There's a possibly apocryphal story about a Japanese higher-up who realized the war was lost when the ice cream barges showed up, because the Allies had that much spare resources for a treat while the Japanese troops were starving in the jungles.
_carbyau_ · 17h ago
At it's heart a battle is a logistic operation to make an impact.
A battle rifle fired bullet is a delivery; working back from that bullet as to how it got fired reveals a "tyranny of the rocket equation" kind of logistics.
If your opposition has something as basic as food while you don't. Well,
logistics is broken == "ability to make an impact" is broken
teachrdan · 20h ago
I've heard the same said about German POWs in WWII. Towards the end of the war, when they were served tea and biscuits while their comrades in the field starved, they knew the British (and Allies more generally) were going to win.
ashoeafoot · 16h ago
The absence of horses
rasz · 10h ago
russians are running donkeys nowadays in Ukraine, doesnt seem to break their morale at all
carabiner · 19h ago
There's also the version with the NY cheesecake.
idontwantthis · 18h ago
I heard of a Boston Apple Pie.
wagwang · 22h ago
thats what happens when you have 1 support unit per in field troop instead of 36.
psunavy03 · 22h ago
Two beers per head are still authorized after 45 days underway when there's no port call scheduled in the next two weeks. But they still make a bureaucratic circus out of it to avoid hoarding and trading. They crack the beers before they give them to you so you can't stash them.
cabinguy · 21h ago
I had that happen once in my three years in the fleet and they didn’t open them for us (long time ago). We did have kegs & BBQ on the pier in GITMO once, too (“pigs on the pier”). I was in when they were just starting a/the tobacco ban on the ship. You could smoke them, but you couldn’t buy them . It created an excellent black market opportunity for entrepreneurs onboard. Last fun fact - my ship was catered by Krispy Kreme donuts every morning when we were in port - long, long before they were a nationwide brand.
GJim · 9h ago
> Two beers per head are still authorized after 45 days underway
Good God!
In the Royal Navy its 3 beers per man per day, every day. (Coke tin sized or 2 beers if the tins are larger, depends what the NAAFI ordered in). There are usually a few extra tins going spare if you want it and a blind eye turned, though getting drunk on board (let alone on duty) is a serious offence. Frankly, its rare for anyone to act like a knob.
Mate, two beers is 45 days is mad. No way are us British going to sign up for that!
lotsofpulp · 6h ago
Based on how it effects health, drinking alcohol regularly is mad, especially as often as daily.
GJim · 5h ago
Life is full of choices. And the choice to enjoy oneself and not live on a diet of rabbit food is one such.
lotsofpulp · 4h ago
Obviously, but 2 beers per day has significant health risks, not to mention the other risks such as becoming alcoholic and all the societal costs that come with that. And seems like an odd habit to cultivate for a country that wants to pay for its citizens’ healthcare.
The same reasoning applies for daily consumption of high amounts of calories from sweet drinks and snacks.
There is a large spectrum between this and rabbit food.
low_common · 3h ago
You're so cool dude, enlighten us more.
psunavy03 · 5h ago
Eventually we're all going to die . . .
lotsofpulp · 2h ago
But not before consuming tons of taxpayer funds for healthcare due to excess alcohol/calorie consumption.
GJim · 2h ago
> consuming tons of taxpayer funds for healthcare
Ah, so that's what this is about. Your objection to universal healthcare and a desire to regulate other peoples personal lives based on your own morals.
lotsofpulp · 2h ago
I don’t want to regulate anyone’s life.
But if to want society’s resources, seems fair for society to want something from you.
People don’t seem to have a problem with dangerous drivers paying more for auto liability insurance. In the US, we subsidize healthcare costs from alcohol use and overeating, but we explicitly charge people more for healthcare costs due to tobacco use.
It’s all just various political tribes flexing on who can get away with what.
yamazakiwi · 21h ago
Never happened to me once and I was deployed multiple times longer than that, it depends on your captain and command I guess.
One of the many funny stories an ex-sailor friend of mine told me was that the crew on his ship would take blood thinners so they could get drunk on two beers...
madaxe_again · 20h ago
It couldn’t be more of a contrast to the Royal Navy - my grandfather served from the mid 50s until the late 70s, and not only did they still have rum rations until 1970, but they dished out Valium like candy. The way he tells it most of the crew were high or drunk most of the time, and would end up laughing in situations that would otherwise result in brown trousers.
RichardCA · 2h ago
Monty Python did a skit about it, along with a Terry Gilliam animated bit.
Two beers per 45 days at sea, and only if no port call is scheduled for 14 more days.
Ships usually pull into port somewhere in the world more often than every 45 days outside of large-scale combat.
yamazakiwi · 20h ago
Depends on your command, I was forward deployed and most of our deployments were longer than 45 days without port.
Could be different now
yamazakiwi · 21h ago
Once, per deployment that meets that requirement
adriand · 21h ago
Of all the reasons I would not enlist in the military, this one never occurred to me, but it is now probably in my top five.
yamazakiwi · 21h ago
This is a common reason that Sailors are known for partying after long deployments.
Imagine you are 21 and unable to spend money, have free housing (the ship) and free food, then you land in a foreign country where you can finally drink after 8 months at sea with all the money you saved.
It's high high's and low low's
psunavy03 · 3h ago
This is US Navy-specific, and the person you are replying to seems to have a dated experience of when beer days are authorized. It's every 45 days underway without a port call in sight, and this is governed by formal published regulations. Most ships pull into port at least every 30-40 days outside of major combat.
Ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror were under General Order #1, which prohibited alcohol in theater, but elsewhere like Djibouti and Qatar were authorized three beers a day maximum.
IncreasePosts · 21h ago
How far we've regressed. 400 years ago you would get a gallon of beer per day if you were a sailor.
Aeolun · 11h ago
Probably a bit more physically intense work and drinking water was more or less unsafe. If you want your sailors to live you better feed them beer.
archontes · 20h ago
Navy-strength rum.
former_navy_843 · 21h ago
Officially, the Navy switched from alcohol to ice cream. Unofficially, when I served in the US Navy in the 2000s I was surrounded by the most extreme levels of alcohol consumption I'd ever seen, by far. In the US Navy today, on any ship you will find people who get blackout drunk several nights per week every week. Junior and senior. The Chief of the Boat on my submarine regularly showed up to work drunk, haven driven himself to work. The Topside Watch reported him multiple times and it was always swept under the rug. We had nuclear reactor operators who snuck bottles of liquor onto the ship to drink while at sea. It was standard practice for Chiefs to take their divisions to bars and pay for their drinks all night so they could be drunk and immobile under Chief's supervision instead of drunk and mobile out in public. Our head Engineering Officer made a joke one day how it wasn't a problem that one of the reactor operators was drunk because "this is nothing new, we always start the reactor up drunk during WestPac". Extreme alcoholism is still rampant in the US Navy, and that includes among the people who operate the nuclear power plants and the people who guard the nuclear weapons. But yes, they also have ice cream now.
yamazakiwi · 20h ago
While everything you said does happen, it is not everyone, nor is it every command.
In my 4 years we never had a single sailor show up to work drunk at my command, even once. They would be reprimanded. They might showup hungover sure, but not drunk. I did hear stories from other ships about a few high ranking officers showing up to base drunk but those were isolated incidents.
I never talked to anyone who had ever snuck alcohol on the ship and I was cool with everyone. I was on a destroyer so maybe on a larger ship this is easier to get away with.
I myself had my Liberty removed for 6 months because some kid who was not invited to our party stole 2 bottles of alcohol from us and got blackout. We found him in the beach bathroom passed out on the ground and had to physically carry him for a 45 minute walk back to base. He was in the hospital for 3 days. We lost our privilege to leave the ship for 6 months.
Let's be honest. Being in the Navy is terrible, alcohol is the way the culture copes with how terrible it is. You experience so much bullshit that the only thing that keeps you going is the idea that one day you'll get back to land and be able to get wasted. The problem is you can't drink or celebrate at sea so people go overboard once they get back on land. Yeah people get too drunk and drink too much, but so do college kids, which are the same age as many of these sailors.
CobaltFire · 17h ago
I'm not sure when you would have served, but it sounds like you had a solid command.
I dealt with things ranging from exactly what the parent said (see my sibling comment to yours), to having to do a medical call away for someone non-responsive being brought across the quarterdeck at 2357 (in 2015; that individual had to get their stomach pumped and an AED administered twice on the way to the hospital in Okinawa). I dealt with any number of drunk at work issues as both a Chief and as a Security Manager (surprise, that's one that will get your clearance impacted). The number of DUI's I dealt with was far down, but the amount of alcohol driven domestic violence that came across my desk was... well that was the main reason I didn't take the civilian position I was offered (as the Security Manager at my final command).
yamazakiwi · 2h ago
2008 - 2012 in Yokosuka
CobaltFire · 17h ago
As an ex-Sub RO, specifically during the 2000's in Pearl Harbor:
Yeah, this sounds 100% true. I could have typed this, and at one point I was one of those bringing a bottle underway (though I was never drunk on watch; it was due to our ports having no alcohol). Honestly given how alcoholic half the crew was if there wasn't alcohol onboard (just to stop the withdrawals) the boat probably would have had to cancel the underway.
I can say that by the time I retired (2023) it was nothing like that. The ERB's in the 2011 timeframe wiped out an absolute TON of manpower but it did have the desired effect of destroying that culture almost immediately. Anyone with even a hint of alcohol issues in their record was sent packing with no recourse.
Prior to those ERB's the running joke was you had to have a DUI to be promoted to Chief. After that a DUI was not technically disqualifying, but was in reality a career ending event. Overnight things went to a culture of being afraid of doing anything that could get you caught out by a future ERB if you escaped that one.
It also caused the manpower issues we see now though, resulting in the manning shortfalls that are most critical in 7th Fleet. That fleet sees the worst shortfalls because it is the one that requires people to live overseas (Japan and Guam), which can be a hard sell. On top of that the deployment cycle has a far higher optempo; generally I spent 60-70% of a given tour on deployments. The rest of the Navy sees between 35% and 40% (outside of SOCOM commands). There's an ongoing impression that you have 7th Fleet Sailor's, then the rest of the Navy, as the Sailor's who like 7th Fleet don't want to go elsewhere and the rest of the Navy has no desire to join them.
Note: I was a 7th Fleet Sailor for most of my career; that stint in Pearl Harbor was the only Sea Duty I did outside of there.
killjoywashere · 14h ago
Bob?
CobaltFire · 13h ago
Nope, I'm not a Bob.
Kind of wish I was a sentient intergalactic probe some days though.
codyb · 21h ago
Just wrapped up reading "The British are Coming" by Rick Atkinson (great book!) about the start of the American Revolution and half the letters from the generals were in request for or talked of shipments of rum and mead and wine. Many captured soldiers were just the ones too drunk to flee when they needed to.
