Eps 1634: Why SPAM is the most nutritious food ever
— The too lazy to register an account podcast
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Carter Sutton
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One reason why SPAM is such an excellent survival food is that you can eat the SPAM straight from the can. Ham has a higher calories, higher fat, and lower protein. Because Spam is cooked, you can eat it right from the can, and there is little prep required before eating. The name Spam comes from the abbreviation for seasoned ham.
SPAM is a good survival food as it can be eaten directly out of the can without preparation, provides lots of fat, protein, and calories per serving, and does not need refrigeration. As seen in the Nutrition Facts section, Spam is a good source of several vitamins and minerals. Because Spam is about 90% pork by weight, it shares a similar nutritional profile, with most of the same health benefits.
It can be used in a variety of dishes, ranging from the classic holiday musubi to the BBQ-glazed spam burger, to Cobb salads to paninis. The luncheon meat brand has also been featured in a number of Filipino-fusion dishes, including spam hamburgers, spam spaghetti, spam nuggets, and others. In Okinawa, Japan, the product is added to onigiri along with eggs, and is used as a basic ingredient in traditional Okinawan dish chanpuru, while Spam hamburgers are sold by local fast-food chain Jef.
During WWII, the luncheon meat brand was not just eaten, it was incorporated into several other aspects of WWII (grease for guns, cans for scrap metal, etc. During WWII and in the years following WWII, Spam became a major staple for soldiers.
In this country after the Second World War, Hormel Foods Corporation assembled a team of ex-servicewomen who promoted the snack meat brand coast-to-coast. The Spam Museum explains Hormel Foods Corporations history, Spams origins, and its place in global culture. In the Philippines, the brand of Spam is a popular food and is considered as a cultural icon.
Spam is a brand name of canned meat products that consist of ham, pork, salt, flavorings, and preservatives, which are combined and cooked under pressure under vacuum.
To this day, Spam remains a popular food in South Korea and other parts of South Asia, where Spam is added to traditional foods like kimbap and chanpuru. Spam may not sound like a traditional food on an island, but Hawaiians know good stuff when they see it, and Spam has been a Hawaiian favorite almost as long as Spam has existed. Hawaiis love for Spam is the product of historic forces, and there is nothing dated about appreciating tinned meat.
The one part of the country that totally embraces Spams promise is not Minnesota, the birthplace of Hormel Foods, but Hawaii, where the canned meat is served and loved everywhere from fast-food restaurants to an annual Spam Jam street festival.
Hawaii consumes more Spam per capita than any other state, eating five cans a person every year--about 7 million cans in all--according to Spam Senior Product Manager Nicole L. Bene, who is the companys chief marketing officer.
While Hormel Foods has admitted that prices are rising during this inflationary period, the price of one can of Spam is within reach for many people trying to feed themselves and their families on a tight budget. Hormel Foods has also recently - and smartly - signed multi-year supply agreements with its major suppliers, to make sure that Spam stays on shelves at a reasonable price. Just a few weeks ago, Hormel Foods, the Minnesota-based company that makes Spam, announced that it had set a new sales record in 2021, the seventh consecutive year.
The United States military, which decided that Spam was a perfect tent food, purchased 150 million pounds of Spam during the Second World War, feeding allies troops around the globe. Soon, American soldiers were transporting Hormel Foods Spam all around the world, taking it to people in war-torn countries facing a lack of food. Hormel Foods introduced SPAM in 1937, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America states that SPAM was intended to boost sales of pork shoulder, not a particularly popular cut.
It made simple processed meat products such as Spam popular in this era of hyper-focused nutrition and health care. Spam is a cheap meat fix, one that helped people get by during WWII and the Great Depression. Spam is a cheap alternative to billions of people around the world that cannot afford trips to Whole Foods, or paying $20 for a veggie hamburger.
Summary Spam is high in calories, fat, and sodium, but it also contains some protein, zinc, potassium, iron, and copper. Summary Spam contains the mineral sodium nitrite. Contains Sodium Nitrite Spam contains Sodium Nitrite, a common food additive used to keep germs from growing and improve the taste and appearance of the finished product.