An awesome thing to do an activity with in the classroom. Please help me in welcoming karyn. [applause] karyn good morning, everyone. I hope everyone has had a good week so far. I know i certainly did. When i was here a couple of years ago. This morning, im going to talk about the food fight, or rationing, in world war ii. We all know that teenagers and have large appetites. I have one at home with an incredibly large appetite. I like to try and engage kids with the topic that not only fits their appetite, but also increases their appetite for learning. And i find that food is oftentimes a very engaging topic. Napoleon, or frederick the great, depending on who you listen to, once said, an army marches on its stomach. To supply not just the u. S. Army, but increasingly throughout world war ii, also that of our allies, prisoners of war, and those who we liberated in the civilian populations, the people of the United States had to implement solutions to foundational problems, Food Production and distribution. The solution impact not only wartime provisioning, but also the way that we eat today. According to the book, the combat ready kitchen how the u. S. Military shapes the way you eat, research and development for food during world war ii not only helped us win the war, they also created Development Processes for modernday processed foods. Providing soldiers with food on the battlefield has long been a problem faced by military leaders. The armys quartermaster corps is tasked with provisioning for much of the u. S. Military. Issues such as fresh ingredients, the weight of provisions for soldiers on the move and the sheer volume of food that the army must provide, magnify the difficulties of normal Food Production. Prior to world war ii, new difficulties arose that would demand greater ingenuity among the quartermaster corps. To address the needs, army created a Subsistence Research and Development Laboratory that started about five years before the u. S. Joined world war ii. And they were tasked with developing new field rations for the army. Some innovation was going to be due to social changes, such as implementation during the war of the womens army corps, which is going to lead to modified menus that are more palatable towards the dietary preferences of women. Other modifications will be the results of things like innovations in technology, which changed the nature of warfare during world war ii. For example, the implementation of the army corps paratroopers to a very wide extent. That is going to increase the demand for very light, packable meals. Research into longerlasting rations that carry much less weight for soldiers is going to be critical. In the mid1930s, the military is going to to create an alphabet system to differentiate between types of meals. Field ration letter a were created with fresh meat and produce. They were served and permanent dining halls. Ration b was in kitchens and utilized canned goods where for refrigeration is not feasible. What you see on the left are c rations. They were developed in 1938, but not it put into mass production until 1941 with the outbreak of war for the United States. They contained canned meat and vegetables. Tasty. 3800 calories per day per soldier. Early versions of the c rations were heavy, about six pounds. Paper labels would fall off, making your evening meal a bit of a surprise. [laughter] the research and Development Laboratory woodwork throughout the war to improve the taste and weight of the rations. And they did so with some success. The biggest innovation is they would develop a whole new type of ration called the k ration, which we will discuss in a moment. The d ration on the right is also referred to as the logan bar. It is the emergency ration. It is a chocolate bar, made out of bitter chocolate, sugar, oat flour, cocoa fat, skim milk powder, and artificial flavoring. Developed in conjunction with the Hershey Company beginning in 1937, it had to meet four requirements. It had to be a bar weighing about four ounces, it had to be able to withstand high temperature, it had to have high food energy value and it had to taste barely better than a boiled potato. [laughter] they dont want the soldiers eating them like candy bars. It would not be put into mass production again until 1941, with the intention of giving soldiers enough energy for about 24 hours in emergency conditions. That equates to about 600 calories. It was not tasty, but it was able to withstand temperatures of about 120 degrees. And it was relatively small and light. So it became a viable option for soldiers to carry and consume in emergency situations. Manufacturing problems occurred. As hershey explains, normal chocolate production is done with fluid chocolate. You might see chocolate milk being poured into molds. It withstands higher temperatures and does not melt. Hershey had to devise new engineering and machinery in order to develop these at a mass level for the u. S. Military. In addition, the Army Quartermasters worried about protecting these emergency rations from things like poison gases. So they developed new packaging techniques to make sure they were safe in any emergency situation. They engineered everything from the sleeve it was put into, all the way to the ink that was used in the packaging. Taste is an issue. In 1943, the army asked hershey to try and improve the taste somewhat, which led to the development of a second type of dration called hersheys tropical chocolate bar, which would long outlive the war and regular use, including a trip to the moon on apollo 15. The development of the d ration is a precursor to the modern energy bar, a fortified meal replacement bar. Today, there is a large industry that provides a variety of meal replacement bars in many different flavors. They provide americans with