Civil Defense All Purpose Survival Crackers

[Music] fans of the history guy i know that i have this set behind me that's all full of stuff that i've collected and no we don't use a green screen that's all really back there that's all really my stuff in fact some people spend a lot of time looking at that stuff back there and they see when we move things around on that set and of all the stuff that's been back there one of the things that's raised the most question among our viewers is this big tank can right here now as far as i know i've never really opened it but as far as i know this can is full of civil defense all-purpose survival crackers and according to the can there's at least 62 crackers per pound and at least 419 crackers in this particular can and the stamp right over here says that this particular can was made in 1963 which would make it just about a year older than i am and well that's not really a long time in terms of saying human history it's a long time if you think about the life of a a cracker and it raises the question will the crackers inside that thing still be good to eat or would they you know kill you and that raises an interesting question about history or rather history of food and that is how long does food last because there are some types of food that according to the general idea at least are supposed to last a very long time there is of course the famous longevity of fruitcake made largely from already preserved ingredients like dried and candied fruits and nuts famously dense so as to resist bacteria and then douse with liquor to kill off any bad stuff there are legends of families mailing the same fruitcake back and forth for generations according to a 2018 story on the webpage mental floss fruitcake aficionados and yes there are such things actually prefer their fruitcake aged as that quote allows the tannins in the fruit to mellow although they do suggest that to preserve the cake you occasionally brush it with more alcohol to prevent mold from growing on the surface the website the spruce eats suggests that fruitcake should be aged for around two to three months before serving and notes that some fruitcake fans won't even touch a fruitcake until it's aged at least three years but exactly how long does fruitcake last according to a 2017 issue of usa today researchers discovered a fruitcake made by the brand huntley in palmers still in its tin in cape adair the oldest building in antarctica used by robert falcon scott's expedition from 1910 to 1913. though did not have a packed date the cake is presumed to be around 105 years old and is described as perfectly preserved and quote almost edible it is being preserved with other artifacts from the scot expedition in new zealand and there does not appear to be a plan for anyone to test the claim that it is almost edible in the article lizzie meek of antarctic heritage trust noted that there is no doubt that the extreme cold in antarctica has assisted in its preservation but older fruitcake has been tested according to nbc today 83 year old morgan ord of tecumseh california brought a carefully preserved 125 year old fruit cake made by his great-grandmother fidelia bates onto the tonight show with jay leno in 2006 and leno ate a bite he quipped it needs more time and as of the making of this episode the bite of cake has not killed jay leno but it is not generally recommended that you eat 125 year old fruit cake according to the united states department of agriculture fruitcake usually lasts about three to four months in the refrigerator and up to about a year in the freezer military rations are also designed for long shelf life i know as a boy scout growing up at plenty of k and c rations that were supposedly expired i read anecdotes and online forums where people claimed to have eaten some that were 50 years old or more in 2013 the website list verse told the story of a us army colonel henry moog who made a promise to himself that he would eat a canned pound cake issued to him during the vietnam war when he retired and he kept the promise at his retirement ceremony more than 40 years later in 2009 opening the can with the army issued can opener he said if it's not black i'm going to taste it the cake looked normal and when he tasted he smiled there's a link to a video of the colonel trying his pound cake in the description it's not really clear how long these rations are supposed to last but the general rule that if it's not black i'll taste it as a good enough rule experts say you shouldn't try anything that comes out of a can that appears to have been deformed but the shelf life of c rations might be tiny compared to a military predecessor hard tack sort of cracker that has existed since antiquity although probably most known by americans for its ubiquitous supply to soldiers on both sides of the u.s civil war the simple flower cracker it only has three ingredients flour water and salt is thoroughly dry so hard that it resists bacteria and weevils and teeth it's made to last and commonly made at least months before being issued heart attack over a year old was commonly issued during the civil war and there are persistent although unproven rumors that heart attack left over from the 1848 war with mexico was issued to civil war soldiers and that heart attack left over from the civil war was then issued more than 30 years later in the spanish-american war heart attack was a staple food both nutrient dense and resistant to spoilage for long sea voyages at least in tutor times and some survival pages say that it can remain edible for more than a hundred years in 2016 a youtuber named steve 1989 tried 153 year old hard attack that was left over from the civil war after several minutes of trying to soften it in water he tried it and said it tastes like rubber literally i feel like i'm biting down on an eraser but it doesn't seem to have killed him there is a link to the video in the description hardtack has killed however despite being nutrient dense it contains no vitamin c and ships crews that had to survive entirely in hard tack have suffered from scurvy of vitamin deficiency that causes according to medical news today anemia stability exhaustion spontaneous bleeding pain in the limbs and especially the legs swelling in some parts of the body and sometimes ulceration of the gums and loss of teeth and untreated can be fatal an estimated 2 million semen died of scurvy during the age of discovery so you certainly want to eat fresh food if you want to avoid spontaneous bleeding yet preserve food last longer than you might think according to the usda quite a lot of food is actually safely edible long after its listed shelf life on the usda webpage before you toss food check it out the department says it's happened to all of us you're looking for something in the freezer or pantry and discover food that has been forgotten your first impulse is to throw it out but wait is it still good chances are it is the department notes that many dates on foods refer to quality but not safety meaning the food may taste stale but it's still safe to eat if you for example find frozen hamburger at the bottom of your freezer as long as it's never been unfrozen it's likely safe to eat but they suggest using it to make say chili or tacos where the seasoning will make up for the lost flavor in fact they argue canned goods will last for years as long