There be two things necessary in wars, tactics and cooking. Now the first of these comes in use when the captains speak of their achievements and the historians write of the wars. Tactics is a learned thing and the wars may not be told without it; but while the war rageth and the men be camped upon the foughten field, then it is time for cooking; for many a man that fights the wars, if he hath not his food, were well content to let the enemy live; but feed him, and at once he be- cometh proud at heart and cannot a-bear the sight of the enemy walking among his tents, but must needs slay him outright. Aye! the cooking for the wars, and when the wars are over you who are learned shall study tactics.—From an old manuscript.
Generally speaking, the rise and fall of a nation parallels that of its man power. Should national emergencies of the future necessitate it, the man power of the nation will probably again be inducted into the military and naval services, some current opinion to the contrary. Therefore, in order that such man power may be used to the fullest possible extent, it must be classified according to physique as well as to trades or vocations. An understanding of the needs of the human body under varying conditions of duty and climate is an essential part of the knowledge which every officer should have. The machinery of life is as technical and as complicated as the machinery of science and less understood by the layman. To some extent this lack of knowledge is a mental stabilizer, for there are many who, if better informed as to their physical make-up, would be the victims of scores of imaginary ills.
Nothing can destroy more quickly the efficiency of a command than a poor mess. The mental attitude of a crew is influenced to a very great extent by the quality and quantity of food served; especially is this true when other ships in the vicinity are reputed to have excellent messes. However, it is necessary at times to distinguish between a crew dissatisfied with the character of food served and the same crew dissatisfied with general conditions on board and using, as the more tangible excuse, the condition of the general mess. Such a situation demands rare tact and discrimination on the part of the officers concerned.
The present navy ration and system of messing is not a makeshift or a temporary structure. It is not the result of any particular individual’s ingenuity. On the contrary, it is the result of years of planning, wherein ration components and costs have played the major part, followed by numerous changes therein so that the nutritive aspect of the ration might keep pace with modern research along these lines. We may say then that the ration is fundamentally sound. Our problem revolves around storage, preparation, and serving, keeping in mind variety, nutritive value, and costs; with the health of the crew the factor of greatest consequence. Some may say that the cost of ration is the main factor, but such is not the case where good management obtains. Navy rationing has little in common with the system used by the Army. Not only are the ration constituents at variance, but the organization and administrative features are dissimilar. It appears that at many Army posts the complement is recruited from the immediate vicinity insofar as practicable, and an attempt is made to keep these men near their homes throughout their enlistment. It is not so difficult to administer to the localized tastes of such a group. Such a condition will never obtain in the naval service or in other organizations of such a mobile nature.
Fundamentally, we are a country with a “bread, meat, and potato’’ diet. Such a diet is faulty, but it does form the basis for a well-balanced ration, rich in calorific value and high in vitamin content. One of the main drawbacks in service messes is the necessity for giving the hardest-worked personnel sufficient food, which, in turn, gives those doing less manual labor a more than sufficient diet. Under the present system of messing this cannot be guarded against, but the time may not be far away when messes will be arranged according to amount of Physical labor performed. The result will be a lower and more uniform ration cost, fewer sick days, and smaller waistlines.
There seems to be a popular fallacy that brain activity requires certain foods, but actual experiments have shown that mental activity does not increase the calorific needs of the body. Most jobs requiring mental activity are desk jobs, and for this reason such individuals should consume less food, particularly during working hours, in order to prevent overburdening of digestive organs and drawing the blood supply away from the brain. Men at hard labor and growing children require more protein than do people of sedentary occupations. The fat component differs widely as between races, the Esquimaux consuming large quantities, the Arab practically none.
It is an observed fact that men with well-kept bodies are generally the more efficient in a command, more exacting, neater in appearance, above average in conduct. This should not be construed to mean that the ordinary run of ship athletes are more efficient. But the majority of men who are chronic trouble makers on board, those who nil the pages of the report book, are usually those with the largest number of days on sick report. Physical, moral, and vocational standards seem to run hand in hand.
The early students of nutrition assumed that the human body was a machine for the combustion of food, acting somewhat like the steam engine. With the steam engine, heat and hence power are produced by the oxidation of fuel. The human body obtains its energy and heat from the oxidation of food. In addition, the body stores a Part of the food consumed, mostly in the form of fat. Early authorities believed that as long as certain amounts of protein, fat, and carbohydrates were fed into the human system a normal state of health should result. It is only within the last two decades that these assumptions have been proved partially erroneous. The error was brought out through experiments conducted by feeding animals quantities of purified protein, sugar, etc. The results were such that it was apparent there must be other substances necessary to maintain the normal processes of life. Resultant studies brought out the fact that there was an indefinable and somewhat intangible factor necessarily present or unfortunately lacking in foodstuffs, which for want of a better name became known as the vitamin.