something in a bar and a few ounces in weight, does not easily melt, packs a substantially energy boost, and, dare i say it, still tastes just a little better than a boiled potato. [laughter] k rations are the lightest and most transportable development of world war ii for food. Originally designed for paratroopers and soldiers were on the move, it was intended to be eaten in a limited amount of time, no more than 15 days. However, it did get put into widespread use throughout the war. Developed in 1941 at the university of minnesota, along with the army Subsistence Research laboratory, it contained three boxed meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner and it provided almost 3000 calories in only two pounds, which was was substantially lighter than the c ration. Due to development and close proximity to the war, it was suggested to limited testing before the implementation. It would undergo many changes throughout the war. Early versions contained malted milk dextrose and dextrose tablets. Delicious. Those were quickly changed to fruit bars in the dinner box. Sugar was included to help produce the chocolate drink. Throughout the war, modifications would be made as needed and as supplies allowed. Originally, there was a hard candy in the rations. When those became in limited supply, they replaced them with caramels and eventually with candy bars like milky way. Hard biscuits would be replaced with cereal bars. New flavors of drinks would be offered. The original lemonade was so acidic and tart that the soldiers claimed it would be better used as a floor cleaner than a drink. I can only imagine. Packaging will also evolve from something that looks very basic. To something that contained instructions on how to utilize and eat the ration, to these colorcoded versions you see here. They were actually designed in part to provide a morale boost. Speaking of morale boosts, the military uses candy rations to fill a couple of needs. One is morale boost, the second is a quick boost of energy. The candy has to have that ability to not melt. So in 1941, the military was provided an option by the mars company, when they provided for the military candycoated chocolates for military use only. The coating kept the chocolate from melting and became a sweet treat for soldiers throughout the war. After the war, rationing was lifted. M ms became a popular treat and remain so today. Does anyone like cheese . Maybe not this kind. [laughter] cheese is a staple for military provisioning, and had been for quite some time. However, cheese is bulky and heavy due to its high water content, so the Army Research corps, usda, universities and manufacturers started trying to research and develop some type of a powdered cheese during the war, so they could transport cheese and use it as a flavoring. The first real cheese powder would be developed in 1943 by george sanders, a usda scientist. It was a cheap, easily transportable option to flavor foods and make them cheesy. If you have students that are really sciencey, you can get into the process of how they did this. According to the article in wired magazine, it was considered impossible to dehydrate natural, fatcontaining cheese, because when you heated the cheese, the fat would melt out and separate. Sanders innovation was to do this in two steps. In the first, the cheese would be shredded and grated and dried at a low temperature which would harden the proteins, forming a barrier around the fats. Once the water had evaporated, or enough water had evaporated, then, the cheese would be ground up and dehydrated at a higher temperature and turned into the powder. It would then be formed into cakes, and cakes could be shipped easily around the world to our military bases. After the war, they were sold off to manufacturers such as quaker oats, kellogg, kraft. And in 1948, the fritolay Company Debuted a new snack made with cheap, is the transported military cheese. Cheetos. I mentioned earlier that world war ii spanned the development of processed foods. This is an example of processed food entering the american diet. I dont know about you, but i know a lot of kids who eat cheetos on the regular. [laughter] innovations for meals on the battlefield were made possible not just by the military scientist but also by average people back at home who would alter their habits and devise innovative ways to aid the war effort from home. These efforts are recognized on the National World war ii member of here in d. C. , as farmers are permanently shown growing food that would feed those in the u. S. , our allies, and even some of our enemy. American farmers were called upon to increase food supply. At the same time that farm labor was decreasing by participation in the war. New innovations to increase efficiency and farming techniques such as improved irrigation and terracing, as discussed in this news article, helped farmers provide for wartime needs. However, these small changes in front of techniques would lead to more dramatic changes in the decades after the war and form our modern farming committees. Here, you might be it what to see, the increasing numbers of livestock as reported by the u. S. Farm bureau. You can see the numbers go up substantially. The u. S. Government also devised an innovative foreignpolicy solution to help with the concern of farm labor shortage. Begun by executive order 1942, this program more often referred to as the Bracero Program was a Guest Worker Program between the u. S. And mexico. Farmers were concerned that with so many men going to war, there would not be enough farmers to increase the demand for farm goods. The program allowed for Migrant Workers to obtain contracts and work on american farms. It was not without critics on both sides of the border that the inventive implementation of Foreign Policy toward migrant labor helped keep Farm Products in strong supply to feed america and its allies. The program will not end until 1964, after over 4. 