History

thenextwave

Presence and presents this morning in the space from @july in July.

Of course I would be quietly thinking about pop tarts this week (a nostalgic treat) and he would bring this beautiful artisanal one.

We talked about the world through a kid’s eye view. You’re three feet tall and looking around. What do you see?

I read about the history of pop tarts while enjoying my artisanal pop tart earlier. Did you know that in 2001 the United States military dropped 2.4 million pop tarts over Afghanistan?

During their invasion, the U.S. also wanted to win over hearts and minds. Millions of Afghans were going hungry, so the Wornick Company - a long-time military supplier - was contracted to create 2,200 calorie food rations.

These HDRs (human daily rations, as they’re called) were dropped from high altitude in sealed bags. 90% of the sealed bags burst before they reached the ground.

Also, the bags were originally yellow which was unfortunately the same color as unexploded cluster bomb munitions. So they later changed the bags for the HDRs to pink.

It is said the pop tarts air drop had very little effect on changing sentiment among Afghans.

The creator of pop tarts, Bill Post, was an army veteran who served in occupied Japan after the end of WWII. The license plate on his car said “POPTART.”

Post passed away last year at the age of 96. That year, Netflix released a film directed by Jerry Seinfeld about the creation story of pop tarts. By the way, it’s actually spelled “Pop-Tarts” but I can’t bring myself to write it like this.

Building a little space at /thenextwave and watching everything on /videolab.