I can't imagine the chaos that occurred a few days to weeks after the bombs dropped. After people finished looting grocery stores, they probably broke into military bases and stole whatever was in there. Not just food but guns and explosives too.
@theoddprotogen9781 apparently plastics and hydrogen work well to block radiation too. So an mre in a plastic bag would have some protection from harmful radiation
I like to think that Dandy Boy Apples are actually sliced, candied apples. Imagine a freeze dried apple slice covered in a red, candy coating with a super sweet flavor with a hint of cinnamon.
They are! Or at least I think they are. I'm not sure if the fallout cookbook is canon, but there is a recipe in them for "Dandy Boy apples" and it is just a recipe for candied apples.
I actually like that theory regarding the preservatives being pumped into the foods. Not only is it a reflection of the Fallout universe but it isn't too far off from our own in too many cases.
Makes sense since this era had alot of isotopes in everything and fallout is a direct reference to the small era where nuclear isotopes were used in everything from medicine to watch paint (look up atom girls or radium girls it was what helped lead to better working conditions for workers).
You can see some corporate executive at one of those Pre-War companies eyes beaming when told theres a way to make their products never expire. If there was a Dairy surplus (like we saw in the 1950-80s which created 'Goverment Cheese') I could totally see Blamco taking full advantage of insanely cheap dairy, and manufacturing enough Blamco Mac & Cheese to last for decades, then just firing everyone. Slowly selling it off with near 0 labor costs.
Yeah there was a guy who kept a fast food burger for like 20 years and it never went moldy. It literally stayed the same as when he bought it. Seems like a bit of a crazy thing to do, but I guess he proved a point.
fun little fact: in fallout 4, gen 3 synths are said to have an "unexplained fondness" for fancy lad snack cakes, which i find hilarious. probably just means Father loved FLSC and that was passed on to all other synths
Mre were for military, they probably have some radiaton shielding. they probably were shipped with micro fusion cells, fusion cores, mini nukes and whatever else they came in contact with
You would be surprised what you eat every day that has been purposefully ( and sometimes accidentally ) irradiated. For instance, in the U.S. all imported produce is irradiated in order to kill off any potentially infectious fungoid and parasites as well as making the product biodegrade slower as it kills off it's natural microbes. Hell standing in direct sunlight gives you about 3-4 rads per second. Hence sun burn and sun poisoning. Than the majority of enamel paints and almost all glow in the dark objects are radioactive. Old tube TVs are nothing more than fancy X-ray machines, the white powder on the inside of the glass is there to keep the x-rays from cooking you to death. Than we all know about microwaves but most people don't know is cellphone radiation is a form of microwave and is extremely toxic and can give you cancer. I think I ranted plenty. I think the point is you really don't need a radiation protection on the food because the munitions already have built in shielding and a little bit of residual ain't going to kill you. A real world example of this would probably be the use of depleted uranium munitions on the battlefield.
The Fallout world seemed to be really comfortable with radiation even before the war, so it's possible that they deliberately radiated their food in order to sterilize/pasteurize it.
@@concept5631 I only watched UA-cam video's about Fallout since the games were too confusing for me, but the pre-war Fallout follows the 50's idyllic society that follow up to 21st Century.
MREs are usually (95% of the time) packaged in a sealed rubbery packaging, so unless it's compromised by a cut of some kind it will stay for a very long time. I've watched Steve eat MREs from Vietnam, WW2 and even that 200+ year old piece of Hardtack.
Can’t wait for UA-cam in the year 2100 when we can finally figure out if 100 year old MREs are decent. I’m also wondering how they didn’t get irradiated since a lot of other packaged and otherwise sealed food somehow gets irradiated.
“Sugar Bombs” may also be a reference to the “Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs” cereal from the popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, syndicated November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. The titular Hobbes likens them to “pure sugar” and “eating a bowl of milk duds”. The box labels itself as “Part of a wholesome, nutritious and balanced breakfast” and “fortified” with vitamins.
@@kasuraga I like to think of it as Calvin and Hobbes is a part of the fallout universe. Sugar bombs are also in The Incredibles 2. Calvin and Hobbes is a part of the Incredibles universe
My favorite dialogue from Fallout New Vegas is when someone asks you what your favorite food is and you can respond with “anything not made over 200 years ago”
For the cotton candy bites the mascot is actually king cola from I think kiddy kingdom in Nuka world, but it is not bottle but I can see why you think that.
2:40 It's clearly a TV dinner. You can see the box design is imitating a TV, with knobs at the bottom, and the rounded shape is a screen. The screen seems to depict an aluminium tray with some green, yellow and red food
and apparently coffee filled donuts are actually a thing, kinda. You drink the coffee from a donut and then eat the donut itself. it's kind of like bread soup from Panera.
Theory about the MRE: could be that the military, knowing their soldiers would have a high likelihood of being exposed to radiation (either bombs or their fusion powered vehicles and armor), decided to dose the ration packs with Rad-X. Also, the longevity of the food is sort of in keeping with the hyper retro futurism. Just as they fixated on 50s culture, no doubt they perfected the 50s obsession with ready-made and highly preserved food.
Hell even in WW2 the troops were given cans of spam,stew,chicken ect and that stuff lasts forever because of all the sodium so it definitely fits (minus the cigarettes)
I remember that there was a cereal in the old Calvin and Hobbes comics called ‘Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs’. Maybe there’s a link? Idk, it’s a bit farfetched
Ever since Malcolm Holmes line about how New Sunset Sasparilla bottles just keep appearing in the machine, ive suspected a lot of Package Food is actually made Post War in factories that are located outside the game world.
Did you know that instead of killing Theodore Collins you can blackmail him instead? If once you make it back to the surface of the cannery, instead of attacking him you head to the area where he is shooting at you from, he will get cold feet and stop being hostile, restarting dialogue. At that point you can still kill him if you prefer, but he will offer to give you a cut of the profits if you spare him and keep the secret. If done so, you can drop by every week and collect your cut (around 100 caps), which visibly irritates Theodore every time. He will also continue selling his "fresh" canned ghoul meat. Edit: this might be a nod to Iguana Bob from FO1, whom was selling human meat as iguana meat and whom you could also blackmail.
I read a previous comment and after looking it up, you’re right. I don’t know if my games were bugged or what but I only ever encountered him as hostile and shooting before any dialogue was presented. I need to be better about double checking!
@@Rad_King he will be hostile instantly , to trigger the dialogue you need to move to his location, as soon as you are close enough to him he will try to calm you down and offer you a deal, so you would spare his life he offers to pay you a cut from his sales if he is allowed to continue
Considering how the NCR has been able to make or get old printers working, and that they can produce Caps, along with the many technical workers they have on their side, and the sheer amount of resources they have, it’s highly likely they’ve begun producing Cram again, not on the massive scale as Pre War times, but definitely to a point
Watching and hearing you talk about the BuzzBites made me realize that donut holes filled with some kind of coffee-flavored pastry filling would be amazing.
I just get confused before remembering that US Tim Hortons suck. We have "Timbits", which are also donut holes and occasionslly filled with something (jellies, custards, etc.). No coffee filling though.
The Potted meat's logo seems to have a stork or maybe a crane catching a fish on it, coupled with the distinct turn-key and flat squared shape leads me to believe the container is a sardine can, it makes sense to me that Theodore would just use whatever pre-existing tins he could find and I dont doubt Boston has a plethora of seafood tins being next to the ocean.
Possibly a nod to a scene cut from the first terminator where Arnold is show eating junk food as an explanation for how the terminator is fueled. Scene was removed and eventually they explain that terminators have mini nuclear reactors in them. Still think it be hilarious if all of the movies included scenes of terminators shoving twinkies in their face to fuel the final act.
@@countdrugula1 I would think that all Mr. Handy’s and Mr. Gutsys would have to have mini nuclear reactors in them too. Think of how energy intensive those rocket jets, which are on all the time have to be, especially if they can keep going for 200 years!
The punchline of all these products was, indeed, that they're so heavily processed that they can go through 200 years without spoiling. This added a lot of surface-level satire, though.
To answer how MREs might be radiation free vs any other food, what makes anything irradiated isn't the radiation itself, but the fallout of the blast itself, or put in another way, the nuclear material that wasn't part of the reaction itself, shot out as microscopic shrapnel. It's the fine dust that is what collects in the atmosphere and causes a nuclear winter, and when it falls back down to earth, it collects on objects, materials, and works its way into the ground where plants absorb it as nutrients much like the human body does. That's why food grown after the Great War (except that grown in labs specifically trying to decontaminate it and in the vaults) is all irradiated, some more so than others. OK, so that's the boring science part of it out of the way. Now for the easy part. That superfine dust gets everywhere. Worse than sand. It gets places you wouldn't think it could. It would work itself into the cheap packaging of consumer goods easily, especially before things were individually packaged in plastic within the cardboard. MREs, however, are heavily packaged. If you've ever had the pleasure of eating one, you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to open one. There's no way contaminants are getting through that.
