gia over the Christmas holiday. During this same
period, Zigo was secretly telling Air Force investiga-
tors of his illicit affair with Flinn.
Flinn’s commanding officers were outraged by
her behavior and formally filed charges of adultery,
fraternization, lying, and disobeying a direct order.
If convicted, Flinn faced nine and a half years in
prison.
Impact After months of debate by high-ranking Air
Force officials, along with an official Senate inquiry
in late May, 1997, Flinn, instead of facing a criminal
trial and possibility of a dishonorable discharge,
opted to take a plea agreement of a general dis-
charge, a discharge usually given to soldiers whose
negative record outweighs their contributions but
who have not fully disgraced their country. Flinn was
also ordered to pay back close to $20,000 in tuition
expenses to the Air Force Academy since she still
had one more year of her five-year commitment to
serve.Further Reading
Flinn, Kelly.Proud to Be: My Life, the Air Force, the Con-
troversy. New York: Random House, 1997.
Thomas, Evan, and Gregory Vistica. “Sex and Lies.”
Newsweek, June 2, 1997.
Paul M. KlenowskiSee also Marriage and divorce; Scandals; Tailhook
incident; Women in the military. Food trends
Definition Patterns and tendencies within
American eating habits, restaurants, and
domestic food preparation
During the 1990’s, following innovations in technology,
changes occurred in the production and packaging of
food that brought new products and eating habits, as well
as new concerns over the safety of food. The increase in res-
taurant chains effected widespread change in eating habits
and stimulated a countermovement for local and organic
foods.
The line of new products introduced to grocery
stores in the 1990’s came largely in the form of pre-
packaged and frozen foods. Thanks to innovations
in flash freezing, a process by which cooked food is
exposed to extremely cold temperatures, and modi-
fied atmosphere packaging, a technique that changes
the air inside a package of food, increasingly busy
Americans could conveniently prepare meals for
him or herself, or for a family. While frozen dinners
and prepackaged meats, cheeses, and salads fed
longer-working adults nationwide, new products
such as the Oscar Mayer Lunchable, a prepackaged
lunch that frequently included crackers, meat,
cheese, and a drink, offered an easy alternative to
preparing children’s lunches. Again reflecting this
busy lifestyle, the creation of cereal bars, PowerBars,
and Balance Bars as meal replacements for on-the-
go individuals was influenced by advances in food
engineering, putting as many nutrients as possible
into a bar.
Genetically modified food was introduced in the
1990’s to increase food’s shelf life and make foodThe Nineties in America Food trends 339
Kelly Flinn, a bomber pilot for the Air Force, arrives on May 20,
1997, at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota for a pretrial hear-
ing on adultery and disobedience charges.(AP/Wide World
Photos)