It was a brutal endeavor. They did not have ice cream.
No comments yet
pyuser583 · 2h ago
> It was standard practice for Chiefs to take their divisions to bars and pay for their drinks all night so they could be drunk and immobile under Chief's supervision instead of drunk and mobile out in public.
Encouraging alcholism so they can manage it - that is really bad.
abeppu · 22h ago
Concurrent with the WWII ice cream barges, the Navy _did_ actually have a lot of alcohol but really didn't want anyone to drink it.
Americans replaced alcohol with sweets, generally. There's a reason a huge fraction of the modern candies and confections either got their start or took on their modern forms during this era. Prohibition is probably single handedly responsible for more of the "processed sweet junk" in the American diet than any other singular policy. It really is the gift that keeps on giving.
That said, ice cream is aa highly underrated dessert and I have a hard time thinking of a better item to have available on un-air conditioned ships in a tropical environment, absolutely on par with a cold beer.
senkora · 21h ago
Prohibition also had the effect of largely killing off the small breweries started by various immigrant groups in the United States.
When it ended, the industry rapidly consolidated around the large-scale industrial breweries which have dominated the market ever since.
This is a big reason why the beer industry in America is weird. You have large mass-market brewers on the hand one, and small craft brewers making more creative beers on the other hand, but you don't have many medium-sized brewers making high-quality traditional beers.
It's pretty hard to compete with Europe in that segment.
JumpCrisscross · 21h ago
> Prohibition also had the effect of largely killing off the small breweries started by various immigrant groups in the United States
Same for wine production. Beringer, Mondavi...these were families who secured sacramental wine contracts from the Church.
robocat · 18h ago
If your theory is right, then countries without prohibition would have structural differences of brewers.
I don't think I've noticed much difference in Australia or New Zealand (admittedly I don't know the markets). As far as I know there's always been a few big brewery companies in both countries (and smaller ones have got bought out).
dfxm12 · 21h ago
Booze is regulated unevenly from state to state, which is a weird aspect in America that could make it hard to grow depending on where you are in the country.
Outside of that though, I don't think prohibition has too much of the blame as consolidation is the natural conclusion under capitalism. Breweries that get to a certain level get bought out by multinational corporations. I was in Asheville, NC a few years ago. It was kinda funny to me that one mark of fancy restaurants was to boast about their pre-ABInBev Wicked Weed bottle lists (I'm more a fan of Burial Beer either way).
Spooky23 · 14h ago
It’s a different time scale. The microbreweries of the 90s were an upstart.
In the 70s and early 80s, you probably had a half dozen SKUs account for 90% of volume. My grandfather ran a busy bar in Brooklyn and had like 4 beers on tap. The other thing was post prohibition ABC laws usually gave distributors a lot of power. They had exclusivity agreements and would stuff the channel or segment the market as they saw fit. Grandpa’s bar was Reingold and Schaeffer.
Microbrews went crazy in the 90s, and the big brewers bought and created brands to regain share. Then cheap capital led to M&A by bigger fish.
AStonesThrow · 17h ago
I had occasion to study the Whiskey Rebellion a few years ago, and I discovered the flipside of alcohol distribution.
Farmers love distilling grain alcohol. Because it can take their crops and make the product easy to transport. If you're trying to ship lots of corn, barley, rye, or potatoes, etc., overland, you're looking at a large volume and mass. It is cumbersome to load and unload. It spoils easily, and pests can make lots of problems in storage.
So [historically,] if you're a farmer in Kentucky or Western Pennsylvania and you grow plenty grain to feed your townspeople and livestock, and there's anything left over, it's only logical to distill it and ship it out to an urban market.
But on the market side, it's feeding into vices, so what's an honest farmer to do? Contract for torpedo juice?
cco · 22h ago
I refer to this as "hedonic exchange", the idea that there is a base rate of hedonic drive that animals tend to satisfy and that this drive is mostly fungible.
You see this in the data for smoking as well, as smoking decreases, you tend to see caloric intake and obesity rise at the population level.
Reasoning · 22h ago
> You see this in the data for smoking as well, as smoking decreases, you tend to see caloric intake and obesity rise at the population level.
Nicotine is an appetite suppressor so that relationship is probably pretty direct.
senkora · 21h ago
You might like the book "The Age of Addiction, How Bad Habits Became Big Business" by David T. Courtwright.
It talks about substitutability of pleasures, among other things. The most interesting idea that I took from it was the idea of "blending" and "intensifying" of pleasures over time.
For example, with alcohol. Initially humans had fermented fruits, then beer and wine, then distilled alcohol. The pleasurable substance was refined over time and the pleasure was intensified. In parallel, humans blended together multiple pleasures at once, for example combining alcohol with milkshakes or making sugary cocktails.
The book makes a strong case that this process of refining, intensifying, trading, and blending pleasures has been a constant force throughout civilization, and it applies the same argument to the internet and social media.
asdff · 21h ago
I see this readily with my cats too. Give them a treat, they gobble it down instantly then look up at you and yell for another one. Next day and they are sitting by the cabinet they saw you put the bag in and yelling for more treats. The most shrill and pitiful yells too.
There is zero self control because out in the wild, self control means you don't survive. You eat all the calories that show up in front of you. You can't afford to be choosy. The idea of abundance comes at direct odds with how we are wired in survival settings, and it's no surprise we struggle with obesity as a result. Selection has not factored in the availability of a gas station on every corner full of dopamine hits for a few dollars.
