This Vintage Canned Meat Hasn't Been On Grocery Shelves In Years

What's your favorite canned meat? Spam seems to be the hands-down winner in terms of popularity, given its prevalence in stores today. Maybe you prefer canned chicken, or even those little Vienna sausages. Perhaps you don't like canned meats at all. They do seem to have a bad reputation, especially compared to their fresh counterparts, which are more readily available today than they were 50 or 60 years ago. With all of that in mind, would you fancy some canned ribs?

Armour Star canned ribs were patented in 1963, and, honestly, that was probably an exciting innovation at the time. The process involved packing the meat with a moisture-deficient sauce and then cooking it in the can, allowing the natural moisture of the meat to create a uniform, thickened sauce. The novelty would have been fun, if nothing else. Even today, you have to admit you'd look twice if you saw canned ribs on a shelf. The company didn't skimp on these cans either; Armour Star packed 2 ½ pounds of ribs and sauce in there.

Their ads boasted that the ribs had slim bones but lots of meat and that the sauce was not from a bottle. The meat was hickory-smoked, and the sauce had six "worldly" spices. A single can was meant to serve three to four people. From a modern perspective, you might be inclined to compare this to something like the McRib; however, the McDonald's McRib is a formed patty, whereas Armour Star ribs appear to be the real deal, just canned after cooking.

There are a lot of canned foods no one remembers anymore, and it's often better that way. Although canned foods are ubiquitous and a staple of diets around the globe, there is a long history of fear and mistrust when it comes to them. The very nature of canning — hiding food in a metal container with no idea what it might look like until it's opened — has been a source of trepidation since canning began. Scares about bacteria and modern concerns over BPA have kept many of us at arm's length from canned goods when fresher alternatives are available. Those alternatives are often deemed healthier, even if that's not necessarily true.

Low-selling products are often trimmed from store shelves, a process called SKU rationalization, where companies focus only on their most profitable products and reduce variety to lower costs and increase profits. A niche product like canned ribs would probably never sell well enough today to remain on store shelves.

As for Armour Star ribs specifically, they appear to have been discontinued years ago, making it difficult to find reviews. However, one comment from a 2009 thread included a user who recalled their father buying them for the family in the '60s. The user said the ribs were rolled up in the can like an ammo belt, and after the family tried them, everyone was sick for a day and a half. They complained to the company, which sent them a replacement can. Everyone got sick again. No one seems to remember seeing canned ribs after the mid-1960s. Seems like there's good reason.