American Food Aid, Fortified Biscuits, a Tale of Two School Lunch Philosophies

After Japan surrendered in August 1945, the country was standing on the ragged edge of mass starvation. Years of submarine warfare had destroyed coastal transport, the 1945 rice harvest was catastrophic, and city rations had fallen to roughly 1,000 calories a day. U.S. planners believed that without immediate outside intervention, millions of Japanese civilians — especially children — might not survive the winter of 1945–46.

Despite that, American food aid began moving almost instantly. Even before the formal surrender on September 2, emergency shipments had been planned. The first cargoes of wheat, corn, milk powder, and canned goods arrived within weeks, beginning in September–October 1945. By November, the U.S. was sending hundreds of thousands of tons of food into Japan, preventing what otherwise would have been a historical humanitarian catastrophe.

Diverting U.S. Military Rations to Save Civilians

One striking detail — and rarely mentioned in textbooks — is that General MacArthur found early on that civilian food shipments were still weeks away at sea. Meanwhile, his survey teams reported that Japanese civilians were already collapsing from hunger in the streets.

MacArthur made a controversial but morally decisive choice:

He diverted part of the U.S. military food supply to starving Japanese civilians, putting occupation troops on reduced rations until new cargo ships arrived.

Several soldiers complained about the ration cuts, but others realized the Japanese were in genuine danger. U.S. troops were not starving, but they temporarily lost access to the full military-menu variety they were used to.

Once the larger scheduled shipments arrived in late 1945 and early 1946, troop rations returned to normal — and civilian rations stabilized. This short period remains a remarkable example of humanitarian leadership under military authority.

The Fortified School Biscuits

By 1946, occupation authorities shifted focus toward children, who had suffered the greatest nutritional damage. Studies revealed widespread anemia, vitamin deficiencies, stunting, and signs of rickets. To combat this, SCAP (the U.S. occupation government) implemented a school lunch program centered around a super-fortified high-protein biscuit.

These biscuits were variously known as:

• LARA biscuits
• CARE biscuits
• SCAP biscuits
• Kenshi biscuits (in Japanese sources)

They resembled hard survival rations but were engineered to deliver:

• High-quality protein
• Vitamins A, B-complex, and D
• Calcium and iron
• Enough calories to restore growth in malnourished children

They were paired with powdered milk and simple soups or porridges. Many Japanese adults born between the late 1930s and late 1940s remember these biscuits vividly — not delicious, but undeniably life-saving.

Reconstructed Biscuit Recipe (Based on 1940s Relief-Ration Formulas)

The exact formula was never widely published, but the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps left enough documentation that historians can reconstruct a close approximation:

2 cups wheat flour 1 cup soy flour or nonfat dry milk 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 tsp salt 2 tbsp powdered milk 2 tbsp crushed multivitamin powder 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 cup vegetable shortening Small amount of water to bind

Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 45–60 minutes.

The result: a dense, long-shelf-life nutritional biscuit that helped reverse widespread malnutrition.

A Modern Contrast: The Michelle Obama School Lunch Standards

This is where history meets modern humor. The occupation biscuits might have been bland, but they were formulated by nutritionists and relief workers trying to prevent mass starvation. Everything was practical, empirical, and transparent.

Contrast that with the school-lunch reforms under Michelle Obama — often documented online under the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama — where big kids and athletes frequently found themselves hungry due to strict calorie limits designed for ideological optics rather than real-world nutritional needs.

Twitter was flooded for months with photos of lunches that amounted to:

• a single chicken nugget,
• five carrot sticks,
• and a tablespoon of something claiming to be rice.

Not exactly the diet of a 6'2" linebacker burning 3,000+ calories a day.

Occupation-era philosophy: “If we get this wrong, children will starve.”
Obama-era philosophy: “If we get this wrong, at least the policy model looks good on paper.”

There’s a world of difference between survival-driven nutrition and politically engineered nutrition.

Final Thoughts

The early occupation of Japan remains one of the most impressive logistics operations ever executed. The U.S. prevented a massive famine, diverted troop food to save civilians, and implemented a school lunch program that literally rebuilt a generation.

Bland or not, those fortified biscuits did far more good than half the so-called “healthy lunches” handed to American high school athletes in the 2010s.

History, as always, has a sense of humor.

ACTUALLY...

It sounds like you might could make a sandwich out of one of those LARA biscuits, i.e. microwave the thing for 22 seconds, slice it in half with a serrated knife, and add a Sam's Club/Gordon's fish filet and some tartar sauce. That might actually be tasty and it would be a candidate for most nourishing light lunch ever seen on Earth...