Spooky23 · 14h ago
I’m curious as to the impact of weed. I live in a college town — the bars are empty. Everyone is home sparking up.
losteric · 21h ago
Perhaps we’re trading different stress/anxiety coping mechanisms?
kayodelycaon · 22h ago
Nicotine reduces appetite.
Spooky23 · 14h ago
It’s also something to do.
nemomarx · 22h ago
some of that could be nicotine appetite suppression, right?
timewizard · 21h ago
> that there is a base rate of hedonic drive
I think there's an individual rate. I highly doubt there is a "base rate" for groups overall. I also think environmental factors play a huge part in prevalence.
keybored · 21h ago
That looks like a technical term but (only) you specifically use it?
badc0ffee · 21h ago
I'm wondering who's out there underrating ice cream.
Avshalom · 21h ago
Ice cream is, culturally, a things kids eat because they like sugar, not a thing adults savor because it's fucking sublime.
quesera · 20h ago
I have never seen an adult disdain ice cream.
We just eat the better stuff.
dylan604 · 20h ago
those are broken adults.
THroaway225 · 18h ago
actually ice cream sandwiches are known as a "dad thing"
dylan604 · 20h ago
the lactose intolerant. people with teeth that ache with cold. people concerned about sugar/fat intake. i can think of a lot of people that underrate ice cream. it doesn't make them sane though.
BenjiWiebe · 45m ago
I love ice cream and I'm lactose intolerant. I take generic lactase pills with the ice cream and it works.
I'm picky about my ice cream though - I pretty much only eat Braum's premium ice cream.
themadturk · 19h ago
As a type-2 diabetic, I pretty much avoid ice cream. Now and then my wife insists on a stop at Dairy Queen, so I do indulge in an ice cream cone the, and she will often give me a spoonful of ice cream at home (Tillamook Oregon Strawberry...yum).
Sugar-free ice creams seem to have largely disappeared in the Pacific Northwest. Dreyers or Haagen-Daaz (don't remember which) used to have one or two varieties regularly, but not anymore. Most others are in expensive pint sizes (Ben & Jerry's sized, but even more expensive).
bluGill · 20h ago
There is lactose or sugar free ice cream if you need them
nimbius · 21h ago
this is definitely not a tradition still practiced.
if you want ice cream youd better hope its being served at the chow line (it absolutely isnt, unless youre on a submarine) or youre going to the Nexcom ship store to pick up a knock-off magnum bar in exchange for quite a lot of your real money.
yamazakiwi · 21h ago
My Ship Store only had Yoohoo's, Monster's, and Uniform Items.
steviedotboston · 22h ago
I quit drinking a couple years ago and my ice cream consumption went way up.
asdff · 21h ago
Switch to good cheese. Become a savory head.
euroderf · 13h ago
Doesn't sugar soothe the withdrawal pains of metabolic pathways that alcohol has established and that alcohol withdrawal irritates?
AStonesThrow · 20h ago
As children, we loved to partake of Grandma’s supply of Sen-Sen.
It was much later that I learned that it was one of the powerful breath mints which people often used to cover-up after drinking booze.
[Grandma didn't drink! I don't think that Grandpa did, either. Their house never had alcoholic drinks or anything else related.]
euroderf · 13h ago
OK, that explains Sen-Sen. They didn't really seem to be an actual candy.
selimthegrim · 19h ago
This puts the police chief in the Hardy Boys in a whole new light.
keybored · 21h ago
High fructose corn syrup and subsidies? Hm maybe not.
yamazakiwi · 22h ago
I was on an Australian Navy ship in 2008 and they could still have beer then. They were also paid different by job which I found interesting.
I remember hearing a lot of stories about "the good old days" when people would drink and smoke weed or opium on ships. When I was in, alcohol and drugs had been replaced by Monster energy drinks.
I don't remember getting ice cream while deployed.
stackskipton · 21h ago
>I was also surprised to learn that they were paid differently by job.
US does this in roundabout way. Medical officers have various Special Pay along with Flight Pay, Flight Deck pay and so forth. Not to mention various bonuses for various ratings that have come and gone.
It makes sense from manning standpoint since certain ratings will have siren call of civilian jobs compared to others. (ITS, CTN vs YN, RS)
yamazakiwi · 21h ago
>US does this in roundabout way. Medical officers have various Special Pay along with Flight Pay, Flight Deck pay and so forth.
Everyone gets various special pay depending on their command and those don't compare to the Australians varying pay largely by role.
>It makes sense from manning standpoint since certain ratings will have siren call of civilian jobs compared to others. (ITS, CTN vs YN, RS)
I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you are deployed on a ship then everyone has "siren calls". All 4 of those rates earn the same money and get additional pay for command based increases unrelated to their rate specifically.
stackskipton · 20h ago
>Everyone gets various special pay depending on their command and those don't compare to the Australians varying pay largely by role.
What special pay? Sea Pay or Hazardous Duty pay? That's obviously location based incentives and not rating based compared to Flight Duty pay, though that's consider "Hazard Pay"
>I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you are deployed on a ship then everyone has "siren calls". All 4 of those rates earn the same money and get additional pay for command based increases unrelated to their rate specifically.
Siren call of much higher job prospects with a ton more money for ITS/CTN compared to YN or RS.
yamazakiwi · 20h ago
>Siren call of much higher job prospects with a ton more money for ITS/CTN compared to YN or RS.
