Pemmican was C, D, K Rations (1942); MRE (1978)

[Page Stephens]

A friend of mine who was a physiologist recently deceased dammit helped the
US develop a new form of pemmican as a hard ration during WWII. It had very
little relationship to pemmican as it was known to native Americans:

To get more information on the origins of the term pemmican look up the
following url.

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/notukeu/pemmican_e1.htm

The reason my friend Robert Johnson who was a physiologist helped develop
this new form of pemmican was because according to their knowledge at the
time the native American/eskimo recipe was inadequate for nutrition.

The new formulation of pemmican was criticized by such people as Vilhjamur
Stefansson the Arctic explorer whose belief in the virtues of a mostly fat
and protein diet predated Atkins's ideas on the subject by almost 30 years.

Any more information you might have on this subject would be of interest to
me.

Page Stephens

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Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 10:22 PM
Subject: C, D, K Rations (1942); MRE (1978)


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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
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> Subject:      C, D, K Rations (1942); MRE (1978)
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>
> C, D, K RATIONS
>
> http://www.ww2rationtechnologies.com/History.html
>
>    OED has 1944 for K-rations, which is too late.  Merriam-Webster has
1940, which is too early.  They were developed in 1942.  Supposedly, it's
after the name Ancel Benjamin Keys (a physiologist), but I don't have an
early citation for this.  The LOC's American Memory database has some 1943
pictures.
>
>    8 August 1942, NEW YORK TIMES, pg.?:
>    Emergency C, D, and K rations, it was added, are to be packed in nailed
wood boxes only.
>
>    14 March 1943, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. S11:
>    To facilitate movement of pitted prunes used for Army K rations, OPA
has set specific maximum prices at which they may be sold by processors.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> MRE
>
>    We discussed this in June 2002, and "MRE" is still not in the revised
OED.  The initals were used before the Gulf War and before the 1980s.
>
>    31 December 1978, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. E6:
>    ...MRE, (Meal, Ready-to-Eat).
>
> (If they're going to Iraq, our troops deserve better than SPAM--ed.)