as the can itself is in good condition in 1974 the national food processors association tested some canned food that had been recovered from an 1865 steamboat wreck in the mississippi river they noted that the food which included peaches oysters plum tomatoes honey and mixed vegetables no longer appeared or smelled fresh but had no microbial growth and was safe to eat in fpa chemist jack dudak and edgar elkins reported that significant amounts of vitamins c and a were lost but protein levels remained high and all calcium values were comparable to today's products the usda also says that shelf items like pasta and cookies are usually good well beyond the shelf life that's listed on the package the department offers all sorts of advice on food storage as part of a program to try to reduce food waste in terms of survival food however there are some things that might surprise you wine is meant to age and some bottles as old as 300 years have been discovered and safely drank the oldest bottle of wine called the spire wine bottle was discovered in an excavation of a roman nobleman's tomb and is some sixteen hundred years old experts say that you could likely still drink the wine but one food that you might not realize is built to last is honey according to the smithsonian institute because honey is acidic and hygroscopic it never goes bad and creamy edible for quote millennia this verse notes that archaeologists have found honey in 5 000 year old pots in egyptian tombs that was still completely edible but there is a popular misconception about one particular food hostess twinkies are often said to last virtually forever but according to national public radio both hostess and twinkies experts disagree as a baked good twinkies definitely go bad the current version lists a shelf life of 45 days and while they are likely edible much longer like any cake they go dry when some twinkies have been preserved for as much as 40 years and they still look twinkie-like they are likely not at all safe to eat the oldest twinkie eating anecdote that i could find online came from a man named steve edinger who wrote the book twinkies deconstructed edinger said that he ate twinkies from a package that was eight years old and described them as hard but not spoiled but what about these survival crackers are they spoiled but before we try to answer that question let's ask the question about why we have giant tins of all-purpose survival crackers in the 1950s u.s government officials started talking about population survival in the case of nuclear war both man-made structures and natural caverns and abandoned mines the corps of engineers identified some 450 suitable caves throughout the country were certified as fallout shelters one office of civil defense film also suggested the use of wine cellars and quote large potato cellars as are found in southern idaho but the thinking of the time was not that survival would require years underground but just two weeks the general argument is that the radiation from a blast would dissipate quickly and lingering radiation could be washed off or avoided we need food and water to survive but if fallout settles on your food the food itself isn't harmed or made radioactive since radiation only damages living tissue you simply remove the fallout particles using everyday methods of food preparation peeling wiping or washing a 2017 edition of eater magazine described the government rationale for the crackers this is one of the oldest and most proven forms of food known to man paul fisher deputy assistant secretary of defense for civil defense explained to congress as he presented a plan to mass produce the crackers it has been the subsistence ration for many portions of the earth for thousands of years since shelf life has been established by being edible after 3 000 years an egyptian pyramid after millions of dollars and years of research it turned out that after a nuclear apocalypse the remnants of the american civilization would survive by chowing down on whole wheat crackers the government dubs its creation the all-purpose survival cracker according to the baltimore community museum each government shelter was recommended to stock 10 000 calories of food per person for a two-week stay which worked out to six small single cracker meals each day of precisely 125 calories each yup six crackers a day for two weeks at a cost of about 37 cents per person per day to fill the need the government purchased some 20 billion doomsday biscuits with a cumulative weight of 150 million pounds made with wheat flour corn flour corn sugar vegetable shortening salt leavening and a number of preservatives the crackers were made by a number of different companies the ones in this particular tin were made by the national biscuit company which you might better know as nabisco which today produces more than 320 million pounds of snack food annually under brand names like oreo and chips ahoy and making crackers like wheat thins and triscuits and very like these premium saltines but how long were these tins of crackers supposed to last government tests determined that after 52 months in storage the cracker suffered only a discernible but inconsequential decrease in flavor government experts asserted that the crackers would last essentially forever which turned out to be a bit optimistic the museum website notes that when some were sent to honduras as part of relief after a devastating earthquake in 1976 the crackers caused people severe gastric disturbances after a taste test of the old crackers in 1976 the chicago pine that in the case of nuclear war survival biscuits would be better used as weapons than as food please don't eat the biscuits the newspaper the missoulian noted in 2017 after some 500 boxes of crackers were found in university of montana shelters in 1978 the federal civil defense preparedness agency preparedness guide warned as a result of recent laboratory and other tests the high probability exists that all of the serial-based rations stored here have become rancid the guide suggests that the remaining stockpiles be destroyed but their usefulness as food had not ended because reportedly several millions of the cans of the crackers were ground up and used as chicken feed so in the end even the civil defense all-purpose survival crackers ended up like everything else tasting like chicken there are several videos online of people opening tins older than this and eating the crackers inside although most of those tins are less corroded than this one appears to be i put a link to one of those in the description and if you're wondering am i going to do that am i going to open this up and test out the crackers inside the answer is no but for no other reason then i see this as a piece of history and i don't think it's my job to eat the historical artifacts still this represents a really interesting time in history a time when the us government thought that it could save the american population with 20 billion crackers and stories like that are the reason that i became the history guy i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section i will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 159,607

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, survival food, fruitcake, military rations, civil defense, us history

Id: x7eeFRp7xjU

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 04 2020