Great vid topic, the ultra-processed foods that are somehow still good 200 years later in their original kitschily-branded packaging are a really iconic element of the Fallout experience that doesn't get very much attention. Very interesting, well done
Thank you, I feel like it is something that really helps build the world of Fallout and I love the absurdity of things like cereal with tiny bomb shapes or food that is miraculously preserved hundreds of years later.
@@randyortonsbulge Which is the same thing at this point. Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics built the foundation for the series. 3, NV, 4, Shelter, and 76 made it into what we know today. It IS a staple of the franchise now.
@@Rad_King It's somewhat plausible in the Fallout universe. The world was stuck in the 50's atomic scare for over a century, which shaped everything in society, so they most likely invented some insanely efficient food preservatives as a result. The aftermath of bunker mentality IS the major theme of the Fallout games, after all.
9:29 the Cajun rice and beans could also be a reference to Generic Brand Label foods from the 1970's. Before stores made their own products and put their label on it, they sold Generic Brand Label products which almost all had a similar design to the Cajun Rice and Beans shown in the game. They were seen as cheaper alternatives to name brand products while only missing maybe one ingredient from the name brand. They'd have plain white labels and blocky letters telling you what you were buying.
when I was a little kid in the '90s this was the "Flavorite" off-brand stuff i hated. The store specific generics such as "Great Value" seem a lot closer to the real thing than any of that "Flavorite" stuff ever did.
My guess is Dandy Boy apples are candied Also, irradiating food is a common method of eliminaing bacteria for preservation - the rads present _in_ most packaged food in Fallout may help contribute to said food's longevity
@@legend7951 not to mention the people in Fallout live in tear of nuclear war so they have all their food pump full of preservatives to keep it safe for the bunker
Considering eating the food actually gives your character rads, this translates to a substantial and unsafe amount of gamma radiation. The radiation done as a pasteurization process is miniscule in comparison, and significantly extends shelf life. So such a large dose of radiation would likely make the food completely immune to bacteria, giving it an indefinite shelf life.
Regarding the MREs, it’s possible the military, in case of nuclear armageddon, put light shielding in the packaging. Which definitely fits with the “questionable choices” tag for fallout’s military by putting lead or something in the bag
I’m honestly surprised that something like a spin on the Kellogg’s Pop tarts hasn’t been put in the game yet. It’d be neat seeing a pack of strawberry “pop tarts” in game.
19:30 my theory for the MRE's is that they come with iodine tablets, or have them added to the food, which is generally used as treatment or a preventative measure for radiation poisoning, or it could just contain rad-away. since these MREs were made in preparation for a nuclear war, it would make sense that they'd have *something* to prevent radiation poisoning in soldiers who may cross nuclear craters.
Here in the UK they sell the equivalent of a salisbury steak in a can with gravy, they have up to a 5 year shelf life, we also have dried eggs in a powder form to make scrambled eggs, I'm not sure if they'll be edible after 200 years though.
Fallout 3 be like: so, Sugar Bombs are based on this old cereal that was called "Sugar Jets". Now, with those cereals, you can make Super-Jets! Full circle, yo!
My guess on the reason MREs aren’t irradiated is airtight packaging. Regular companies can get away with a little margin of error, but the military has stricter standards on specific things so it might be better insulated
@@PunkZombie1300 It would block out Alpha and Beta radiation which are the longer lasting ones and would be blocked out with simple packaging. (Alpha and beta radiation are blocked by things as simple as your skin or plastic/paper packaging, but are seriously dangerous when ingested or inhaled). Gamma radiation would mostly have dissipated in areas away from large quantities of nuclear material after the long period between the great war and the games. Unless your MRE was sitting on or next to a nuclear source it would be fine.
The MREs (Meals Rejected by Everybody) may have a similar evolution in Fallout as they did in our world, namely the fact that modern astronaut food is based off of MREs (but far more edible). Russian astronaut food is usually tinned and can be heated on a special stove, whereas NASA still uses pouches for much of their food which are often a similar foil to what MREs are packaged in. NASA also has clear packaging for things like fresh fruit and candy. It's fun to note that NASA actually irradiates meat prior to packaging to ensure it's sterile. I could easily imagine the MREs in Fallout as being freeze-dried and vacuum packed in a lead-based foil package or perhaps a material similar to what NASA currently uses. After all, there's plenty of information in games up through Fallout 4 to suggest there was an active space program (and Fallout 76, which I'm not a fan of, has an entire questline revolving around a downed space station). With ads showing power armour on the moon, why not have military-grade MREs that have space-aged packaging and preservation? I could even picture kids getting astronaut ice cream as a RobCo promotional like we did with a certain DOS game back in the early 1990s... if they ever invented freeze dried ice cream in the Fallout universe, that is.
@@TheRealMorningstar fallout 4 suggests that there was even conflict in space, but the fact the repcon facility exists and posters for several generations of lunar landers exist as well. Indicates space travel and lunar colonization were somewhat achieved in fallout.
@@TheRealMorningstar tbh i always thought that part of the mural was supposed to be like "look at what the military will look like in 50 years!" more than that actually being a real event
The mural thing, don't take it literally that theres power armor on the moon. "From Lexington and Concord..." shows a minute man "...to the shores of Iwo Jima..." shows WW2 ships and Marines "..., from the sea of Tranquillity..." shows the astronaut and lander, "...to the *Anchorage Front line* " shows Power Armored Infantry You're being shown 4 separate scenes and the Power armor represents an earth bound conflict.
@@MediumRareOpinions even if you don't take the power armor to be on the moon, theres an astronaut with a blaster of some sort, with the lander behind him. The t51 suit is in an abstract space, but that astronaut is totally on the moon. Whether or not he was using power armor, or some combat spacesuit is unknown.
@@TheRealMorningstar 76 is super-heavy on the space thing, mostly because (correctly) the assets were still in orbit. Orbits decay, and 200 years is plenty of time to drop a LOT of satellites, or just have their power sources fizzle out.
Funny that you mentioned the Fancy Lad Snack Cakes packaging makes them look like cookies, because I was thinking that it reminds me of the Biscoff cookie wrappers.
There was an old series of trading cards called Wacky Packages that parodied common every day products. Their parody of SPAM was CRAM. Not sure if this is the inspiration though.
I used to collect those and garbage pail kids cards, they were so fun as fuck. If i remeber it came with one sitck of gum in the pack of the wacky packs. I still have all mine.
20:52 I'm a labrat for hire, someone who tests medications and vaccines for insane pay, and seeing this package is almost REALLY too common. Inside the package is most likely a glass tube containing all vital nutrients with dashes of flavoring. For example; one of the IRL food items in the cafeteria for us is these packages, the blank space by the symbol would give you all the details. "Formula-Supplement-A,B-0_12,CDEK-Flavor-Substitute-Burger_Sub-brand-S" - Formula Supplement just tells you "Yes, you have to drink this", and A,B_012,CDEK are the vitamins in it. Flavor-Substitute-Burger tells you what it'll taste like, and Sub-Brand-S tells you the quality of it, with S being the best quality flavor-wise. These formulas they give us never expire either, considering they are quote from the cafeteria sign: "More than just supplements, they are drinkable vials of food with all needed vitamins". So the in game version? it's spot on, they just should of added something to the front.
@@jordandavis2131 You sign up for a contract in a lab. They give you housing and pay for it inside the lab itself, which consists of 10 different basement floors, the first 2 basement floors being housing. An sterile smell lingers about the place and it's very clean and well lit.
Concidering inflation, why did that Skeleton in Fallout 4 rob a bank and break out through the wall with a bag of multiple 100 100$ Bills, if according to inflation it will only buy you about 101 Donut packages per stack?
I honestly want to look at the inflation in the universe and see how consistent it is. From what I know right now I know it’s not terribly consistent but could be interesting nonetheless.
The item model in game shows that the pre war money is actually a bundle of bills so I'd assume he got 100 bundles of 100 dollars, so it's more likely he got a few hundred thousand if not a few million, so yeah I'd say he was getting away pretty loaded
I love these channels that just analyze Fallout. I've been playing since 2009 and it was a huge part of my development as a teenager and young adult. I just discovered this channel and it's already one of my favorites. I love how much real world comparison research goes into your videos. Thank you
Knowing the humor of Fallout, the MREs are probably packed in a rubber and straight LEAD container. For those who don't know, lead isn't exactly good for you to ingest
MRE rations are specifically made to be able to handle extreme conditions. You can find people who carried MRE’s through patrol in Vietnam and promptly kept them. Only to find they’re completely edible even now and sometimes they’re even pretty damn good
I used to eat C-Rations from the late 1960s when I was a child in the 1980s. It was pound cake and peanut butter that someone in the Army reserves brought to our church camping trips, they were in a can painted a color between olive drab and brown.
