That's what I did. They were small lol. I'd sometimes get a med or large and keep the left overs under my bed in the box. I'm trying to imagine eating keto onboard a ship. The cooks (their job title was MS - Mess Specialists) could certainly do it. I'm also trying to imagine Keto MREs (meals ready to eat) - the modern day k-rations. I'd stock up on those in a heartbeat!

I'm the daughter of a career military man and grew up on military bases around the world. I can tell you unequivocally that, even when I was a kid in the 60s which was before fast-food places became ubiquitous, the mile or two leading up to the gates of every single military base were LINED with restaurants, shops selling foodstuffs, and various "entertainment opportunities" for the troops!
As soon as a base opens, entrepreneurs grab the land outside the gates and plop some sort of shop down so they can sell something to the troops! Even in Japan and Germany, there were candy shops and bars and "adult entertainment" shops within a few feet of the front gate.

My first job was at a doughnut shop within easy walking distance of the front gate of the base we were living on at that time... and at least 90% of our customers were in uniform. I doubt that there is a military base in the U.S. that doesn't have at least one doughnut shop plus half a dozen other fast food outlets within half a mile of the front gate.

Well there you have it!!

Then combine that with feeding hundreds at a time so probably big pots of rice or noodles with bits of meat.

I remember my mother making a fav for my Dad from his military days, it was called SOS=Shit on Shingles. It was ground beef thickened with a sauce of flour/milk and served over toast.

Oh GAWD! Did you have to remind me of that? It definitely was not a "fave" for us, it was PRE-payday fare for when you were trying to stretch the last of the groceries in the cupboard to the end of the month. Instead of fresh ground beef tho, Mom usually made it with chipped beef (dried beef that came in a jar) or - even worse - sometime with SPAM. The jars of chipped beef and spam could be purchased when there was extra money and stored away until they were needed because some unexpected extra expense (like a car repair bill) took part of the grocery money.

For ground Beef, we had a freezer of meat that was from an old bull that was so lean and chewy that it would not stick together for a patty and you had gristle in every bite. It was so gross. I remember asking...begging, Can we ever have chicken or something else ??

I forgot about Spam, did you know that in Hawaii they have it in about 20 different flavors, left over from WWII but new with all of the flavors. They even make sushi with it!

I like Spam and SOS.

My mom made SOS with Chipped Beef. Really thin slices of beef & gravy over toast. I’d never eat that now. My Dad ate Deviled Ham and Potted Meat. Came in little round cans. It was horrible. And how about Head Cheese. No Thank You.

I loved when my grandma made SOS!!!! ❤️ My grandfather was retired Army.

When I was in college, I remember some of my classmates who were applying for the chaplaincy programs freaking out about having to lose their college weight. So, some did the reduced calorie thing with limited success. But one of my friends did low carb, but waited till the last minute to start his “diet”. He did make the the cut and was accepted. My two other friends who did the low calorie plans did not.

For the longest time, that was the first thing I'd look for if I found myself at a restaurant for breakfast - sos. Not chipped beef on toast, shit on a shingle! If I saw it I'd give a hallelujah and quickly make my order lol.

I don't remember having that until I got to my permanent post - I loved it!

In WAC basic training (many, many years ago) we were served a lot of starchy foods. The desserts were nothing to write home about, but we were allowed to buy candy - M&Ms were popular.

In spite of all the physical activity, most of us gained weight. I wonder why?

Other than basic and other specific training programs, personnel don't get called out for PT every day and many have fairly sedentary jobs. Intelligence, admin, logistics, even more hands-on jobs like mechanics or cooks aren't super active jobs.
I was just keeping the list to military, since that's what the article was about, but definitely all those, too.

My dad is 78, and was in the Army for 8 years, and dirt-poor growing up. His tragically-single (father ran off) mom had 7 kids. (They would have starved if the Mormon church folk hadn't left gift baskets of food on their porch regularly. His mom ate every other day so the kids could have enough food. Gah! That was pre-welfare obviously.) HE LOVES SOS. With the thick gravy, over potatoes. My stepmom and I cannot fathom what he sees in it. I think it's that to us it's poor-man's food and to him it's childhood "OMG we get FOOD!"



That is truly excellent.

Now about the randomization etc. To my mind, every diet test, is not just testing the dietary part, they are testing the COMPLIANCE part. Now this is obviously a critical element of any diet -- though it is a *different* part that I feel should be measured separately.

I seldom believe ANY research about what people are truly eating or doing unless there is very tight daily measuring or actual observation going on. If ever there were a group of people less likely to omit info on a "report what you ate this day/week" study than new dieters I don't know who it'd be.

However, there are confounding factors with this. Lowcarb for example is far easier to comply with in terms of hunger and satiety. But it is very difficult for most -- and nearly impossible without herculean willpower for others -- to live in our modern world and eat LC when almost every tiniest thing is absolutely stuffed with carbs. Once we do it for years, we're pretty good on choosing from menus (or fasting for the meal), or getting family to eat LC so we aren't baking bread and and dinner pastas and desserts for the fam while trying to not eat anything, because that's just crazy. There are surely alcoholics who went clean while working as bartender but pretty damn few. But the first period -- which can be years for some -- is a big adjustment.

I used to say trying to LC in the modern world was like "Trying to be Amish in New York." Of course that was a long time ago and the LC, Carnivore, Paleo, Primal, Keto diet explosion on the internet has resulted in a massively easier time of it with expanded menus and support.

Still, I feel like any study that can be affected by compliance usually will be, and that in many respects this is a greater imposition upon the lowcarb part of the study than the highcarb. That's for most studies where people are still in the highcarb world. If everyone were in a lab environment with free feeding, the benefit would go to LC.

Anyway it kind of evens out I imagine but I suspect that if you could have two groups both with close to full compliance, and excluding those who violated it by some %, the LC results would always kick ass comparatively. In this study's case, they measured daily and ensured the LC group were actually IN ketosis, so to me that means they were compliant (close enough to stay keto)... hence the really good results.

*

Don't forget one thing though: In her book about the food pyramid, Denise Minger said something like (fuzzy recall) the woman PhD who was responsible for the first US government (well, USDA) food recommendations, admitted that the science recommendations were different, but that the government due to welfare couldn't afford to feed people better, grains are really cheap (and of course the USDA exists to sell them), and so that skewed the "official" recommendations hard in that direction.

The government feeds military personnel, too. I'm sure they do not want to be responsible for buying a great deal more animal protein rather than enough pasta and yeast rolls to make the high-end of bell-curve carb-responders like me just explode. And I bet a ton of their 'food' comes from partnerships with gigantic grain/sugar-food corporations. Literally, a shift to low carb feeding will never happen there, I feel pretty certain.

However, them ALLOWING low-carb as a dietary strategy would be a GREAT thing.

PJ

Good points and I agree, the military has a certain rigor to much they do, so the results are meaningful, the WOE is manageable, and they obviously are taking this seriously.



Agreed, and it's consistent with how Virta health measures compliance. The presence of blood ketones are a sound indication.


Can't argue this one, whether its the military or the general population, we'll always have the heavily subsidized, readily available, cheaper option of grains and grain-based food products. What is forgotten is the high price we pay for the diseases and required care resulting from the consumption of these "food" products.

I suspect this has been the crux of more than one civilization. The cheap and long-storing nature of grains, the appeal of them processed, and the subsequent mayhem likely followed in the wake of sugar, too.