Military conservatism reveals itself no less in the matter of rations than in any other question.
The science of nutrition was still something of a novelty when Fannie Farmer wrote her first cook book in 1896, and the principles of nutrition were changing the Army ration very slowly. Also, people in and out of the military service ate more meat a hundred years ago than they do today. They lived without central heating, fewer did sedentary work, everyone's life span was shorter, and an oversize waistline was, in a sense, a badge of comfortable, complacent, middle-class prosperity. Personally, I think that the pivotal year in the history of the U.S. Army ration was 1832. In that year the rum ration was stopped.