[HN Gopher] Prohibition and ice cream in the US Navy
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Prohibition and ice cream in the US Navy
Author : speckx
Score : 59 points
Date : 2025-05-28 18:35 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.oldsaltblog.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.oldsaltblog.com)
| potato3732842 wrote:
| 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.
| cco wrote:
| 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.
| nemomarx wrote:
| some of that could be nicotine appetite suppression, right?
| Reasoning wrote:
| > 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.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Nicotine reduces appetite.
| timewizard wrote:
| > 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.
| losteric wrote:
| Perhaps we're trading different stress/anxiety coping
| mechanisms?
| keybored wrote:
| That looks like a technical term but (only) you specifically
| use it?
| asdff wrote:
| 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.
| senkora wrote:
| 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.
| steviedotboston wrote:
| I quit drinking a couple years ago and my ice cream consumption
| went way up.
| asdff wrote:
| Switch to good cheese. Become a savory head.
| nimbius wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| My Ship Store only had Yoohoo's, Monster's, and Uniform
| Items.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| I'm wondering who's out there underrating ice cream.
| Avshalom wrote:
| Ice cream is, culturally, a things kids eat because they like
| sugar, not a thing adults savor because it's fucking sublime.
| dylan604 wrote:
| those are broken adults.
| quesera wrote:
| I have never seen an adult disdain ice cream.
|
| We just eat the better stuff.
| dylan604 wrote:
| 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.
| bluGill wrote:
| There is lactose or sugar free ice cream if you need them
| themadturk wrote:
| 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).
| senkora wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > _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.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| 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).
| keybored wrote:
| High fructose corn syrup and subsidies? Hm maybe not.
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| As children, we loved to partake of Grandma's supply of Sen-
| Sen.
|
| 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.
| abeppu wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_juice
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| At least one Soviet aircraft doubled as a flying bar
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xygj1MOIdo
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Didn't they also have an exception for "medicinal" use? I
| wonder how often the pharmacist's mate was called upon for a
| prescription?
| EA-3167 wrote:
| 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.
|
| Oh, and Max Miller of 'Tasting History' fame has a very
| entertaining video on this very topic:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiyo8D0nH70
| ceejayoz wrote:
| 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.
| wagwang wrote:
| thats what happens when you have 1 support unit per in field
| troop instead of 36.
| teachrdan wrote:
| 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.
| carabiner wrote:
| There's also the version with the NY cheesecake.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| >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 wrote:
| 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.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| hatsunearu wrote:
| is it 2 beers per day?
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Once, per deployment that meets that requirement
| adriand wrote:
| 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.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| How far we've regressed. 400 years ago you would get a
| gallon of beer per day if you were a sailor.
| archontes wrote:
| Navy-strength rum.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Never happened to me once and I was deployed multiple times
| longer than that, it depends on your captain and command I
| guess.
| jaoane wrote:
| Do they have non alcoholic beer?
| madaxe_again wrote:
| 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.
| arbuge wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| For anybody not familiar with the HMS Wager and the
| subsequent story the Damn Interesting podcast did a nice
| episode about it: https://www.damninteresting.com/dead-
| reckoning/
| asdff wrote:
| I'm reminded of that scene in The Master where Joaquin
| Phoenix gets his hooch directly from the torpedos on his
| ship.
| zabzonk wrote:
| It's gone from the Royal Navy:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_ration
|
| along (one perhaps hopes) with "sodomy and the lash".
| rjsw wrote:
| There is still beer on Royal Navy ships.
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| Three cans a day
| tetris11 wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pyijHCkW3xc
| jdross wrote:
| 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.
| create-username wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35562705
| nartho wrote:
| I believe that excess sugar would be the issue, Yogurt contains
| no sugar
| create-username wrote:
| Yes. Maybe eaten sugar is less harmful than drinking it.
| That's what the latest evidence suggests
| themadturk wrote:
| Depends on the yogurt. Many commercial yogurts in the US have
| added sugar.
| n2d4 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-
| cre...
| create-username wrote:
| *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 wrote:
| 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.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| No normal person is eating ice cream for health benefits.
| former_navy_843 wrote:
| 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.
| codyb wrote:
| 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.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| 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.
| HacklesRaised wrote:
| Rum, sodomy and the lash, there's no other way. Yarrrggghh!!
| lupusreal wrote:
| 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.
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