What does job prospects have to do with anything? I'm not trying to be rude, I truly don't understand what you're talking about. The Australian Navy pays their sailors COMPLETELY different per role even if they are the same rank. I have no idea what flight duty pay is and it is irrelevant to my point since it clearly didn't affect me or anyone at my command, making your general statement that the US Navy does it in roundabout ways confusing and incorrect. My buddy was an RN, I was an IT, we made the same money, it's that simple.
For the most part ITS, CTN, YN, RS all make the same amount of money if they are the same rank in the US Navy.
You get paid from the Rank Table, you can look up how much each rank makes. When I was in, I made E-5 in 4 years and was paid the same as other E-5's despite what their job was, or how long it took them to make E-5. This is not a roundabout way to pay someone differently based on their role/rate.
It could be different now as they might want to incentivize growth of specific roles but in my time that was with enlistment bonuses, not rate specific pay (which I have never heard of).
stackskipton · 19h ago
Flight Duty Pay applies to anyone in aviation rating that flies. I know how pay scale works.
In any case, Navy still gives out enlisted bonuses for certain rates, https://www.navy.com/careers-benefits/pay/enlistment-bonus and they have changed over the years. I also know certain rates were eligible for higher reenlistment bonuses when I dealt with it. So it’s kind of like rating pay in roundabout way that’s really messy.
That aside, paying by rate makes sense if you want to keep certain rates and had trouble doing it. Again, when I was in that world as nasty civilian, almost every CTN was gone as soon as they ETS because E-4/5 pay was laughable compared to what they were being offered outside the military. I don’t know what current manning looks like now.
yamazakiwi · 2h ago
I know you know how pay scale works, I was describing to those who don't that the Australian navy has different salaries for different jobs which is in contrast to how the US Navy scales their pay by rank and then you went on a tangent about pay outside the military and Flight pay, and incorrectly implied what I was saying was related or comparable when it isn't lmao
tetris11 · 21h ago
Conversely, Chris Spargot did a great video about government-run pubs during WW2 in Britain, where the government offered good wages to workers who would help make shells, and then recruited all the local barkeepers under a decent steady wage to stop the workers from bribing the barman to give them more alcohol.
True story: My great uncle was a secretary to General MacArthur during world world 2, and one of his jobs was to source and procure ice cream to the front for the general and the troops.
devrandoom · 19h ago
Sailors in WWII drank the fuel for the torpedos, which happened to be clean ethanol.
It’s always a good moment to remember that it must still be proven that ice creams are not good for your health.
The nutritionists who have tried to prove that evident theory have all admitted that the health benefits of the ice cream are akin to those of the yogurt.
Edit: even though, I’m avoiding emulsifiers like e-471, e-472 and so on.
> The nutritionists who have tried to prove that evident theory have all admitted that the health benefits of the ice cream are akin to those of the yogurt.
That doesn't sound like they "admitted" to anything. It can at the same time have the health benefits of yogurt, and be bad for you.
In the particular case of ice cream, what makes you think it's healthy despite the high calorie and sugar content? All I could find was a study from 2018 [0], which specifically investigated diabetes 2 patients (who are very conscious about their sugar intake) and didn't control for the rest of their diet. Any claim that the amounts of sugar in ice cream are net beneficial for you will need extraordinary amounts of evidence.
*Rethinking evidence from BYU researchers adds nuance to that message, suggesting not all sugar sources carry the same risk. In the largest and most comprehensive meta-analysis of its kind, BYU researchers—in collaboration with researchers from Germany-based institutions—found that the type and source of sugar may matter far more than previously thought. Researchers analyzed data from over half a million people across multiple continents, revealing a surprising twist: sugar consumed through beverages—like soda and even fruit juice—was consistently linked to a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D). Meanwhile, other sugar sources showed no such link and, in some cases, were even associated with a lower risk. “This is the first study to draw clear dose-response relationships between different sugar sources and type 2 diabetes risk,” said Karen Della Corte, lead author and BYU nutritional science professor. “It highlights why drinking your sugar—whether from soda or juice—is more problematic for health than eating it.” https://news.byu.edu/intellect/rethinking-sugar-byu-study-sh...
n2d4 · 20h ago
This is pretty well-accepted as far as I'm aware — but I don't think anyone has sufficiently shown that the sugar in ice cream is less risky than sugar in, say, fruits or yogurt (which often has 5-10x less!)
AFAIK, the leading theory is also that this is because fruits have other ingredients that help process the sugar — whereas ultra-processed food like ice cream doesn't, especially if there are added sugars.
You can't just freeze a soda, eat it, and then expect it to be healthy.
crazygringo · 18h ago
Fruits mostly have much less sugar period, it's not really other ingredients that help process it. (Unless you over-ingest them by juicing, in which case OJ can be just as bad as Coke.) And yogurt is often full of just as much sugar as ice cream.
The main theory around why ice cream doesn't show the negative effects is that the sugar is mostly trapped in a fat matrix that takes a long time to break apart and therefore to digest and release the sugars. So there's very little harmful sugar spike in the blood, and the carb intake surprisingly becomes more akin to e.g. slow-digesting unprocessed whole grains (obviously without benefits of fiber or other whole-grain nutrients).