@@SW-ii5gg I’ve seen people eat rations from 1955 and enjoy them, and precooked canned meat stays good indefinitely if canned and preserved properly (the military is many things, but it doesn’t poison it’s troops on purpose. So they’d all be canned and preserved to the max) and considering the civilian food is preserved to hell and back it’s no stretch to assume the same of the MRE’s
It is too a TV dinner! It has a big oval like a '50s TV screen, round things in the lower corner that look like control knobs, and then the dinner itself in the screen. It has three compartments, one for a vegetable, one for something that may be mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese, and the last one for a indeterminate meat form (steak, salisbury steak, meatloaf, whatever) the flavor of the meat being doused in gravy. I'd bet that after 200 years, that TV dinner tastes like a radio. This was just good, cheesy fun...
Most canned and preserved food have rads, most likely because it was part of the sterilization. Radiation was mostly a minor hassle pre war since there was medication and treatments to remove it. So small quantities of rads were not a big deal for most people.
I've always assumed that due to the parody of america style of these games that it's not too far fetched for most of these items to be filled with preservatives that would make it last theoretically forever
@@Mooncubus Fun fact: The reason McDonalds food doesn't isn't because of preservatives, it's due to a lack moisture. The food dries out instead of rotting
I mean they were in a nuclear revolution that was going to keep them "safe" from the rest of the world. The propaganda was that nukes were the saviours
@@Roboshi2007 Was the public back in the cold war ectatic over nuclear bombs? I don't think so. They were scared, wanted to remain ignorant over them. Nuclear power was of great interest - not nukes - to the common people in Fallout. Doesn't make sense for them to go around and eat and use products that have names and iconography of nuclear bombs, radiation, the atom, and nuclear fallout.
@@oneblacksun in Fallout there was indeed fears over global war, however the media was trying to downplay this, they were trying to make people think they were safe from the bombs because of the USA's own bombs. It's the satire of taking America's love for their military to the extreme and giving kids toys and food based on the military. For a non-fallout example, in Robocop there is much the same issues of an america at it's darkest self, and in that they sell a cold war themed board game.
Insta mash and cram are one of the few foods i feel can be safe to eat anytime. One is a preserved vacuum sealed can. The other are dried potato flakes just add water. Surprised at the lack of honey items in-game since irl they would've been able to last forever if preserved right. They're basically like 80% sugar enough to kill off or prevent bacteria and mold from growing too well.
By the way Theodore can actually be reasoned with. In fallout 4 the way you do this is you run up to where he is at without shooting him and then he will lure his weapon and he will talk to you and you can actually make him give you a couple thousand caps. For allowing him to keep his business and keeping the secret. And if you come back every couple days he will have money for you By the way my favorite part about all these videos is when you reference being a children of Adam supporter. It's so funny
The dusty old box looks like a TV dinner of some kind, you can see the tray dividers and the different foods lol I just let the video run a bit longer. You must not have grown up eating those terrible "dinners", they were still fairly common in the 90s. They still exist, but they're not usually branded to kids anymore, but to overworked single people who don't want to cook
They were actually quite good. I loved them as a kid and they were kind of a treat. The buttered mashed potatoes and apple or cherry pie were quite tasty. I'm hungry now.
You talking about Kid Cuisine? I had a couple of those when I was a real young kid and they were alright. My mom was married, but my dad was at the office a lot back then working overtime ‘cause money was tight. Trying to keep my brother and I in line + keeping the house in order + doing side work to bring in extra cash was a lot for her back then. So I don’t blame her for taking the easy option and popping in a microwave meal every now and then when she needed a break.
@@KlutzyNinjaKitty Before there were microwave ovens (they called them radar ranges at first, at least I believe that Amana made those) there were "frozen dinners." They were packaged entirely in aluminum and they had flash frozen entrees and sides. They were available into the mid 1970s, and maybe the early 1980s before microwaveable dinners supplanted them. You baked them in a regular oven. The result could be surprisingly good, and some of the side dishes were small in serving size, but had a very memorable flavor. The hot buttered mashed potatoes and cherry or apple pie were among these.
In case anyone wasn't aware, the fact that the perfect bubble gum temporarily staves off thirst does come from real world thinking. During WW2, rations designed with potential water scarcity in survival situations in mind had pieces of chewing gum in them, because they found that chewing gum actually does prevent you from getting thirsty as fast.
I think it would be interesting to eventually cover the armors of fallout. Obviously the vast majority of them have no real life counterpart, but I think it would still be interesting to hear your thoughts on things like the raider armors from Fallout 3, or the various makeshift power armor sets from 3/NV/4. I can imagine it being annoying trying to cover the, what, 8 different types of combat armor from fallout 3?
The tesla armor in every pre-Bethesda Fallout games are many types of non powered metal armor sets equipped with electrical coils designed to produce an energy field over the users that protects them against energy weaponry like lasers, plasma, electricity and EMP.
@Reaver presumably, what I was saying was more about its pre war lore. Like we know West Tek made power armor, and that Stent Security Solutions made the R91 rifles, but combat Armor is just a vague name with nothing specific.
High chance combat armor was made by a private civilian company or for the PD like first responders. In NV Joshua Grahm was wearing a PD swat or bullet proof uniform. They really should add them in 76 at one point since first responders are a thing. I could see a police training station being near a military base. Several entries with the best PD officers promoted to soldiers while the rest being given combat armor, a pistol side arm, a baton, a whistle, a pat on the back and some donuts and being told "Go gettem". It would explain why the PD are so incompetent and crime ran amock in 4. With alot of officers being on the crime group's payroll and having only free lance detective actually solving anything. With the PD officers just doing busts and raids. Basically confiscating any mini nukes and lazer weapons because someone didn't pay their six 7 thousand dollar parking tickets.
I think buzz bites are not "filled with hot coffee". The most likely source of burns is efforts to apply chemical heaters (Found in many survival rations which are meant to provide ready hot food) to liquid filling. Since the activator for most of these is WATER, you can already catch where things went wrong with sticky, creamy (Have it too leaky and it's impossible to eat or even contain) flavouring insta-boiling as you try to taste it.
20:00 the MRE thing. Okay so despite the fact that you're supposed to eat these in the middle of a war, they come with more packaging than any electronic you've ever opened up in your life
I'm surprised that they went to that much detail on the Institute food bars. At first I thought it would just be a list of all the amino acids. But there's vitamins and such too. The 11 amino acids there are the 9 essential ones and two of the 'conditional' ones, that our bodies are usually able to produce in enough quantity, except if we are sick or stressed. I think I could go for one.
2:55 You know, i wasn't gonna say anything about it since it really doesn't matter, but now i will! I *did* think it was a TV dinner, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!
Longnecks are soft-shelled clams, which just leaves Lukowski as the guy running the cannery. Presumably he's canning sardines and fish pre-war though, given the terminal has shipping logs.
The fallout 4 gumdrop box design I believe is a kind of nod to the 1988 game Wasteland. As it's title screen is similar with the mushroom cloud and letters with shadows.
6:54 Fun fact Theodore can be spared. if you run up to him he gets scared and begs to be spared. If you do he splits profits with you and keeps selling his meat
MRE's are made specifically for fighting forces of the US army, and the government knew that there would be Atomics would be a challenge of the War when it came, so i think the packaging has a protective anti radiation covering. thats the only headcanon i can think of to explain why if doesnt irradiate the player when consumed.
The lonesome road DLC is filled with Lead-Lined Metal Boxes which obviously keep rads away. You often find MRE in them so the inhabitants of the divide before must've scavenged them from those boxes.
the face on the Cheezy Poofs box is none other than Bing Crosby :) There's a really cool music variety radio show he did in the late 40s, "The Bing Crosby Show for Chesterfield"(Chesterfield Cigarettes), whose promotional flyer/ads have the original version of the face you're looking for. an altered version without the cigarette was used for other ads and an album or two , which is the one being used :))
The radiation and absurdly long shelf life of pre war food is likely meant to reference the actual real world practice of using radiation to sterilize packaged food for preservation. Just taken to the Fallout extremes that it's still 'edible' up to 210 years later. Though given people's comments about it, it's not very good. But since there are areas like the Capital Wasteland that struggle with getting any kind of agriculture going even at that point, people will take what they can get. Though given the fact that there are 'preserved' versions of packaged food that doesn't give you rads, it can be guessed that during pre war time the food wasn't so radiated that it was harmful, just like real life radiation preservation. But after 25-210 years sitting in the open, even sealed food has soaked up enough excess rads to pass the glow onto the consumer.
An interesting theory I read regarding the MREs in lonesome road is that the absence of rads in them is due to the MREs actually having been manufactured in the NCR, to be used/consumed by the special forces deployed there. Also, on the subject of "whats inside sugar bombs" - in New Vegas theyre one of the key ingredients to the craftable flamer fuel recipe you get from the "Vigilant Recycler" perk😬
An other fun 76 fact: there are double skins of some food. Prewar packages and post war. 2 types of sugar bombs. One you need for crafting brain bombs and the other is the newer looking packaging and just adds hp and food
theory: the prewar food we find in the wastes are indeed prewar but not the same food that woul've been commercially available then, they're rations that were specifically designed to last long time to be used in vaults, and they ended up in the wastes after the vaults unsealed andtheir dwellers began bartering with the wastelanders. They don't look like MREs because they are intended for vault dwellers and convey a feeling of normalcy.