Many of us know something about foodstuffs, that is, we make economical purchases, prorate our ration constituents to give variety, stock our storerooms with the items we consider necessary for a cruise. Then, with a certain amount of satisfaction (in some cases trepidation) we call in the commissary steward and climax the day’s work with the laconic “Do your best”— brevity being one of the qualities of an efficient and experienced officer. But in reality, the more important phases of mess management are yet to be done. The first thing to be discarded is the timeworn practice whereby the menu reflects the day of the week. For example, a supply officer of many years’ experience stated recently that if he knew where certain commissary stewards were serving he could tell what those particular ships or stations were having for dinner. Other very common weaknesses in modern messes include a lack of sufficient desserts, lack of variety, and a failure to serve proper combinations which appeal to the eye as well as to taste.
In food planning and preparation of menus certain other factors must be considered. First, costs vary with number of men to be served; second, individuality in mess management should be shown; third, meat is always a desired item in any mess where men are being served. This last factor is as necessary from a psychological as from a physiological standpoint.
We hear a great deal of calorific and vitamin value of proteins, carbohydrates, minerals, and fats. It would seem more appropriate and much more understandable to classify foods by their action, i.e., fuel, building, and regulating. The regulating foods are probably the least used, and in some respects are the most desirable. Certainly they play an important part in health. Bulk foods, such as sauerkraut, spinach, lettuce, and whole grain cereals, are examples of regulating foods that bring about better peristaltic action of the intestines and cleanse the system. They tend, also, to irritate the digestive tract to an extent sufficient to promote blood circulation and facilitate the absorption of digestible nutrients.
Personal idiosyncrasies have a bearing upon the kind and quantity of food required, and upon the methods of preparation. The supervisory officer of any mess should see to it that whims and fads do not take the place of good wholesome food in the proper quantity and variety. There is also a common idea among mess officers that only the best cuts of meat and the fancy grades of canned goods will produce a wholesome and palatable meal of high nutritive content. As a matter of fact, the chuck or round of beef may be just as palatable and nutritious as a good tenderloin. In addition, the grades of extra standard and choice, which are the respective qualities of canned vegetables and canned fruits used in the Navy, suffer in comparison with fancy grades in appearance only, and even this difference is noticeable only to experts.
In the eighteenth century the French government, as a military measure, offered a bounty of 12,000 francs to any one who could improve the method of preserving foods. One Nicholas Appert, a brewer and confectioner, experimented from 1795 to 1810 before he perfected his art to the point where he received the award. Although more than a century has passed since Appert discovered that sealed containers and high-processing temperatures were necessary to preserve food, the art of canning today is not mathematically precise. But it has developed sufficiently to offset the personal prejudice against it, which has little foundation today.
Recent researches have shown conclusively the stability of vitamins in canned foods. Oxidation, more than heat, is the principal cause of vitamin destruction therefore we should expect less destruction when heating is done in hermetically sealed containers, as is the custom in the canning industry. However, no one should infer that raw fresh foods should be dispensed with in the normal diet. In the process of canning, the can, after being filled and sealed, is subjected to a temperature high enough to heat the contents from 190° to 240° in order to kill possible bacteria and still escape caramelization of those products canned in sugar. Upon opening the can and reheating the contents preparatory to serving, there is an additional guaranty that the food will be free from harmful bacteria.
Under normal peace conditions and with modern distribution facilities we should experience little difficulty in maintaining a ration so well balanced as to avoid malnutrition and subsequent deficiency diseases. In fact, the possibilities may seem so remote as to question the necessity of reference to them here. However, scurvy was fairly prevalent during the World War among the armies of Europe, the freedom from that disease in the American forces being attributable to the liberal supply of canned tomatoes. The experiences of the British in the Dardanelles and in Mesopotamia during the World War are very interesting from the standpoint of the faulty diets on which the soldiers had to subsist. The British soldiers, forced to subsist on canned meats, white bread, and other preserved foods, were confronted with a number of outbreaks of beriberi due to the lack of vitamin B. Another interesting outbreak occurred during the World War on the German raider Kronprinz Wilhelm. This was a combination of both scurvy and beriberi. The deficiency in the diet was due to a lack of fresh fruits and vegetables. A deficient diet may not terminate in scurvy, beriberi, or pellagra, but it may lower body resistance until the individual is liable to contract any one of the common diseases.
Cooking enhances the nutritive value of food. It is a matter of common experience that well-cooked food is wholesome and appetizing, while the same material badly cooked is unpalatable. Cooking serves three purposes. The first is to change the mechanical condition so that the digestive juices can act upon the food more freely. Heating changes the structure of foods very materially, so that they can be chewed and more easily and thoroughly digested. The second is to make it more appetizing by improving appearance and flavor. Food which is attractive to the taste quickens the flow of saliva and other digestive juices and aids digestion. The third is to kill by heat any disease germs, parasites, or other dangerous organisms. In navy messes the preparation of food requires adequate and continuous supervision on the part of officers administering messes.
Constant use has made us so familiar with our ordinary foods that we seldom realize how complicated they are; yet a thorough understanding of them takes us far, not only in chemistry, but into physics and physiology as well.