6 million labor contracts had been issued. Other innovative ways of dealing with shortages is to use atypical workers like young people. As you can see from wartime propaganda, High School Students were encouraged to use their free time and their summers for labor needs on americas farms. In the newspaper article, the governor of nebraska went so far as to advocate for a truncated school year for high school boys, to allow them to leave early and work on farms, arguing that it was both good for boys and farms. In addition to producing more, americans were also asked to do with less. So, rationing began. Sugar was the first to be rationed, starting in the spring of 1942, due to the inability of us to have a lot of trade from our Pacific Trading partners, where we got the majority of our sugar. As the war drew on, the needs of the military grew larger. And other food such as coffee, processed foods, meat and Dairy Products were added to the list of rationed items. The government developed a wartime Nutrition Program to help guide americans to make sure that they ate a wellbalanced diet despite rationing. The Program Guidelines were displayed in a variety of places, including posters, newspapers, and in wartime additions of cookbooks, such as the one here. Rationing was instituted and overseen by the office of Price Administration or opa. Families were issued ration books on stamps to obtain rationed items. For food, there was a system of red points and blueprints. Red points were fish and dairy, and blue for canned foods and bottled foods. The point system was deemed the best way to restrict consumer purchases while still allowing for some consumer flexibility. For example, if you had 10 blue points left, you may choose a can of vegetables that is worth 10 points, or you can choose to cans of 5point fruit. The number of points necessary to obtain an item fluctuated with supply. So, stores and newspapers would regularly publish the governments updated point values for foodstuffs to help consumers plan meals around their available points. Another way to ensure enough to eat, and support the war effort, was to grow your own food. During the war, almost 20 million Victory Gardens were planted to allow commerciallygrown produce to be used for soldiers abroad, which also protected the american against Food Shortages here at home. At its height, 40 of the produce grown was grown in a Victory Garden. Victory gardens ranged from every small rooftop gardens, although a from people turning their entire backyards into a garden to participate as support the war effort. The government will encourage the use of Victory Gardens through propaganda, as well as providing instructions to novice growers in how to plant, tend and harvest crops. Favorite things to grow included such produce as beets, beans, carrots, cabbage, peas, tomatoes and squash. With so many vegetables being produced on the homestead, the government encouraged women to help the effort through the practice of canning. Propaganda designed to link the success of family food storage efforts with food preservation worked as canning vegetables or fruit became a stable, to prevent food from not going bad. In 1943, the usda estimates that 4 billion cans of food were created in the United States. Canning amounts pete during the war at about the same time that the Victory Garden production peaked, demonstrating the successful link between the two practices. While canning has been a way of life for Many Americans hire to this, many had to learn the art of canning as part of the war effort. The governments cookbook authors and companies, helped american women learn how to can by not wasting Fresh Produce and making sure to always have enough. The usda would create almost 6000 Community Canning Centers around the United States to help women learn how to can as well as to share in the kitchen tools that they may not otherwise have. Pamphlets were created to instruct women in the process. Even children were able to help the war effort by helping to garden and can foods. Which for many, turned into a lifelong practice, for some. I will show you a quick video from janine johnson, she was age six years old to 10 years old during the war effort, and she still cans. She sat down with me until me about what food was like for her during the war. [video clip] neighbors who had chickens, they would trade chickens, eggs, and fruit my grandmother canned. We had a basement in the house that had a huge pantry well, cellar, it was a cellar. She had the shelves just loaded with all kinds of food, and she would trade whatever she wanted to. That is really basically, you didnt have to buy much food because if you canned food, that keeps for a year or two. That is where i learned how to can. I made jams and jellies. I canned other things but i am not into it like she was. It was a huge garden. We had to do something with this stuff. If we had an overabundance of eggs, she would boil the eggs and put them in a mixture of the and things. They were very good. Everybody thinks they would taste horrible, but they were very good. They had great big jars. You get pickles in them sometimes, and that is what we put the eggs then. Then, another thing they had, i ate pickled pigs feet. But, you know what, because of the war effort, we couldnt buy a lot of the meat, but we ate tons, we ate whatever. [laughter] we ate all the organs, you might say. But you know what, tongue was good. We ate. I know, you are making a face [laughter] dont look at me. But anyway, we ate daily. You bought milk and milk bottles. We did not have any plastic. Plastic was on the horizon. Anyway, and there was always