The longneck Lukowski logo is what would appear to be a great egret faded grey, a white ibis with the last little bit of curve on the beak faded off or perhaps a grey heron with a simplified face. Among reeds environment could be any number of places from a cape marsh to a decorative backyard pond and detail faded this much isn’t fine enough to say the precise fish or waterfowl though we can be certain it’s a wading bird and that the size of fish is no greater than about 8 inches. For more information contact your local Audubon society.
For the institute food ration, all of that is actual scientific names for the basic chemicals our body needs to survive. Not thrive, survive. It even has the only source of vitamin c that isn’t irradiated, (ascorbic acid is Vitamin C)
The retortable pouch, often referred to as the flexible can, is what brought the MRE to fruition in 1980. It is fabricated as a three-ply laminate consisting of, from inside to outside, 0.003 to 0.004 inch thick polyolefin, 0.00035 to 0.0007 inch thick aluminum foil, and 0.0005 inch thick polyester....and data suggest that polyolefins are quite resistant to high (on the order of multiple Mrad) radiation exposure at a broad range.
2:41 What I see is a tv dinner, box is looking like a tv, its "screen" showing an image of what the food in the divided tray looks like, as a serving suggestion. Seems like mashed potato, peas and mystery meat in some gravy. 2:58 I probably shuldn't have paused to comment...
Also something to mention about fallout 76, sugar bombs are used in a few recipes, brain bombs being the most popular because its a 25% xp buff that can be boosted with magizines. But the non irradiated sugar bombs can't be used in these recipes, making them effectively worthless.
In Fallout 76 you can rarely find some pre-war food in beautiful packages which are not worn down at all. Like Sugar Bombs, Salisbury Steak, Blamco Mac & Cheese, Insta Mash and so on.
In the story for Fallout:Equestria( The MLP version and basically the main template for ones afterwards) mentions the preservatives thing you mention as well. Saying something, to the best of my memory so sorry if it’s a bit wrong, that a food the main character said “it has so many preservatives your stomach would be the last thing to decompose”
The biggest joke on the Tactics donut package is that it's marked .99¢ which is the kind of thing you only see in hand marked prices. It's funny because according to the mistake the package was priced at just under one cent.
Most likely the food in the fallout universe (that we can eat) is probably still edible, because it was made so by the companies to last after an apocalypse? My head canon at least. (There also is a YumYum brand irl, but they make instant ramen)
@@latewizard301 considering you can get rads from food which is protected from nuclear fallout by its packaging, the preservatives are probably radioactive, they could contain an isotope with a very long half life, resulting in the food not giving off radiation until centuries after its production.
I contend that SPAM did not become "hated" because of its presence in American rations during WWII. On the contrary, many soldiers loved it. It was often the only meat product included in rations, and could be used a number of ways. Its popularity among American troops is why it gained in popularity in the civilian market after the war, and why it remains an iconic brand today.
Don’t you just love how New Vegas, the Mojave, arguably one of the least irradiated world maps that we’ve played so far ( in the 3d games I haven’t played 1 and 2 yet ), has all the irradiated versions of foods
Freeze dried deviled eggs don’t work. The filling works well but the egg whites don’t do well. Maybe if you flash freeze to keep the ice crystals small but that’s more work than I’ve ever seen anyone do so not sure you’ll find anyone who’s ever tried it
That’s what I don’t understand. How do you dry an egg, let alone a deviled egg and have it resemble anything like an actual deviled egg? There’s powdered eggs but you’d think it would say something to that effect on the box.
@@Rad_King Well they had things like stimpacks … so maybe just calk it up to they figured out food preservation better than us cuz if you could figure out stimpacks preserving the integrity of proteins in eggs during drying might be childs play.
the key to boxed macaroni and cheese is have good organic whole milk and decent regular butter. add the correct amount of butter and a little extra of the milk and let it get hot while stirring. put to side and let cool a bit and it will tighten up. that is the zenith of it.
my theory on the mre's. they are extremely rare because they were the first foods people ate before resorting to irradiated stuff.
I know this is an old comment, but that's a good theory 👍
I can't imagine the chaos that occurred a few days to weeks after the bombs dropped. After people finished looting grocery stores, they probably broke into military bases and stole whatever was in there. Not just food but guns and explosives too.
id also imagine the containers inside the bad might be lead or lead lined as to explain the lack of radiation
I agree I think that would make the most sense
@theoddprotogen9781 apparently plastics and hydrogen work well to block radiation too.
So an mre in a plastic bag would have some protection from harmful radiation
I like to think that Dandy Boy Apples are actually sliced, candied apples. Imagine a freeze dried apple slice covered in a red, candy coating with a super sweet flavor with a hint of cinnamon.
Honestly, I always thought they were more like the Apple Slices that McDonald's had years back.
@@dragonbornexpress5650where I live they still have them lol
Hey like, make these. They sound great
They are!
Or at least I think they are.
I'm not sure if the fallout cookbook is canon, but there is a recipe in them for "Dandy Boy apples" and it is just a recipe for candied apples.
damn that sounds amazing lol
I actually like that theory regarding the preservatives being pumped into the foods. Not only is it a reflection of the Fallout universe but it isn't too far off from our own in too many cases.
Makes sense since this era had alot of isotopes in everything and fallout is a direct reference to the small era where nuclear isotopes were used in everything from medicine to watch paint (look up atom girls or radium girls it was what helped lead to better working conditions for workers).
@@WhiteStripesStripiestFana lot of is the corn, particularly in syrup form.
especially in the 50s
You can see some corporate executive at one of those Pre-War companies eyes beaming when told theres a way to make their products never expire.
If there was a Dairy surplus (like we saw in the 1950-80s which created 'Goverment Cheese') I could totally see Blamco taking full advantage of insanely cheap dairy, and manufacturing enough Blamco Mac & Cheese to last for decades, then just firing everyone. Slowly selling it off with near 0 labor costs.
Yeah there was a guy who kept a fast food burger for like 20 years and it never went moldy. It literally stayed the same as when he bought it. Seems like a bit of a crazy thing to do, but I guess he proved a point.
fun little fact: in fallout 4, gen 3 synths are said to have an "unexplained fondness" for fancy lad snack cakes, which i find hilarious. probably just means Father loved FLSC and that was passed on to all other synths
This made me think back to the SAFE test thing the settlers of Covenant were doing, how did they not pick up on that?
Mre were for military, they probably have some radiaton shielding. they probably were shipped with micro fusion cells, fusion cores, mini nukes and whatever else they came in contact with
Exactly what I was thinking.
honestly considering fallout is fallout, would be pretty funny if the packaging was just straight up lead-lined
@@Benzona You’re probably correct lmao, it just makes so much sense
That or they stored them in a ton of fallout shelters and were stored there until survivors found them.
You would be surprised what you eat every day that has been purposefully ( and sometimes accidentally ) irradiated. For instance, in the U.S. all imported produce is irradiated in order to kill off any potentially infectious fungoid and parasites as well as making the product biodegrade slower as it kills off it's natural microbes. Hell standing in direct sunlight gives you about 3-4 rads per second. Hence sun burn and sun poisoning. Than the majority of enamel paints and almost all glow in the dark objects are radioactive. Old tube TVs are nothing more than fancy X-ray machines, the white powder on the inside of the glass is there to keep the x-rays from cooking you to death. Than we all know about microwaves but most people don't know is cellphone radiation is a form of microwave and is extremely toxic and can give you cancer. I think I ranted plenty. I think the point is you really don't need a radiation protection on the food because the munitions already have built in shielding and a little bit of residual ain't going to kill you. A real world example of this would probably be the use of depleted uranium munitions on the battlefield.
The Fallout world seemed to be really comfortable with radiation even before the war, so it's possible that they deliberately radiated their food in order to sterilize/pasteurize it.
Or as stated by another comment, are a product of radioactive Isotopes which is basically just dust that gets anywhere
The pre-war Fallout world was hardly "comfortable"
@SpizeNice Maybe comfortable for _some_ people, but hardly safe.
Considering that people hardly die from radiation in Fallout, you're probably right
@@concept5631
I only watched UA-cam video's about Fallout since the games were too confusing for me, but the pre-war Fallout follows the 50's idyllic society that follow up to 21st Century.
MREs are usually (95% of the time) packaged in a sealed rubbery packaging, so unless it's compromised by a cut of some kind it will stay for a very long time. I've watched Steve eat MREs from Vietnam, WW2 and even that 200+ year old piece of Hardtack.
Wait who is Steve, but cool
@@legomangamesnetwork1151
this guy
ua-cam.com/channels/2I6Et1JkidnnbWgJFiMeHA.html
@@legomangamesnetwork1151 Steve is the chillest dude to snack on some crazy stuff with. He would fit in fine eating 200 year old MREs
Can’t wait for UA-cam in the year 2100 when we can finally figure out if 100 year old MREs are decent. I’m also wondering how they didn’t get irradiated since a lot of other packaged and otherwise sealed food somehow gets irradiated.
