Food Preservation And Its Effects On World War II

Conserving resources for soldiers became a big deal, especially since a great majority of the people went through the depression before the war. The idea of Victory Gardens came about, growing your own food and saving to conserve food for the brothers, husbands, and sons fighting in the war. Many advertisements included products to help buy supplies for the gardens that women could keep. (Document 1) People on the homefront really believed in conservation to help the soldiers, which is how the idea of rationing began. Rationing helped families get their fair share of everything to conserve supplies and food for the people they knew fighting in the war. (Document 3) Some items that Americans rationed were sugar, coffee, chocolate, oil, rubber, metals, or anything that would be a shortage due to the pause in international trading. Even though the U.S. was in the Great Depression as the war started, the wartime economy helped to pull it out and rationing became a new normal for Americans during the

The soldiers in WW1 would be eating simple foods such as rice, beans, potatoes, stale biscuits, a lot of canned meat and sometimes they grew vegetables that were not being used! The food wasn’t very appealing at all but that was needed to make them survive. Afterwards, soldiers would have to do daily chores such as refilling sandbags, repairing trenches and the duckboards on the floor.

Roosevelt had stated, “If I wanted anything to eat it was wise to carry it with me.” He also suggested, “I would earnestly advise the men of every volunteer organization always to proceed upon the belief that their supplies will not turn up.” (Roosevelt)

The Confederate government adopted the official US Army ration at the start of the war, although by the spring of 1862 they had the reduce it. According to army regulations for camp rations, a Union soldier was entitled to receive daily 12 oz of pork or bacon or 1 lb. 4 oz of fresh or salt beef; 1 lb. 6 oz of soft bread or flour, 1 lb. of hard bread, or 1 lb. 4 oz of cornmeal. Per every 100 rations there was issued 1 peck of beans or peas; 10 lb. of rice or hominy; 10 lb. of green coffee, 8 lb. of roasted and ground coffee, or 1 lb. 8 oz of tea; 15 lb. of sugar; 1 lb. 4 oz of candles, 4 lb. of soap; 1 qt of molasses. In addition to or as substitutes for other items, desiccated vegetables, dried fruit, pickles, or pickled cabbage might be

The monograph Eating for Victory: Food Rationing and the politics of Domesticity by Amy Bentley centers on the American mindset concerning food that changed during World War II; her thesis maintaining that the Roosevelt administration’s decision to institute legal rationing, proven in its ethical rightness in that this choice ultimately bettered the average American’s diet. Bentley justifies it through the apparent constraints of the massive undertaking the World War would require through the cultural and social approaches, which suited the gendered approach the author applied to this matter. And while she mentions economic and military approaches as well, a deeper analysis of the propaganda towards women in families is the central emphasis in many chapters of the book. Bentley collected information from many archival records such as the “United States Food Administration” and information contained within the “Office of War Information (OWI).” Her final conclusion is that the rationing process on the American home front during World War II had a positive outcome. Through these conclusions, however, develops a contrasting opinion from other historians; as her near overgeneralization of American unity

Rationing is defined as a fixed allowance of provisions of food, especially for soldiers or sailors or for civilians during a shortage (dictionary.com). In 1942 a rationing system began to guarantee minimum amounts of things people needed. During World War II, people couldn’t just walk into a store and buy whatever they wanted. Ration books are books that contained coupons where shopkeepers could cut out the coupon for the person to use. War ration books and tokens were issued to each American family, controlling how much gas, tires, sugar, meat, silk, shoes, nylon and other items any person could buy (Rationing on the US Homefront). The Office of Price

Before 1830, food preservation used time-tested methods: salting, spicing, smoking, pickling and drying. There was little use for refrigeration since the foods it primarily preserved — fresh meat, fish, milk, fruits, and vegetables — did not play as important a role in the North American diet as they do today. In fact, the diet consisted mainly of bread and salted meats.

Michael Pollan, the author of “In Defense of Food”, is a journalist, who is engrossed in nutritional science as well as its history. By writing this book, Pollan tries to undermine the food industries and health-claiming campaigns and inform us how they misled us about the way we should eat. The low-fat campaign is an example of this, and as said on page 43 of the book, “the low-fat campaign has been based on little scientific evidence and may have caused unintended health consequences.” In the book, Pollan speaks from the perspective of a journalist who wants to share his ideas and discoveries about nutrition. He sounds a little bemused and apprehensive at the same time. When talking about plant foods on page 64, he tries to understand what

World War II left a deep-rooted impact on the lives of the people that were fighting on the front lines of the war and the ones serving on the home front. The relationships and perspectives of Americans changed after the war from previous believed truths to a modern idea of what life could be, or how their lives have recently transformed. Because of the distinctive oppositions experienced by those of who endured the bleak and torturous years of the war. Moreover, they now understand the circumstances from which they had bravely overcame and conquered.

The years during World War II were drastically different from the way things were today. People were going off to war, some never to be seen again, the future was uncertain, and there were new shortages of food and materials every day. Many people facing shortages and rationing were encouraged to “do with less - so they’ll have enough” and “use it up, wear it out, or do without” (“U.S. Home;” Lingeman 248). Rationing was a very important and greatly needed component in the Unites States during World War II.

“It's not the extremes and the treats that are the problem. It's the everyday,” Jamie Oliver. Obesity is one of the leading causes of military ineligibility among people 17 to 24, affecting nearly 30% of men and women in this age group. This greatly impacts the future of our country not only in health but in security as well and needs to be given a priority in our busy lives. In order to begin to combat the issue of obesity within the country we, as a government and a people, need to eliminate food deserts within the United States.

In the Southern army you weren’t as lucky. Union soldiers kept coffee, flour and other goods from getting to the South. Those wanting a cup of coffee had to make do with substituting it for peanuts, rye, peas, and dried apples, or anything else they could find. Cooking can be quite hard when you don’t have any pots or pans so both armies had to be resourceful. In the Southern army you made something called “sloosh” you were given cornmeal and bacon. You would fry the bacon which left a lot of grease then you would take the cornmeal and swish it around in the grease to make dough. Then you would stretch it into a snake and wrap it around the ramrod of your musket and cook it over the fire. The roll came out blackened but edible. Just barely.

Other materials and foods that were rationed included firewood, coal, shortening, oil, nylon, footwear (such as leather), gasoline, typewriters, bicycles, silk, fuel, stoves, food oils, canned milk, margarine, lard, and fruit butter. So, what I was wondering is why ration all of these supplies and for how long were they rationed? While researching about this, I decided to mainly focus on the rationing of coffee because that was something talked about in the book and practically everyone drinks it today. I found out that coffee was rationed for a total of eight months in the United States during World War II. I also learned that shipping was limited, so people couldn’t receive all of the supplies that got rationed, because all available ships were rerouted to the war effort.

The unorganized rationing system in the Netherlands resulted in food shortages. The food shortages prevented satisfactory meals for the Dutch people. “The supply of rationed goods was limited, especially

The MRE stands for Meals, Ready-to-Eat, which was a self contained, person field ration on the lightweight packaging was bought by US (United States) military for the service members or associate to use the combat or the other type of field conditions or rules where the facilities of the organized food was not present. The MRE (Meals, Ready-to-Eat) replaced to the canned MEAL, MCI, individual person ration, Combat in the 1981. It is an intended successor for the lighter ration (LRI) development by US (United States) Military for the special and new forces and the ranger patrol item in the Vietnam. The contents included for the military mre, such as entrée (main course), Side dish,