Of course it's also very different if we're talking about plain chocolate ice cream, vs filled with ribbons of caramel and chocolate-coated candy pieces, which will produce sugar spikes. And of course it's also not accounting for overeating, ice cream or not. If you eat calories you don't need, it's going to make you fat no matter whether it's ice cream or something else.
euroderf · 13h ago
There's also the effect of (fruit) fiber.
nartho · 21h ago
I believe that excess sugar would be the issue, Yogurt contains no sugar
create-username · 20h ago
Yes. Maybe eaten sugar is less harmful than drinking it. That’s what the latest evidence suggests
nartho · 4h ago
In the case of ice cream, do you really eat it or drink it though ?
themadturk · 19h ago
Depends on the yogurt. Many commercial yogurts in the US have added sugar.
GJim · 9h ago
Somehow, Americans adding sugar to yogurt doesn't surprise me.
xboxnolifes · 19h ago
No normal person is eating ice cream for health benefits.
wmil · 19h ago
No but in a world of 400 calorie muffins and 700 calorie boba teas it's easy to argue that ice cream is getting a bad rap.
along (one perhaps hopes) with "sodomy and the lash".
rjsw · 21h ago
There is still beer on Royal Navy ships.
forgotusername6 · 21h ago
Three cans a day
dmurray · 19h ago
Actually, one of those things was brought back in in 2000.
EA-3167 · 22h ago
Lovely little article, a good story and some interesting history. My grandfather fought in WWII in the Pacific, in the Navy, and he was the only guy on board who couldn't stand the ice cream. Turns out he was a skinny kid and his grandmother made him drink milkshakes to fatten him up, even when he REALLY didn't want to touch them; so a lifelong aversion to ice cream was born.
Rum, sodomy and the lash, there's no other way. Yarrrggghh!!
lupusreal · 19h ago
The USS Olympia had refrigeration and ice cream before alcohol was banned, so I'm not sure I totally buy the supposed relationship between the two.
Spooky23 · 14h ago
Religious teetotalers always push ice cream as a substitute for alcohol.
lupusreal · 8h ago
I think if alcohol weren't banned the Navy would have still gotten ice cream, because people like ice cream. Not least of all on a ship that often travels through the tropics.
arbuge · 22h ago
> Ice cream was important for morale. In 1942, the U.S.S. Lexington was slowly sinking from a Japanese torpedo attack, before the crew abandoned ship, they broke into the freezer and ate all the ice cream. Survivors describe scooping ice cream into their helmets and licking them clean before lowering themselves into the Pacific.
TIL...
defen · 21h ago
Compare to the wreck of the HMS Wager in 1741, where some of the crew broke into the spirit room, got drunk, and drowned when the ship went down.
A battle rifle fired bullet is a delivery; working back from that bullet as to how it got fired reveals a "tyranny of the rocket equation" kind of logistics.
If your opposition has something as basic as food while you don't. Well,
logistics is broken == "ability to make an impact" is broken
Good God!
In the Royal Navy its 3 beers per man per day, every day. (Coke tin sized or 2 beers if the tins are larger, depends what the NAAFI ordered in). There are usually a few extra tins going spare if you want it and a blind eye turned, though getting drunk on board (let alone on duty) is a serious offence. Frankly, its rare for anyone to act like a knob.
Mate, two beers is 45 days is mad. No way are us British going to sign up for that!
The same reasoning applies for daily consumption of high amounts of calories from sweet drinks and snacks.
There is a large spectrum between this and rabbit food.
Ah, so that's what this is about. Your objection to universal healthcare and a desire to regulate other peoples personal lives based on your own morals.
But if to want society’s resources, seems fair for society to want something from you.
People don’t seem to have a problem with dangerous drivers paying more for auto liability insurance. In the US, we subsidize healthcare costs from alcohol use and overeating, but we explicitly charge people more for healthcare costs due to tobacco use.
It’s all just various political tribes flexing on who can get away with what.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DlN4Sh06po
Ships usually pull into port somewhere in the world more often than every 45 days outside of large-scale combat.
Could be different now
Imagine you are 21 and unable to spend money, have free housing (the ship) and free food, then you land in a foreign country where you can finally drink after 8 months at sea with all the money you saved.
It's high high's and low low's
Ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror were under General Order #1, which prohibited alcohol in theater, but elsewhere like Djibouti and Qatar were authorized three beers a day maximum.
In my 4 years we never had a single sailor show up to work drunk at my command, even once. They would be reprimanded. They might showup hungover sure, but not drunk. I did hear stories from other ships about a few high ranking officers showing up to base drunk but those were isolated incidents.
I never talked to anyone who had ever snuck alcohol on the ship and I was cool with everyone. I was on a destroyer so maybe on a larger ship this is easier to get away with.
I myself had my Liberty removed for 6 months because some kid who was not invited to our party stole 2 bottles of alcohol from us and got blackout. We found him in the beach bathroom passed out on the ground and had to physically carry him for a 45 minute walk back to base. He was in the hospital for 3 days. We lost our privilege to leave the ship for 6 months.
Let's be honest. Being in the Navy is terrible, alcohol is the way the culture copes with how terrible it is. You experience so much bullshit that the only thing that keeps you going is the idea that one day you'll get back to land and be able to get wasted. The problem is you can't drink or celebrate at sea so people go overboard once they get back on land. Yeah people get too drunk and drink too much, but so do college kids, which are the same age as many of these sailors.