MREs are also stored in cardboard boxes that have then been stored in refrigerator units until thawed out and shipped.
The "symbol" on top of the canned meat is just a heron catching a fish, which makes sense since this style of can is typically used for sardines.
plus it was probably a fish cannery originally
Not to mention the name of the factory where its produced ìs "Longneck Lukowski's" - and herons do have rather long necks
“Sugar Bombs” may also be a reference to the “Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs” cereal from the popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, syndicated November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995. The titular Hobbes likens them to “pure sugar” and “eating a bowl of milk duds”. The box labels itself as “Part of a wholesome, nutritious and balanced breakfast” and “fortified” with vitamins.
i'm almost positive that's where they got it from.
@@kasuraga I like to think of it as Calvin and Hobbes is a part of the fallout universe. Sugar bombs are also in The Incredibles 2. Calvin and Hobbes is a part of the Incredibles universe
Always a pleasure to read another's reference to quite possibly, the greatest comic OF ALL TIME!!
"Wanna Know Why You Shake Like This? Too Many Nutrients, I'll Bet..."
-Calvin
Ignoring the actual shape it reminds me of Corn Pops.
My favorite dialogue from Fallout New Vegas is when someone asks you what your favorite food is and you can respond with “anything not made over 200 years ago”
For the cotton candy bites the mascot is actually king cola from I think kiddy kingdom in Nuka world, but it is not bottle but I can see why you think that.
You’re totally right, my bad!
Sugar bombs can be also made from the food processor to make a non irradiated version.
@@predalien2989 A lot of the foods can be made from that machine into a pre-war style box.
2:40 It's clearly a TV dinner. You can see the box design is imitating a TV, with knobs at the bottom, and the rounded shape is a screen. The screen seems to depict an aluminium tray with some green, yellow and red food
Buzz bites actually DO caffinate you in Survival mode. It's one of the few items in the game that can lower your SLP!
Never took survival seriously *sigh* time to get some creation club assets *sigh*
SLP?
@@fumothfan9 sleep
@@MercyWolff Funk creation club. Disgusting.
and apparently coffee filled donuts are actually a thing, kinda. You drink the coffee from a donut and then eat the donut itself. it's kind of like bread soup from Panera.
Theory about the MRE: could be that the military, knowing their soldiers would have a high likelihood of being exposed to radiation (either bombs or their fusion powered vehicles and armor), decided to dose the ration packs with Rad-X.
Also, the longevity of the food is sort of in keeping with the hyper retro futurism. Just as they fixated on 50s culture, no doubt they perfected the 50s obsession with ready-made and highly preserved food.
Hell even in WW2 the troops were given cans of spam,stew,chicken ect and that stuff lasts forever because of all the sodium so it definitely fits (minus the cigarettes)
Rad-x or iodine
The MRE package could also have been made with a pack that protected them.
@@Notsurewhattopicknow Lead lined, yeah
I remember that there was a cereal in the old Calvin and Hobbes comics called ‘Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs’. Maybe there’s a link? Idk, it’s a bit farfetched
Yeah that's the reference. Also Blamco is based off Ren and Stimpy, but yeah it's even more in tune with the series cause of the Blam part.
Great connection, I’ll mention it in my comment highlights!
Not to mention later in incredibles 2
That's my new headcanon cause i love C&H so much i wish you could find a comic of them in Fallout games
No, that is definitely where the name is from.
Ever since Malcolm Holmes line about how New Sunset Sasparilla bottles just keep appearing in the machine, ive suspected a lot of Package Food is actually made Post War in factories that are located outside the game world.
Gonna love it when NPC became suspicious of item respawn
Did you know that instead of killing Theodore Collins you can blackmail him instead? If once you make it back to the surface of the cannery, instead of attacking him you head to the area where he is shooting at you from, he will get cold feet and stop being hostile, restarting dialogue. At that point you can still kill him if you prefer, but he will offer to give you a cut of the profits if you spare him and keep the secret. If done so, you can drop by every week and collect your cut (around 100 caps), which visibly irritates Theodore every time. He will also continue selling his "fresh" canned ghoul meat.
Edit: this might be a nod to Iguana Bob from FO1, whom was selling human meat as iguana meat and whom you could also blackmail.
I read a previous comment and after looking it up, you’re right. I don’t know if my games were bugged or what but I only ever encountered him as hostile and shooting before any dialogue was presented. I need to be better about double checking!
@@Rad_King he will be hostile instantly , to trigger the dialogue you need to move to his location, as soon as you are close enough to him he will try to calm you down and offer you a deal, so you would spare his life
he offers to pay you a cut from his sales if he is allowed to continue
@@OkokuTheTempest Know what I'm doing next playthrough
@@OkokuTheTempest correct it’s just really glitchy and annoying to get to work right
@@OkokuTheTempest I mean there is no reason not to accept his money, not like their is a morality system in fo4
Considering how the NCR has been able to make or get old printers working, and that they can produce Caps, along with the many technical workers they have on their side, and the sheer amount of resources they have, it’s highly likely they’ve begun producing Cram again, not on the massive scale as Pre War times, but definitely to a point
Watching and hearing you talk about the BuzzBites made me realize that donut holes filled with some kind of coffee-flavored pastry filling would be amazing.
I've had donuts with a mocha creme filling. It is pretty good. I wouldn't call it 'amazing' though.
Sounds kind of yucky actually.
@@olivercharles2930agreed, I love coffee, and I love confectionery like any sane person. I absolutely hate them combined, not sure why.
I just get confused before remembering that US Tim Hortons suck. We have "Timbits", which are also donut holes and occasionslly filled with something (jellies, custards, etc.). No coffee filling though.
The Potted meat's logo seems to have a stork or maybe a crane catching a fish on it, coupled with the distinct turn-key and flat squared shape leads me to believe the container is a sardine can, it makes sense to me that Theodore would just use whatever pre-existing tins he could find and I dont doubt Boston has a plethora of seafood tins being next to the ocean.
Blue Heron i think
so yeah Longneck Lukowski's used to be a fishing cannery
I'm surprised you didn't mention the terminal entry in F4 mentioning how all gen 3 synths really love Fancy Ladd Snack Cakes
It's weird but fun
Possibly a nod to a scene cut from the first terminator where Arnold is show eating junk food as an explanation for how the terminator is fueled.
Scene was removed and eventually they explain that terminators have mini nuclear reactors in them. Still think it be hilarious if all of the movies included scenes of terminators shoving twinkies in their face to fuel the final act.
@@countdrugula1 Fancy Ladd Snack Cakes are Twinkies so think more on Zombie Land. Where Woody Harrison's character is searching for Twinkies.
@@zedorda1337 well Twinkies never go bad so they prolly would be fine 200 years later
@@countdrugula1 I would think that all Mr. Handy’s and Mr. Gutsys would have to have mini nuclear reactors in them too. Think of how energy intensive those rocket jets, which are on all the time have to be, especially if they can keep going for 200 years!
@@AmazingArends in fallout 76 theres a chance that one will start a countdown for a mininuke explosion when it dies, idk if it can happen in fallout 4
The punchline of all these products was, indeed, that they're so heavily processed that they can go through 200 years without spoiling. This added a lot of surface-level satire, though.
I love these lore videos about average things in the Fallout universe.
That’s how you know you’re a fan!
To answer how MREs might be radiation free vs any other food, what makes anything irradiated isn't the radiation itself, but the fallout of the blast itself, or put in another way, the nuclear material that wasn't part of the reaction itself, shot out as microscopic shrapnel. It's the fine dust that is what collects in the atmosphere and causes a nuclear winter, and when it falls back down to earth, it collects on objects, materials, and works its way into the ground where plants absorb it as nutrients much like the human body does. That's why food grown after the Great War (except that grown in labs specifically trying to decontaminate it and in the vaults) is all irradiated, some more so than others.
OK, so that's the boring science part of it out of the way. Now for the easy part. That superfine dust gets everywhere. Worse than sand. It gets places you wouldn't think it could. It would work itself into the cheap packaging of consumer goods easily, especially before things were individually packaged in plastic within the cardboard. MREs, however, are heavily packaged. If you've ever had the pleasure of eating one, you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to open one. There's no way contaminants are getting through that.
Great vid topic, the ultra-processed foods that are somehow still good 200 years later in their original kitschily-branded packaging are a really iconic element of the Fallout experience that doesn't get very much attention. Very interesting, well done
I thought that really hit when Fallout 3 came out.
Thank you, I feel like it is something that really helps build the world of Fallout and I love the absurdity of things like cereal with tiny bomb shapes or food that is miraculously preserved hundreds of years later.
@@justinwang3294 yeah it’s not a staple of the franchise, it’s a staple of Bethesda specifically…
@@randyortonsbulge Which is the same thing at this point. Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics built the foundation for the series. 3, NV, 4, Shelter, and 76 made it into what we know today. It IS a staple of the franchise now.
@@Rad_King It's somewhat plausible in the Fallout universe. The world was stuck in the 50's atomic scare for over a century, which shaped everything in society, so they most likely invented some insanely efficient food preservatives as a result. The aftermath of bunker mentality IS the major theme of the Fallout games, after all.
