Article di bawah mengenai tabiat makan menurut kajian penulis buku the Taste of War.. dimana perubahan mendadak selepas beberapa ketika makanan dicatu kerana perang, menyebabkan orang pulun makan dan makan macam tiada esok.. letusan peningkatan makanan meningkat secara mendadak kerana selepas kekurangan makanan dan pulih ekonomi semasa maka penggunaan makanan naik kerana citarasa bertambah..
Article taken from the TELEGRAPH with many thanks.
The Taste of War (Allen Lane, £30),
While Britons often marched on hard tack biscuits and corned beef, American 'K' ration packs were overflowing with veal, Spam, sausage, fruit bars, crackers, cheese, chewing gum and a packet of lemon crystals to ward against scurvy. German 'iron rations' were meagre by comparison – 'a packet of hard biscuits and a can of meat'.
'How these dough boys do feed,' wrote a British prisoner of war liberated by Americans. 'Porridge and cream and peaches, white bread and jam, pancakes and syrup.' Wherever they travelled the American servicemen brought with them tinned sweetcorn, Hershey bars and Coca-Cola. One soldier wrote home: 'To have this drink is just like having home brought nearer to you.'
In 1945 war ended but austerity continued. A vision of a better life was offered by the Care food packages sent to Europe by America. The world over, people were discovering the delights of American processed foods: sugary breakfast cereals, tinned fruit cocktail. Collingham suggests that one of the effects of war was to homogenise the world's tastes: 'Virtually every part of the globe acquired a taste for Coca-Cola and Spam.'
War left us with a toxic legacy: new unhealthy tastes plus an unquenchable hunger. Collingham writes that 'as soon as economic recovery allowed' there was an 'explosion of consumption throughout the developed world'. When Britain came off rationing in 1954 our butter consumption doubled and our sugar intake rocketed to 500g per person per week.
Life is abundant now. There is no need to gorge. Yet many of those born decades after VE day are still eating with the same urgent sugar-hunger of the children of war.
Article taken from the TELEGRAPH with many thanks.
The Taste of War (Allen Lane, £30),
Why are we so much fatter than previous generations? One in four Britons is now obese. Many reasons have been suggested for our ballooning girth. A decline in school sports, and activity levels in general. Television and computer games. Slack parenting. Super-size portions in fast-food restaurants. But maybe we are missing something really obvious in all this.
In her groundbreaking new book, The Taste of War (Allen Lane, £30), the historian Lizzie Collingham shows how our culture of overeating emerged from the Second World War. A desire to gorge was a logical response to the deprivations of war. 'Many Europeans spent the war years craving red meat, white bread spread generously with butter, sweet cakes and biscuits, and when in the 1950s they were able to satisfy these desires a wave of consumption swept over western Europe.'
Collingham's is hardly the first book to appear on wartime food. There have been countless works on digging for victory, dried eggs and ration books. But Collingham is the first to tackle wartime food across the globe. She shows how German ambition for self-sufficiency was one of the causes of the conflict.
Much of the book makes grim reading, as she depicts the experience of famine in Stalinist Russia and imperial Japan (incidentally, if you feel like an evening crying on the sofa, one of the most powerful films I have ever seen is Grave of the Fireflies, an animated movie about two children starving in wartime Japan).
By contrast, the Americans seemed to bask in plenty. Wherever they went, American soldiers had more food than anyone. In Australia GIs annoyed locals with their thirst for milkshakes, which left children low on milk. American demands for fried chicken pushed up the price of poultry
'How these dough boys do feed,' wrote a British prisoner of war liberated by Americans. 'Porridge and cream and peaches, white bread and jam, pancakes and syrup.' Wherever they travelled the American servicemen brought with them tinned sweetcorn, Hershey bars and Coca-Cola. One soldier wrote home: 'To have this drink is just like having home brought nearer to you.'
In 1945 war ended but austerity continued. A vision of a better life was offered by the Care food packages sent to Europe by America. The world over, people were discovering the delights of American processed foods: sugary breakfast cereals, tinned fruit cocktail. Collingham suggests that one of the effects of war was to homogenise the world's tastes: 'Virtually every part of the globe acquired a taste for Coca-Cola and Spam.'
War left us with a toxic legacy: new unhealthy tastes plus an unquenchable hunger. Collingham writes that 'as soon as economic recovery allowed' there was an 'explosion of consumption throughout the developed world'. When Britain came off rationing in 1954 our butter consumption doubled and our sugar intake rocketed to 500g per person per week.
Life is abundant now. There is no need to gorge. Yet many of those born decades after VE day are still eating with the same urgent sugar-hunger of the children of war.