cream on the top. My grandmother made butter from that cream. We had delicious desserts. My grandmother was really upset after the war because Betty Crocker came out with a cake mix, and she said, that was the worst thing in the world people are too lazy to make a cake. I would bake a cake and if she found out it was a Betty Crocker cake, she would say, no. She was a staunch patriot, believe me. That is where i got my patriotism, from her, and from my grandparents and my parents to we all served in some way for the war effort. Ms. Cabana for those that couldnt make tongue taste good, i still dont know if i could try that for those who needed guidance to make delicious desserts, i actually asked her later in the interview, how do you make delicious desserts with sugar rationing . That was a whole different conversation. There were a lot of cookbooks that were published as special wartime edition cookbooks that would help families creatively use what they had to produce Quality Foods that didnt taste like you would think there should probably taste. Cooking with little sugar, little butter, or new cuts of meat became part of the war effort, and you can tell she is still very proud of her part in that war effort. Here are some examples of recipes that use substituted items. For example, brown sugar and corn syrup were used in place of regular sugar whenever it was rationed, to make different treats. In addition to government propaganda such as the one on the righthand side of the screen, a variety of other people and companies helped to encourage and also educate americans on the path to aiding the war through food. Dr. Seuss on the left, is a favorite to students, in part because he is familiar to them. He creates lots and lots of world war ii cartoons, this one is simply encouraging people to do their part. Several disney shorts were also made regarding food. The one i will play for you is called, out of the frying pan and into the firing line, and it not only speaks to americas patriotic acts, but also educates americans about how to save cooking fat to use in the production of munitions. [video clip] [patriotic band music] sorry. Pause one moment for technical glitches. Sorry. Sorry. [video clip] [patriotic band music] [singing] la, la, la, la, laaaa pluto, how would you like some delicious hot bacon grease . Dont throw away that bacon grease. Housewives of america, one of the most important things you can do is to save your kitchen fat, bacon grease, meat drippings, frying fat. We and our allies need millions of pounds of fat to help win the war. Fats make glycerin, and glycerin makes explosives. Every year, 2 billion pounds of waste kitchen fat are thrown away, enough glycerin for 10 billion rapidfire cannon shells. About 150,000 miles long. Six times around the years, a skillet of bacon grease is a little ignitions factory. Meat drippings sink axis warships. [planes roaring overhead] [explosion] announcer waste frying fat speeds depth charges on their way to crush axis submarines. [planes roaring overhead] [bubbling sounds] announcer your pound of waste fat will give some boy at the front on a clip of cartridges. Do you still want the bacon grease, pluto . Announcer poor your waste kitchen fat in a clean widemouth can. Not a glass jar or paper bag. Drain your fat in a kitchen sieve. Keep it in a cool and dark place so it will not become rancid. When you have a pound or more, take it to your neighborhood meat dealer who is patriotically cooperating. He will weigh the fat and pay you for it. [laughter] so you want weenies instead of money. Ok, catch em announcer save waste fats to make explosives. Look for the official insignia in your meat dealer window. [applause] ms. Cabana who doesnt want to save your fat to bring mickey home safe from the front. Seriously, right . [laughter] but notice, it wasnt just patriotic, rah, rah, it was also just educating americans on what they needed to do and how they needed to do it. Everybody gets in on the action. Almost everybody. As with all things, there is going to be a bit of innovative thinking on how to skirt the rationing system in america. There is a black market that develops for rationed items. Some people will also produce counterfeit ration coupons and try to get more than their fair share. Other ways of skirting the system would be for people to sell cuts of meat that did not meet government standards for fat content. Throughout the war, only about 7 of retailers were ever charged with violations of rationing. Estimates are, it was probably higher than that. But that is a hard number. Far fewer were ever convicted, and for those who were convicted of ration violations, they were only asked to pay small fines. It did not become a major deterrent for the black market. It did exist. Overall, americas use of food throughout world war ii was a big help to our success, and that of us helping our allies, and eventually our enemies at the end of the war. To make sure the transition from wartime to peacetime went smoothly. So we will pause here for just a couple of minutes for questions and answers and then we will get into lesson ideas that we can do with this information. [indiscernible] raymond . Thank you. I was wondering whether [inaudible] my question is, i know the American Government had also instituted similar programs in world war i. To what extent did they just go back to the same playbook . Which i assume made this easier to sell and to start up. To what extent is this new . Ms. Cabana a lot of this is similar to what they did in world war i. A lot of the innovation comes from the new types of foods, and the fact that the processed foods were starting to come into the market and being pushed to the consumer. Because they were quick, they were easy, they were cheap. I think that is where the