9:29 the Cajun rice and beans could also be a reference to Generic Brand Label foods from the 1970's. Before stores made their own products and put their label on it, they sold Generic Brand Label products which almost all had a similar design to the Cajun Rice and Beans shown in the game. They were seen as cheaper alternatives to name brand products while only missing maybe one ingredient from the name brand. They'd have plain white labels and blocky letters telling you what you were buying.
when I was a little kid in the '90s this was the "Flavorite" off-brand stuff i hated. The store specific generics such as "Great Value" seem a lot closer to the real thing than any of that "Flavorite" stuff ever did.
My guess is Dandy Boy apples are candied
Also, irradiating food is a common method of eliminaing bacteria for preservation - the rads present _in_ most packaged food in Fallout may help contribute to said food's longevity
That would help in explaining why this food is fine to eat 200 years in the future, if the rads helped to preserve it then it'd last a while longer
@@legend7951 Precisely :)
@@legend7951 not to mention the people in Fallout live in tear of nuclear war so they have all their food pump full of preservatives to keep it safe for the bunker
@@plantainsame2049 which is a direct reference to what companies did in the 50s
Considering eating the food actually gives your character rads, this translates to a substantial and unsafe amount of gamma radiation. The radiation done as a pasteurization process is miniscule in comparison, and significantly extends shelf life. So such a large dose of radiation would likely make the food completely immune to bacteria, giving it an indefinite shelf life.
Regarding the MREs, it’s possible the military, in case of nuclear armageddon, put light shielding in the packaging. Which definitely fits with the “questionable choices” tag for fallout’s military by putting lead or something in the bag
I’m honestly surprised that something like a spin on the Kellogg’s Pop tarts hasn’t been put in the game yet. It’d be neat seeing a pack of strawberry “pop tarts” in game.
Yeah especially since they put them in real life MREs.
They'd either have to call them toaster pastries or come up with some other clever branding, Pop Tart is copyright/IP.
@@mfree80286 pip-boy pastries, packaged vault tec dessert item.
@Insomnia_Gaming I can't believe I laughed at this
Boom Tarts
19:30 my theory for the MRE's is that they come with iodine tablets, or have them added to the food, which is generally used as treatment or a preventative measure for radiation poisoning, or it could just contain rad-away. since these MREs were made in preparation for a nuclear war, it would make sense that they'd have *something* to prevent radiation poisoning in soldiers who may cross nuclear craters.
Here in the UK they sell the equivalent of a salisbury steak in a can with gravy, they have up to a 5 year shelf life, we also have dried eggs in a powder form to make scrambled eggs, I'm not sure if they'll be edible after 200 years though.
The US also used to sell powdered eggs, either by themselves or as part of other foods, such as cake mixes.
I’m from the uk too and I’ve seen ‘frozen steaklet and chips’ which I thought was meant to be an equivalent to Salisbury steak
Fallout 3 be like: so, Sugar Bombs are based on this old cereal that was called "Sugar Jets". Now, with those cereals, you can make Super-Jets!
Full circle, yo!
Underrated comment
My guess on the reason MREs aren’t irradiated is airtight packaging. Regular companies can get away with a little margin of error, but the military has stricter standards on specific things so it might be better insulated
An airtight seal wouldn't stop radiation, the packaging would need to be made out of lead (or similar material that can block radiation).
@@PunkZombie1300 It would block out Alpha and Beta radiation which are the longer lasting ones and would be blocked out with simple packaging. (Alpha and beta radiation are blocked by things as simple as your skin or plastic/paper packaging, but are seriously dangerous when ingested or inhaled). Gamma radiation would mostly have dissipated in areas away from large quantities of nuclear material after the long period between the great war and the games. Unless your MRE was sitting on or next to a nuclear source it would be fine.
The MREs (Meals Rejected by Everybody) may have a similar evolution in Fallout as they did in our world, namely the fact that modern astronaut food is based off of MREs (but far more edible). Russian astronaut food is usually tinned and can be heated on a special stove, whereas NASA still uses pouches for much of their food which are often a similar foil to what MREs are packaged in. NASA also has clear packaging for things like fresh fruit and candy. It's fun to note that NASA actually irradiates meat prior to packaging to ensure it's sterile.
I could easily imagine the MREs in Fallout as being freeze-dried and vacuum packed in a lead-based foil package or perhaps a material similar to what NASA currently uses. After all, there's plenty of information in games up through Fallout 4 to suggest there was an active space program (and Fallout 76, which I'm not a fan of, has an entire questline revolving around a downed space station). With ads showing power armour on the moon, why not have military-grade MREs that have space-aged packaging and preservation? I could even picture kids getting astronaut ice cream as a RobCo promotional like we did with a certain DOS game back in the early 1990s... if they ever invented freeze dried ice cream in the Fallout universe, that is.
@@TheRealMorningstar fallout 4 suggests that there was even conflict in space, but the fact the repcon facility exists and posters for several generations of lunar landers exist as well. Indicates space travel and lunar colonization were somewhat achieved in fallout.
@@TheRealMorningstar tbh i always thought that part of the mural was supposed to be like "look at what the military will look like in 50 years!" more than that actually being a real event
The mural thing, don't take it literally that theres power armor on the moon.
"From Lexington and Concord..." shows a minute man "...to the shores of Iwo Jima..." shows WW2 ships and Marines "..., from the sea of Tranquillity..." shows the astronaut and lander, "...to the *Anchorage Front line* " shows Power Armored Infantry
You're being shown 4 separate scenes and the Power armor represents an earth bound conflict.
@@MediumRareOpinions even if you don't take the power armor to be on the moon, theres an astronaut with a blaster of some sort, with the lander behind him.
The t51 suit is in an abstract space, but that astronaut is totally on the moon. Whether or not he was using power armor, or some combat spacesuit is unknown.
@@TheRealMorningstar 76 is super-heavy on the space thing, mostly because (correctly) the assets were still in orbit. Orbits decay, and 200 years is plenty of time to drop a LOT of satellites, or just have their power sources fizzle out.
Funny that you mentioned the Fancy Lad Snack Cakes packaging makes them look like cookies, because I was thinking that it reminds me of the Biscoff cookie wrappers.
There was an old series of trading cards called Wacky Packages that parodied common every day products. Their parody of SPAM was CRAM. Not sure if this is the inspiration though.
Cram was also a bread like food in the Lord of The Rings. Since Fallout is/was an rpg, I like to think that's where it came from.
Cool, I’ll mention this in my next video!
I used to collect those and garbage pail kids cards, they were so fun as fuck. If i remeber it came with one sitck of gum in the pack of the wacky packs. I still have all mine.
Also that is definatly the same thing. the cram from wacky pack and FO
I have some of those as stickers.
2:10 the food processor in the Fallout 4 contraptions workshop DLC also allows you to make non irradiated sugar bombs.
20:52 I'm a labrat for hire, someone who tests medications and vaccines for insane pay, and seeing this package is almost REALLY too common.
Inside the package is most likely a glass tube containing all vital nutrients with dashes of flavoring.
For example; one of the IRL food items in the cafeteria for us is these packages, the blank space by the symbol would give you all the details. "Formula-Supplement-A,B-0_12,CDEK-Flavor-Substitute-Burger_Sub-brand-S" - Formula Supplement just tells you "Yes, you have to drink this", and A,B_012,CDEK are the vitamins in it. Flavor-Substitute-Burger tells you what it'll taste like, and Sub-Brand-S tells you the quality of it, with S being the best quality flavor-wise. These formulas they give us never expire either, considering they are quote from the cafeteria sign: "More than just supplements, they are drinkable vials of food with all needed vitamins". So the in game version? it's spot on, they just should of added something to the front.
How do you even get a gig like that?
@@jordandavis2131 I assume from those TV ads about medical trials, then you just keep doing it over and over again.
You’re gonna end up infected with FEV and become a super mutant bruv 😂😂
@@jordandavis2131 You sign up for a contract in a lab. They give you housing and pay for it inside the lab itself, which consists of 10 different basement floors, the first 2 basement floors being housing. An sterile smell lingers about the place and it's very clean and well lit.
@@themadrat1495nah this sound like some resident evil shit. Lmfao.
I love how people can dig into the lore of fallout and there's always always always more
Concidering inflation, why did that Skeleton in Fallout 4 rob a bank and break out through the wall with a bag of multiple 100 100$ Bills, if according to inflation it will only buy you about 101 Donut packages per stack?
No one said he was a good robber, people irl have robbed banks for less then 50 dollars before
I honestly want to look at the inflation in the universe and see how consistent it is. From what I know right now I know it’s not terribly consistent but could be interesting nonetheless.
The item model in game shows that the pre war money is actually a bundle of bills so I'd assume he got 100 bundles of 100 dollars, so it's more likely he got a few hundred thousand if not a few million, so yeah I'd say he was getting away pretty loaded
@@king_sheogorath Imagine the amount of donuts he could buy with that, i won't calculate this much.
