones mountain house makes now. Light in weight and easy to carry they used water to reconstruct the meal, if water was scarce, they could be consumed in the dry state.

WWII soldiers received crackers and canned breads when no field kitchen was available. Hardtack hasn't been an item in US soldier rations since maybe WWI.

I ate sos in the navy, it was awesome. My mom was in the air force and she made a version with tuna. I know, it sounds weird but it actually tasted pretty good. Especially on cathead biscuits.

I had an older dad (am 'only' 56, he'd have been 103 this year). He served in WWII US Army Air Corp. He was stationed in London, and had been decorated. He was a navigator on the medium sized bombers that flew out over Berlin, and bombed it. He really did not talk about it much if at all and after WWII he served state side in Korea. Fortunately he loved food, many foods and could have Eastern European tastes, which was good, because his mom was a dairy chef, and lived with us. She could make things that might be frightening taste amazing. He was not averse to things like eating an onion. Like it was an apple. Or foods that were incredibly spicy at the time. He had mentioned shit on a shingle, but had not called it by the 's' word. We did not eat that at home. By the time I knew him I believe I heard him say ONE curse word. He was on the phone when I was about seven and my 'cousin' had just died in his very early twenties of of all things testicular (I had been told it was leukemia) cancer. I did not know until I was in my later thirties, and long after he had passed (young, 1980. Sudden) that in Korea he had been instructing his fellow soldiers in how to use their weapons, and had essentially been doing the role of his service (not sure if he'd moved on in that one to some other branch within the army) of, essentially, gunny. It was not that he did not know HOW to curse. Certainly is not as if he'd not have been very very good at it. But he never did it around us by the time I was born. He left that behind. I would so love to know though about what he had been able to get. I know that rationing in the UK was fierce then, and can be why we assume the Brits do not know what good food is (we had a great deal of experience with it as very narrow rationing!) I also know he'd have gotten honestly the best of the best options available at the time as a 'fly boy', as they could be treated very well. As usual I wish I could ask him, though he'd probably not have answered. Also found out later he'd been essentially running 'nylons and chocolate bars'. Left whatever he made to a British family. They made it hard to leave with it.

An interesting outgrowth of all these unusual meals: many of them got adapted for the food eaten by astronauts during the space program on both sides of the Iron Curtain in the 1960's. But it wasn't until the 1970's when larger Earth-orbiting space stations like US Skylab and the Russian Salyut that they could install heating ovens and electrical refrigerators to dramatically increase the variety of food available on space flights.

You could couple this with a feature on food civilians had to eat during wartime, it was after WW2 but there was fish from South Africa called snook, which was absolutely horrible apparently.

My grandfather was in the war. He personally loved S.O.S. he made it a few times. The way they made it was two variations, one with ground beef and the other with dried chipped beef. I personally preferred the chipped beef version. It's a meal I still make occasionally and remember my grandfather.

Pictures often have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

In 1983 at Ft. Benning during BCT, we got SOS. Ususally, it was accompanied by fried eggs and "pepper potatoes."

What are the small white pills being put into the bully beef?

Every late spring I'll plunder my garden for nettles to turn into soup served with plenty of bacon and fresh baked bread. I do leave some for the butterfly larvae, though. And as for nutella in danish ration: They're back, baby. Along with real rye bread! Jacob Haugaard also promised you'd always have the wind in your back when bicycling.

Whats with the marshmallow they are putting inside those cans?

Does STEVE1989MRE know that you used some of his original video footage for your video?

I serverd in the US Navy and then the US Army. I Loved Navy and Army SOS, and I STILL make SOS to this day. I am PA Dutch and I never heard it called anything other than SOS or Chipped Beef and Gravy on Toast. It can also be made with ground beef, ground pork, or pork sausage.

Nettle soup was around a LOT further back than the world wars.

I can't watch any more! It's bringing back horrible memories!

Very interesting content.

Stinging nettles, or "Brennesseln" as they are known in German, were an important, early-season wild green for my Austrian Alpine ancestors probably going all the way back to the time of Oetzi.

Worth watching for the pronunciation of “maconochie”, hilarious!

Had spam growing up, still eat it. I even bought the SPAM cookbook from the website

Im from Maryland and we still eat SOS or "Chipped beef on toast" on a regular basis , I have 3 jars of unopened "Chipped beef" in the cupboard right now and need to re-stock soon 👍 ❤

Will you credit any of the youtubers material this is composed of for example Hard Tack from Townsends and son or Nettle soup from Atomic Shrimp?

I thought macanochie stew was a WW1 food, and it referred to the company that made tinned beef that was used in the stew?

Also 99% of the footage is not even closelly related to the tipics treated in the video.

SOS. It lived in the Army mess halls at least into the mid 80's. Ate it many times in basic training

I loved SOS, the Popeye's Chain used to sell on Army Posts, an SOS made with sausage . . . .

Hard tack ,,,wormcastle,tooth dullers, ect,,,was civil war,,,,

Nutella was invented AFTER WWII ended. The first jar of Nutella left the factory on April 20, 1964.

We had SOS onboard the CarlVinson in the early 80s I liked it

29:50 Picture soldier is Lauri Törni alias Larry Thorne, who served Finn, Germany and US armys. He died in Vietnam war.

K Rations at 17:34. “Dinner” was not dinner; and “Supper” was not lunch. WWII US Army…”Dinner” was lunch, and “Supper” was the final meal of the day.

My dad was a Marine on saipan and tinian. He said the chicken was always green and rotten since it had to come from the US, through the panama canal and by the time it reached the tropical pacific it was not edible. He preferred the shit on a shingle.

SOS is good on toast or a biscuit. Spam goes good with rice or scrambled eggs. Some of the old C rations like the ham and Lima beans not that great but most not that bad if you can warm them up.

Nettles were apparently a regular item in 18th Century American cuisine.

Potato bread is great "shingle" on the side of today's Pennsylvania Dutchman's Creamed Chipped Beef on his fried potatoes on of my favorites

Never served but I hear the Vomelette MRE was the thing of nightmares