big shift between world war i and where world war ii is. We dont have a special section on the army physical exam, which was a notorious subject of conversation in the 1940s. My favorite language involves the dental exam, and the requirement sufficient dental digits to masticate the ration. How is that for in personality to make you depressed . [laughter] ms. Cabana that is really interesting. From what i researched, i will be honest, there are ways you can go online and buy either old ones or recreations. I did not get that deep into my research. [laughter] but some of them dont sound very tasty. Was there an effort to either recycle or reuse . Ms. Cabana not that i came across. Here on the home front, i have talked with my students, and actually, ms. Johnson buttered up in the interview, i wish i could have played the whole thing, it was so interesting. The way that we cautiously think of recycling seems to be more of natural everyday life to them. So, they would, anything they had on hand, to naturally reuse it, because of limitations on available supplies and whatnot. So in the way that we think of purposely cautiously reusing and recycling, not so much, just more of the natural, ingrained. [indiscernible] ms. Cabana not that i came across, but that does not mean they didnt. I just didnt come across it. That would be a good question to research. When they were sent to the front or the fact to, did it really work and do what it was supposed to do . Ms. Cabana i believe so, yes. Did you do research into cigarettes or tobacco rations . Ms. Cabana there are cigarettes in the k and c rations. The k rations had 4 cigarettes. It actually talked about that originally, they just put them in, and pretty quickly they figured out it destroyed the cigarettes in transport. We talk a lot and they were changing the packaging, and they eventually put the cigarettes into a cardboard sleeve to protect the integrity of the cigarettes. So they did include those in the rations. For other programs with the mexican laborers, was that mostly in the western half of the United States . Because i Read Research that we used german pows on the east coast. Did we have any of the mexican laborers on the east as well and germans on the west . Ms. Cabana i think a lot of it was in the southwest, but also into the midwest. I was really surprised, and our classrooms we talk about the Bracero Program, but as i got deeper into it, i was surprised at how many ended up in the great plains region, nebraska, iowa, and whatnot. It seemed they went much further during this time. Then we would have thought. Still very concentrated in the farming regions. Did your research to through any type of correlation between the mid1930s and agricultural act, trying to diminish production to sustain prices, to the need for rationing . Did we hit ourselves in the foot there with that act . Ms. Cabana i came across a little bit of that. It was not my focus so much. I did come across a little where they talked about that the aaa would impact farming amounts, but honestly, off the top of my head, i dont remember any of the specifics. I am sorry. This is a more random question. Anything you came across about the rationing of things like the making of alcohol, because i know they would use those products in other things. The steel produced it, but it probably wasnt a necessity . Ms. Cabana it was never on any of the official rationing lists. Its like i tell my students, alcohol is a relatively inelastic commodity. Good when times are good and when times are bad. I did not ever come across anything specific to alcohol. But i can confirm it was not rationed. Did the rationing during the Great Depression have any impact during the rationing on world war ii, since they were close in time . Ms. Cabana world war ii rationing was more governmentimplemented and more purposeful, by the office of Price Administration. It is more purposeful and more intentional. Anything during the Great Depression, was i think more selfimposed for that. Any more questions . All right. Ms. Cabana thank you. Thank you, karyn for ther presentation. [applause] this is American History tv on cspan3. Each week in, we feature 48 hours of programming. Tonight on the tv, our interview with disability rights attorney , sheuthor in her book details becoming the first death blind graduate deafblind graduate of harvard university. Whathad to think about might i be missing, what are the potential unknowns, how can i find those unknowns . This tryinghas been to identify unknowns and figure them out and come up with solutions. At 10 00, American University professor talks about his book how to be an antiracist. A princetoniewed by university professor. Given wellmeaning people, even people who are trying to be part of the movement against racism recognize that the history of this when a eugenicist was classified as racist, they said i am not racist. When jim crow segregationists were charged with being racist, they said i am not racist. Even today, white nationalists say they are not racist. Whether they are in the white house or planning the next mass shooting. Jim mattis recounts his military career and his thoughts on leadership in his book learning to lead. [captions Copyright National cable Satellite Corp 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] next on american tv, the 1776 ath of the july 4, declaration of independence. This discussion was part of a hosted by the society of the early republic. Im the president , and ill be with you for the next couple of days. Sorry that the weather was not so great yesterday and some of people who intended to be couldnt be here took e of the deluge that place on eastern seaboard. There are a lot of people ill thank later on but just to a lot goes into this kind of an event and many people have