You can see the cents symbol as in $0.99
I love these channels that just analyze Fallout. I've been playing since 2009 and it was a huge part of my development as a teenager and young adult. I just discovered this channel and it's already one of my favorites. I love how much real world comparison research goes into your videos. Thank you
Knowing the humor of Fallout, the MREs are probably packed in a rubber and straight LEAD container.
For those who don't know, lead isn't exactly good for you to ingest
Lead exposure causes kidney and liver damage, as well as memory loss.
How I know this, I don't remember 😁
Lead exposure causes bleeding also.
Well MREs are usually sealed too and gives you super diarrhea when you eat anything else as it will clog you up
Lead poisoning takes ages to kill you and makes you more aggressive and stupid, free combat drugs
No way, I've been consuming lead....am I in trouble?
MRE rations are specifically made to be able to handle extreme conditions. You can find people who carried MRE’s through patrol in Vietnam and promptly kept them. Only to find they’re completely edible even now and sometimes they’re even pretty damn good
I used to eat C-Rations from the late 1960s when I was a child in the 1980s. It was pound cake and peanut butter that someone in the Army reserves brought to our church camping trips, they were in a can painted a color between olive drab and brown.
@@SW-ii5gg I’ve seen people eat rations from 1955 and enjoy them, and precooked canned meat stays good indefinitely if canned and preserved properly (the military is many things, but it doesn’t poison it’s troops on purpose. So they’d all be canned and preserved to the max) and considering the civilian food is preserved to hell and back it’s no stretch to assume the same of the MRE’s
It is too a TV dinner! It has a big oval like a '50s TV screen, round things in the lower corner that look like control knobs, and then the dinner itself in the screen. It has three compartments, one for a vegetable, one for something that may be mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese, and the last one for a indeterminate meat form (steak, salisbury steak, meatloaf, whatever) the flavor of the meat being doused in gravy. I'd bet that after 200 years, that TV dinner tastes like a radio.
This was just good, cheesy fun...
Radio's spicier.
Most canned and preserved food have rads, most likely because it was part of the sterilization. Radiation was mostly a minor hassle pre war since there was medication and treatments to remove it. So small quantities of rads were not a big deal for most people.
I've always assumed that due to the parody of america style of these games that it's not too far fetched for most of these items to be filled with preservatives that would make it last theoretically forever
Yeah it seems pretty obvious that's what's going on. Reminds me of the McDonald's Fries experiment in Super Size Me.
@@Mooncubus Fun fact: The reason McDonalds food doesn't isn't because of preservatives, it's due to a lack moisture. The food dries out instead of rotting
Man, Bethesda really did just make everyone pre-war obsessed with nuclear bombs and radiation.
I mean they were in a nuclear revolution that was going to keep them "safe" from the rest of the world. The propaganda was that nukes were the saviours
@@Roboshi2007 Was the public back in the cold war ectatic over nuclear bombs? I don't think so. They were scared, wanted to remain ignorant over them. Nuclear power was of great interest - not nukes - to the common people in Fallout. Doesn't make sense for them to go around and eat and use products that have names and iconography of nuclear bombs, radiation, the atom, and nuclear fallout.
@@oneblacksun in Fallout there was indeed fears over global war, however the media was trying to downplay this, they were trying to make people think they were safe from the bombs because of the USA's own bombs. It's the satire of taking America's love for their military to the extreme and giving kids toys and food based on the military.
For a non-fallout example, in Robocop there is much the same issues of an america at it's darkest self, and in that they sell a cold war themed board game.
Insta mash and cram are one of the few foods i feel can be safe to eat anytime. One is a preserved vacuum sealed can. The other are dried potato flakes just add water.
Surprised at the lack of honey items in-game since irl they would've been able to last forever if preserved right. They're basically like 80% sugar enough to kill off or prevent bacteria and mold from growing too well.
Having honey in general would be cool and it would be cool if you could use it to craft minor healing items.
@@riclate2013 I suspect that will either be in Fallout 5 (especially if it's set in a warmer climate) or a later Expeditions star for Fallout 76.
Radking is my favorite lore channel for fallout and in general this far!
Aw shucks.
The salisbury steak box design in Fallout 3 and New Vegas made me think of the Banquet brand Salisbury steak design.
The cheezy poofs box is actually an image of Bing Crosby. Specifically his "Bing sings the Jonny mercer songbook" album
They also reworked that image of bing for a wheat puffs ceral ad.
somehow you make me entertained by video game food, good work
By the way Theodore can actually be reasoned with. In fallout 4 the way you do this is you run up to where he is at without shooting him and then he will lure his weapon and he will talk to you and you can actually make him give you a couple thousand caps. For allowing him to keep his business and keeping the secret. And if you come back every couple days he will have money for you
By the way my favorite part about all these videos is when you reference being a children of Adam supporter. It's so funny
I’m glad to hear this, even on my (mostly) peaceful play through I never experienced this. Maybe I wasn’t patient enough?
I'm always amazed at how many people don't know this. Then again, I could never get it to work for me, so maybe it's just really finnicky.
I always figured the food in 2077 was so processed amd full of different chemicals that it made it somewhat edible for literally hundreds of years
The dusty old box looks like a TV dinner of some kind, you can see the tray dividers and the different foods
lol I just let the video run a bit longer. You must not have grown up eating those terrible "dinners", they were still fairly common in the 90s. They still exist, but they're not usually branded to kids anymore, but to overworked single people who don't want to cook
I did not grow up eating them. But I did grow up with cartoons depicting meals in such trays.
I definitely did not grow up with them but even after knowing what it is I have a hard time seeing it tbh.
They were actually quite good. I loved them as a kid and they were kind of a treat. The buttered mashed potatoes and apple or cherry pie were quite tasty. I'm hungry now.
You talking about Kid Cuisine? I had a couple of those when I was a real young kid and they were alright. My mom was married, but my dad was at the office a lot back then working overtime ‘cause money was tight. Trying to keep my brother and I in line + keeping the house in order + doing side work to bring in extra cash was a lot for her back then. So I don’t blame her for taking the easy option and popping in a microwave meal every now and then when she needed a break.
@@KlutzyNinjaKitty Before there were microwave ovens (they called them radar ranges at first, at least I believe that Amana made those) there were "frozen dinners." They were packaged entirely in aluminum and they had flash frozen entrees and sides. They were available into the mid 1970s, and maybe the early 1980s before microwaveable dinners supplanted them. You baked them in a regular oven. The result could be surprisingly good, and some of the side dishes were small in serving size, but had a very memorable flavor. The hot buttered mashed potatoes and cherry or apple pie were among these.
Dried eggs are a type of MRE, my dad was in the marines so he finds them and eats them every now and again
I use powdered whole eggs, I haven't seen dried deviled eggs though.
The price on those donuts actually looks like it says .99c
In case anyone wasn't aware, the fact that the perfect bubble gum temporarily staves off thirst does come from real world thinking. During WW2, rations designed with potential water scarcity in survival situations in mind had pieces of chewing gum in them, because they found that chewing gum actually does prevent you from getting thirsty as fast.
I think it would be interesting to eventually cover the armors of fallout. Obviously the vast majority of them have no real life counterpart, but I think it would still be interesting to hear your thoughts on things like the raider armors from Fallout 3, or the various makeshift power armor sets from 3/NV/4. I can imagine it being annoying trying to cover the, what, 8 different types of combat armor from fallout 3?
The tesla armor in every pre-Bethesda Fallout games are many types of non powered metal armor sets equipped with electrical coils designed to produce an energy field over the users that protects them against energy weaponry like lasers, plasma, electricity and EMP.
I find it curious that combat Armor was never given a model designation or even manufacturer identification.
@Reaver presumably, what I was saying was more about its pre war lore.
Like we know West Tek made power armor, and that Stent Security Solutions made the R91 rifles, but combat Armor is just a vague name with nothing specific.
High chance combat armor was made by a private civilian company or for the PD like first responders. In NV Joshua Grahm was wearing a PD swat or bullet proof uniform.
They really should add them in 76 at one point since first responders are a thing. I could see a police training station being near a military base. Several entries with the best PD officers promoted to soldiers while the rest being given combat armor, a pistol side arm, a baton, a whistle, a pat on the back and some donuts and being told "Go gettem".
It would explain why the PD are so incompetent and crime ran amock in 4. With alot of officers being on the crime group's payroll and having only free lance detective actually solving anything. With the PD officers just doing busts and raids. Basically confiscating any mini nukes and lazer weapons because someone didn't pay their six 7 thousand dollar parking tickets.
@@davidfrancisco3502 how is an electric suit immune to EMP
I couldn't help saying, in my best Cartman voice, "no kitty those are my cheesey poofs!"
Heck yeah a new video!
its always a good day when he uploads a new video
Just for you guys!
I think buzz bites are not "filled with hot coffee". The most likely source of burns is efforts to apply chemical heaters (Found in many survival rations which are meant to provide ready hot food) to liquid filling. Since the activator for most of these is WATER, you can already catch where things went wrong with sticky, creamy (Have it too leaky and it's impossible to eat or even contain) flavouring insta-boiling as you try to taste it.