I dealt with things ranging from exactly what the parent said (see my sibling comment to yours), to having to do a medical call away for someone non-responsive being brought across the quarterdeck at 2357 (in 2015; that individual had to get their stomach pumped and an AED administered twice on the way to the hospital in Okinawa). I dealt with any number of drunk at work issues as both a Chief and as a Security Manager (surprise, that's one that will get your clearance impacted). The number of DUI's I dealt with was far down, but the amount of alcohol driven domestic violence that came across my desk was... well that was the main reason I didn't take the civilian position I was offered (as the Security Manager at my final command).
Yeah, this sounds 100% true. I could have typed this, and at one point I was one of those bringing a bottle underway (though I was never drunk on watch; it was due to our ports having no alcohol). Honestly given how alcoholic half the crew was if there wasn't alcohol onboard (just to stop the withdrawals) the boat probably would have had to cancel the underway.
I can say that by the time I retired (2023) it was nothing like that. The ERB's in the 2011 timeframe wiped out an absolute TON of manpower but it did have the desired effect of destroying that culture almost immediately. Anyone with even a hint of alcohol issues in their record was sent packing with no recourse.
Prior to those ERB's the running joke was you had to have a DUI to be promoted to Chief. After that a DUI was not technically disqualifying, but was in reality a career ending event. Overnight things went to a culture of being afraid of doing anything that could get you caught out by a future ERB if you escaped that one.
It also caused the manpower issues we see now though, resulting in the manning shortfalls that are most critical in 7th Fleet. That fleet sees the worst shortfalls because it is the one that requires people to live overseas (Japan and Guam), which can be a hard sell. On top of that the deployment cycle has a far higher optempo; generally I spent 60-70% of a given tour on deployments. The rest of the Navy sees between 35% and 40% (outside of SOCOM commands). There's an ongoing impression that you have 7th Fleet Sailor's, then the rest of the Navy, as the Sailor's who like 7th Fleet don't want to go elsewhere and the rest of the Navy has no desire to join them.
Note: I was a 7th Fleet Sailor for most of my career; that stint in Pearl Harbor was the only Sea Duty I did outside of there.
Kind of wish I was a sentient intergalactic probe some days though.
It was a brutal endeavor. They did not have ice cream.
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Encouraging alcholism so they can manage it - that is really bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_juice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xygj1MOIdo
That said, ice cream is aa highly underrated dessert and I have a hard time thinking of a better item to have available on un-air conditioned ships in a tropical environment, absolutely on par with a cold beer.
When it ended, the industry rapidly consolidated around the large-scale industrial breweries which have dominated the market ever since.
This is a big reason why the beer industry in America is weird. You have large mass-market brewers on the hand one, and small craft brewers making more creative beers on the other hand, but you don't have many medium-sized brewers making high-quality traditional beers.
It's pretty hard to compete with Europe in that segment.
Same for wine production. Beringer, Mondavi...these were families who secured sacramental wine contracts from the Church.
I don't think I've noticed much difference in Australia or New Zealand (admittedly I don't know the markets). As far as I know there's always been a few big brewery companies in both countries (and smaller ones have got bought out).
Outside of that though, I don't think prohibition has too much of the blame as consolidation is the natural conclusion under capitalism. Breweries that get to a certain level get bought out by multinational corporations. I was in Asheville, NC a few years ago. It was kinda funny to me that one mark of fancy restaurants was to boast about their pre-ABInBev Wicked Weed bottle lists (I'm more a fan of Burial Beer either way).
In the 70s and early 80s, you probably had a half dozen SKUs account for 90% of volume. My grandfather ran a busy bar in Brooklyn and had like 4 beers on tap. The other thing was post prohibition ABC laws usually gave distributors a lot of power. They had exclusivity agreements and would stuff the channel or segment the market as they saw fit. Grandpa’s bar was Reingold and Schaeffer.
Microbrews went crazy in the 90s, and the big brewers bought and created brands to regain share. Then cheap capital led to M&A by bigger fish.
Farmers love distilling grain alcohol. Because it can take their crops and make the product easy to transport. If you're trying to ship lots of corn, barley, rye, or potatoes, etc., overland, you're looking at a large volume and mass. It is cumbersome to load and unload. It spoils easily, and pests can make lots of problems in storage.
So [historically,] if you're a farmer in Kentucky or Western Pennsylvania and you grow plenty grain to feed your townspeople and livestock, and there's anything left over, it's only logical to distill it and ship it out to an urban market.
But on the market side, it's feeding into vices, so what's an honest farmer to do? Contract for torpedo juice?
You see this in the data for smoking as well, as smoking decreases, you tend to see caloric intake and obesity rise at the population level.
Nicotine is an appetite suppressor so that relationship is probably pretty direct.
It talks about substitutability of pleasures, among other things. The most interesting idea that I took from it was the idea of "blending" and "intensifying" of pleasures over time.
For example, with alcohol. Initially humans had fermented fruits, then beer and wine, then distilled alcohol. The pleasurable substance was refined over time and the pleasure was intensified. In parallel, humans blended together multiple pleasures at once, for example combining alcohol with milkshakes or making sugary cocktails.
The book makes a strong case that this process of refining, intensifying, trading, and blending pleasures has been a constant force throughout civilization, and it applies the same argument to the internet and social media.
There is zero self control because out in the wild, self control means you don't survive. You eat all the calories that show up in front of you. You can't afford to be choosy. The idea of abundance comes at direct odds with how we are wired in survival settings, and it's no surprise we struggle with obesity as a result. Selection has not factored in the availability of a gas station on every corner full of dopamine hits for a few dollars.
I think there's an individual rate. I highly doubt there is a "base rate" for groups overall. I also think environmental factors play a huge part in prevalence.
