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We should be shooting for "just as good as the French" when it comes to feeding the troops. Behold, the Ration de Combat Individuelle Rechauffable: https://www.mreinfo.com/international-rations/french-rcir/ That's basically 5-star gourmet take-out compared to what everyone else gets.

When you include the water added to the rum and lime juice to keep the crew somewhat functionally drunk instead of falling down shitfaced you weren't too far off ... The RN during the Age of Sail makes Boris Yeltsin drunk driving a superpower look like an amateur.

And crew health. The rum was used to make the lime juice used to prevent scurvy actually drinkable. Sorta like how the gin in a gin and tonic makes the quinine used to treat malaria symptoms in the tonic water somewhat palatable. Cheers and drink up!

It was 16.75lbs of food and 70lbs of beer per week, not per day. Officers got the same rations as the crew and good RN Captains often supplemented that with whatever fresh foods they could get their hands on. The RN tried very hard to keep the corruption and graft to a minimum because the...

Yes, they would. However canned food was mostly an upper class novelty during the first half of the 19th century. Can openers were invented in the second half of the 19th century.

Consider the technology and conditions of the period. The - what we would call shitty and unacceptable - rations RN sailors got was actually much more expenive and nutritious than what working class landlubbers could afford. This ain't skimping: I'm pretty sure you don't eat 7lbs of bread...

Yikes! The RN during the age of sail didn't have it that bad. "We're running out of beer*" was reason enough for the Captain to make a port call to buy buttloads** of beer. * The RN ran on booze back then and the ration was a gallon a day for every sailor. ** An actual measurement: 1 buttload...

Someone once gave me roughly this analogy for Gemini 7: two men in snow suits stuffed into a VW Bug with the window cranks removed and the doors welded shut for two weeks.

That doesn't mean it's either easy or cheap to implement.

They also can't exhaust to atmosphere most of the time so it's "pick your poison".

I'm not disagreeing with that at all. I've designed kitchen exhaust systems and have a pretty good idea of what it takes to prevent a deep fryer from saying "evacuate the building because I'm burning it down and the fire department is on its way".

Fried food? In a submarine? The USN is sparing no expense because a commercial deep fryer is a grease fire looking for an excuse.

I've heard it said that submariners get the best food in the entire navy as a way to help keep morale up. Warships aren't exactly known for their spacious accomodations, submarines dial cramped way past 11, and there might be more crew than beds.