They are filled with hot coffe
You dare make a fallout food video without including the almighty “perfectly preserved pie”!!!
The pie is a lie
20:00 the MRE thing. Okay so despite the fact that you're supposed to eat these in the middle of a war, they come with more packaging than any electronic you've ever opened up in your life
I never knew that there was the slogan “who dat !” On the bottom of the Cajun rice can, and here I am collecting them all cause it reminded me of home
I'm surprised that they went to that much detail on the Institute food bars. At first I thought it would just be a list of all the amino acids. But there's vitamins and such too. The 11 amino acids there are the 9 essential ones and two of the 'conditional' ones, that our bodies are usually able to produce in enough quantity, except if we are sick or stressed.
I think I could go for one.
For some reason I’d love a mod where you watch your character eat the pre war food in first person lol
That exists, not sure if it has custom animations for every food but it definitely animates the noodle cups.
If there were eating animations like RDR2 that’d be amazing, it’d be pretty hard to implement them in for every single type of food tho
2:55 You know, i wasn't gonna say anything about it since it really doesn't matter, but now i will! I *did* think it was a TV dinner, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!
I love this community. We're literally discussing the food of these games.
Longnecks are soft-shelled clams, which just leaves Lukowski as the guy running the cannery. Presumably he's canning sardines and fish pre-war though, given the terminal has shipping logs.
The fallout 4 gumdrop box design I believe is a kind of nod to the 1988 game Wasteland. As it's title screen is similar with the mushroom cloud and letters with shadows.
"Small dusty box" 2:15 definitely looks more like a tv dinner than a bear.
I'm a simple man.
I see a new RadKing video.
I binge it immediately.
Addictive like Jet
💚
6:54 Fun fact Theodore can be spared. if you run up to him he gets scared and begs to be spared. If you do he splits profits with you and keeps selling his meat
MRE's are made specifically for fighting forces of the US army, and the government knew that there would be Atomics would be a challenge of the War when it came, so i think the packaging has a protective anti radiation covering.
thats the only headcanon i can think of to explain why if doesnt irradiate the player when consumed.
The lonesome road DLC is filled with Lead-Lined Metal Boxes which obviously keep rads away. You often find MRE in them so the inhabitants of the divide before must've scavenged them from those boxes.
the face on the Cheezy Poofs box is none other than Bing Crosby :) There's a really cool music variety radio show he did in the late 40s, "The Bing Crosby Show for Chesterfield"(Chesterfield Cigarettes), whose promotional flyer/ads have the original version of the face you're looking for. an altered version without the cigarette was used for other ads and an album or two , which is the one being used :))
I knew someone would know it! Thanks
Perhaps irradiating food to preserve it for longer is a more common technique in the Fallout timeline.
The radiation and absurdly long shelf life of pre war food is likely meant to reference the actual real world practice of using radiation to sterilize packaged food for preservation. Just taken to the Fallout extremes that it's still 'edible' up to 210 years later. Though given people's comments about it, it's not very good. But since there are areas like the Capital Wasteland that struggle with getting any kind of agriculture going even at that point, people will take what they can get.
Though given the fact that there are 'preserved' versions of packaged food that doesn't give you rads, it can be guessed that during pre war time the food wasn't so radiated that it was harmful, just like real life radiation preservation. But after 25-210 years sitting in the open, even sealed food has soaked up enough excess rads to pass the glow onto the consumer.
An interesting theory I read regarding the MREs in lonesome road is that the absence of rads in them is due to the MREs actually having been manufactured in the NCR, to be used/consumed by the special forces deployed there.
Also, on the subject of "whats inside sugar bombs" - in New Vegas theyre one of the key ingredients to the craftable flamer fuel recipe you get from the "Vigilant Recycler" perk😬
An other fun 76 fact: there are double skins of some food. Prewar packages and post war. 2 types of sugar bombs. One you need for crafting brain bombs and the other is the newer looking packaging and just adds hp and food
The old dusty box to me looks like a TV dinner that you would cook in the microwave
theory: the prewar food we find in the wastes are indeed prewar but not the same food that woul've been commercially available then, they're rations that were specifically designed to last long time to be used in vaults, and they ended up in the wastes after the vaults unsealed andtheir dwellers began bartering with the wastelanders. They don't look like MREs because they are intended for vault dwellers and convey a feeling of normalcy.
They're in pre-war grocery stores
The longneck Lukowski logo is what would appear to be a great egret faded grey, a white ibis with the last little bit of curve on the beak faded off or perhaps a grey heron with a simplified face. Among reeds environment could be any number of places from a cape marsh to a decorative backyard pond and detail faded this much isn’t fine enough to say the precise fish or waterfowl though we can be certain it’s a wading bird and that the size of fish is no greater than about 8 inches. For more information contact your local Audubon society.
For the institute food ration, all of that is actual scientific names for the basic chemicals our body needs to survive. Not thrive, survive. It even has the only source of vitamin c that isn’t irradiated, (ascorbic acid is Vitamin C)
I always assumed Sugar Bombs was a homage to the cereal that often appeared in the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip of the 80s.
The retortable pouch, often referred to as the flexible can, is what brought the MRE to fruition in 1980. It is fabricated as a three-ply laminate consisting of, from inside to outside, 0.003 to 0.004 inch thick polyolefin, 0.00035 to 0.0007 inch thick aluminum foil, and 0.0005 inch thick polyester....and data suggest that polyolefins are quite resistant to high (on the order of multiple Mrad) radiation exposure at a broad range.
2:41
What I see is a tv dinner, box is looking like a tv, its "screen" showing an image of what the food in the divided tray looks like, as a serving suggestion. Seems like mashed potato, peas and mystery meat in some gravy.
2:58
I probably shuldn't have paused to comment...
Lmao honestly I’m glad you did! Still think you’re a filthy liar though ❤️
Sussy
Also something to mention about fallout 76, sugar bombs are used in a few recipes, brain bombs being the most popular because its a 25% xp buff that can be boosted with magizines. But the non irradiated sugar bombs can't be used in these recipes, making them effectively worthless.
You and I both know how the MRE's managed not to accumulate radiation: They lined the damn things with lead. Bon appetite!
In Fallout 76 you can rarely find some pre-war food in beautiful packages which are not worn down at all. Like Sugar Bombs, Salisbury Steak, Blamco Mac & Cheese, Insta Mash and so on.
In the story for Fallout:Equestria( The MLP version and basically the main template for ones afterwards) mentions the preservatives thing you mention as well. Saying something, to the best of my memory so sorry if it’s a bit wrong, that a food the main character said “it has so many preservatives your stomach would be the last thing to decompose”
Self mummification. Sign me up!
How do they make wonderglue then?
The biggest joke on the Tactics donut package is that it's marked .99¢ which is the kind of thing you only see in hand marked prices. It's funny because according to the mistake the package was priced at just under one cent.
Most likely the food in the fallout universe (that we can eat) is probably still edible, because it was made so by the companies to last after an apocalypse? My head canon at least.
(There also is a YumYum brand irl, but they make instant ramen)
They're probably pumped full of enough preservatives for them to last millennia.
@@badideagenerator2315 yeah some special preservative maybe
@@latewizard301 considering you can get rads from food which is protected from nuclear fallout by its packaging, the preservatives are probably radioactive, they could contain an isotope with a very long half life, resulting in the food not giving off radiation until centuries after its production.
@@badideagenerator2315 huh... Never thought about that, tho it's probably a developer oversight, it's a way to explain it.
Totally forgot about the irl yum yum brand
I contend that SPAM did not become "hated" because of its presence in American rations during WWII. On the contrary, many soldiers loved it. It was often the only meat product included in rations, and could be used a number of ways. Its popularity among American troops is why it gained in popularity in the civilian market after the war, and why it remains an iconic brand today.
I thought the dusty old box had a 50’s style rocket ship on the front.
I don’t see it lol
Don’t you just love how New Vegas, the Mojave, arguably one of the least irradiated world maps that we’ve played so far ( in the 3d games I haven’t played 1 and 2 yet ), has all the irradiated versions of foods
Freeze dried deviled eggs don’t work. The filling works well but the egg whites don’t do well. Maybe if you flash freeze to keep the ice crystals small but that’s more work than I’ve ever seen anyone do so not sure you’ll find anyone who’s ever tried it
That’s what I don’t understand. How do you dry an egg, let alone a deviled egg and have it resemble anything like an actual deviled egg? There’s powdered eggs but you’d think it would say something to that effect on the box.
@@Rad_King
Well they had things like stimpacks … so maybe just calk it up to they figured out food preservation better than us cuz if you could figure out stimpacks preserving the integrity of proteins in eggs during drying might be childs play.
Love these videos. You got me through a 10 hour bus ride! Thanks for the consistent interesting quality
the key to boxed macaroni and cheese is have good organic whole milk and decent regular butter. add the correct amount of butter and a little extra of the milk and let it get hot while stirring. put to side and let cool a bit and it will tighten up. that is the zenith of it.