We just eat the better stuff.
I'm picky about my ice cream though - I pretty much only eat Braum's premium ice cream.
Sugar-free ice creams seem to have largely disappeared in the Pacific Northwest. Dreyers or Haagen-Daaz (don't remember which) used to have one or two varieties regularly, but not anymore. Most others are in expensive pint sizes (Ben & Jerry's sized, but even more expensive).
if you want ice cream youd better hope its being served at the chow line (it absolutely isnt, unless youre on a submarine) or youre going to the Nexcom ship store to pick up a knock-off magnum bar in exchange for quite a lot of your real money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sen-Sen
It was much later that I learned that it was one of the powerful breath mints which people often used to cover-up after drinking booze.
[Grandma didn't drink! I don't think that Grandpa did, either. Their house never had alcoholic drinks or anything else related.]
I remember hearing a lot of stories about "the good old days" when people would drink and smoke weed or opium on ships. When I was in, alcohol and drugs had been replaced by Monster energy drinks.
I don't remember getting ice cream while deployed.
US does this in roundabout way. Medical officers have various Special Pay along with Flight Pay, Flight Deck pay and so forth. Not to mention various bonuses for various ratings that have come and gone.
It makes sense from manning standpoint since certain ratings will have siren call of civilian jobs compared to others. (ITS, CTN vs YN, RS)
Everyone gets various special pay depending on their command and those don't compare to the Australians varying pay largely by role.
>It makes sense from manning standpoint since certain ratings will have siren call of civilian jobs compared to others. (ITS, CTN vs YN, RS)
I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you are deployed on a ship then everyone has "siren calls". All 4 of those rates earn the same money and get additional pay for command based increases unrelated to their rate specifically.
What special pay? Sea Pay or Hazardous Duty pay? That's obviously location based incentives and not rating based compared to Flight Duty pay, though that's consider "Hazard Pay"
>I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you are deployed on a ship then everyone has "siren calls". All 4 of those rates earn the same money and get additional pay for command based increases unrelated to their rate specifically.
Siren call of much higher job prospects with a ton more money for ITS/CTN compared to YN or RS.
What does job prospects have to do with anything? I'm not trying to be rude, I truly don't understand what you're talking about. The Australian Navy pays their sailors COMPLETELY different per role even if they are the same rank. I have no idea what flight duty pay is and it is irrelevant to my point since it clearly didn't affect me or anyone at my command, making your general statement that the US Navy does it in roundabout ways confusing and incorrect. My buddy was an RN, I was an IT, we made the same money, it's that simple.
For the most part ITS, CTN, YN, RS all make the same amount of money if they are the same rank in the US Navy.
You get paid from the Rank Table, you can look up how much each rank makes. When I was in, I made E-5 in 4 years and was paid the same as other E-5's despite what their job was, or how long it took them to make E-5. This is not a roundabout way to pay someone differently based on their role/rate.
It could be different now as they might want to incentivize growth of specific roles but in my time that was with enlistment bonuses, not rate specific pay (which I have never heard of).
In any case, Navy still gives out enlisted bonuses for certain rates, https://www.navy.com/careers-benefits/pay/enlistment-bonus and they have changed over the years. I also know certain rates were eligible for higher reenlistment bonuses when I dealt with it. So it’s kind of like rating pay in roundabout way that’s really messy.
That aside, paying by rate makes sense if you want to keep certain rates and had trouble doing it. Again, when I was in that world as nasty civilian, almost every CTN was gone as soon as they ETS because E-4/5 pay was laughable compared to what they were being offered outside the military. I don’t know what current manning looks like now.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pyijHCkW3xc
https://www.adn.com/alaska-life/2024/12/15/torpedo-juice-the...
The nutritionists who have tried to prove that evident theory have all admitted that the health benefits of the ice cream are akin to those of the yogurt.
Edit: even though, I’m avoiding emulsifiers like e-471, e-472 and so on.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35562705
That doesn't sound like they "admitted" to anything. It can at the same time have the health benefits of yogurt, and be bad for you.
In the particular case of ice cream, what makes you think it's healthy despite the high calorie and sugar content? All I could find was a study from 2018 [0], which specifically investigated diabetes 2 patients (who are very conscious about their sugar intake) and didn't control for the rest of their diet. Any claim that the amounts of sugar in ice cream are net beneficial for you will need extraordinary amounts of evidence.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-cre...
AFAIK, the leading theory is also that this is because fruits have other ingredients that help process the sugar — whereas ultra-processed food like ice cream doesn't, especially if there are added sugars.
You can't just freeze a soda, eat it, and then expect it to be healthy.
The main theory around why ice cream doesn't show the negative effects is that the sugar is mostly trapped in a fat matrix that takes a long time to break apart and therefore to digest and release the sugars. So there's very little harmful sugar spike in the blood, and the carb intake surprisingly becomes more akin to e.g. slow-digesting unprocessed whole grains (obviously without benefits of fiber or other whole-grain nutrients).
Of course it's also very different if we're talking about plain chocolate ice cream, vs filled with ribbons of caramel and chocolate-coated candy pieces, which will produce sugar spikes. And of course it's also not accounting for overeating, ice cream or not. If you eat calories you don't need, it's going to make you fat no matter whether it's ice cream or something else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_ration
along (one perhaps hopes) with "sodomy and the lash".
Oh, and Max Miller of 'Tasting History' fame has a very entertaining video on this very topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiyo8D0nH70
TIL...