>> a texas high school teacher gives discussion on food rationing, farmer shortages on the home front. friends of the world war ii memorial hosted the talk is part of their annual's teacher's conference. >> i am pleased to welcome karen to give her presentation. the first one was national instead of local. we are excited to have her back. she will be talking about food

provisions and how that can be an awesome thing to do an activity with. please help me in welcoming karyn. karyn: good morning, everyone. i hope everyone has had a good week so far. this morning i'm going to talk rationing,ght, or and world war ii. we all know that teenagers and most of his work with teenagers have large appetites. i have one at home with an incredibly large appetites. 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 , foodtional problems 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 ," research and development not only helped us win the war, for food during world war ii not only helped us win the war, they also created development processes for modern-day processed foods. providing soldiers with food on the battlefield has long been a problem faced by military leaders. the army's quartermaster corps

is tasked with provisioning for much of issues such as fresh 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 women's 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 longer-lasting rations that carry much less weight for soldiers is going to be critical. 1930's, 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. b was served in field k shouldn't -- 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. the provided foods about 3800 tasty. calories per day per soldier. early versions of the c rations, were heavy, about six pounds. paper labels would fall off, a bit your evening meal 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 developed in conjunction and artificial flavoring. developed in conjunction with hershey, beginning in 1937, it 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 five high food energy value and it had to taste barely better than a boiled potato. [laughter] they don't want the soldiers eating them like candy bars. it would not be put into production again until 1941, with the intention of giving soldiers enough energy for 24

that equates to about 600 hours in emergency conditions. calories. 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. met your factoring -- manufacturing problems occurred. as hershey explains normal , chocolate production is done with fluid chocolate. you might see chocolate milk being poured into molds. it withstand 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. 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 d-ration called hershey's tropical chocolate bar, which would long outlived the war and regular use, including a trip to the moon on apollo the 15. development of the d ration is a precursor to the modern energy bar, a fortified 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

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 transportable development originally designed in world war ii. 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, it was suggested to limited testing before the implementation. it would undergo many changes throughout the war. early versions contained malted milk, and dextrose. delicious. those were quickly changed to fruit bars in the dinner box. sugar was included to help replace the chocolate drink. throughout the war, modifications would be made as needed, and originally, there as supplies allowed. originally, there was a hard candy in the rations. when those became in limited supply, they replaced them with

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 then 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 color-coded versions you see here. they were actually designed in part to provide a morale boost. 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 candy-coated 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 were a popular treat and remain so today. more munchies. 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, usdaarch 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 sanders, a usda scientist. easilya cheap, transportable option to flavor foods and make them cheesy. if you have people that are real y, you can get into the process how day did this. according to the article in "wired" magazine, it was considered impossible to dehydrate natural, fat-containing cheese, because when you heated the cheese, the fat would melt out and separate. this invation was to do two steps. the first was that the cheese would be shredded or grated and

dried at a very low temperature. water hadh evaporated, then the cheese would be ground up and dehydrated of the higher temperature, and turned into the powder. it would then be formed into cakes. and those cakes could then easily be shipped around the world to our military bases. surpluses were sold off at low prices to grocery manufacturers like quaker oats, kellogg's,

craft one of the founders of the frito-lay company was a military contractor during the war. he was aware of these. the frito-lay company debuted a new snack, made with easily transported military powdered cheese. cheetos. as i mentioned innovations were made possible, not just by the military scientist but also by average people at home would alter habit and devise innovative ways to aid the war effort from home. these efforts are recognized on the national world war ii memorial in dc. and even our enemies. american farmers were called upon to increase food supply. at the same time farm labor was

decreasing by participation in the war. new innovations to increase efficiency and farming techniques, such as improved irrigation and terracing that are discussed in this article, helped farmers provide for wartime need. the small changes would lead to much more dramatic changes in the decades after the war. and form our modern farming community. here you might be able to see the increased numbers of livestock as reported by the u.s bureau. the numbers go up substantially. the u.s. government also devised an innovative foreign- policy 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 with so many men going to war, there would not be enough workers to manage the increased 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, high school students were encouraged to use their free time and their summers for labor needs on america's farms. in the newspaper article, the governor of nebraska went as far as to advocate for a truncated school

year for high school boys, to allow them to leave early and work on farms. arguing 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 food, meat and dairy product were added to the list of rationed items. the government developed a wartime nutrition program to help guide americans to make sure they ate a well- balanced diet, despite rationing. the program guidelines were

displayed in a variety of places , including posters, newspapers, and in wartime editions of the books such as the one here. rationing was instituted and overseen by the office of price administration or opa. families were issued books of stamps for rationed items. there was a system of red and blue points. for food. red points were fish and dairy for meat fish and dairy products , and blue for canned foods and bottled foods. the point system was deemed the best way to restrict purchases while allowing for some consumer flexibility. for example, if you had 10 blue points left you may choose a can , of vegetables worth 10 points or two cans of five-point fruit. the number of points necessary to obtain an item fluctuated

with supply. stores and newspapers would regularly publish the government's updated point values for foodstuffs to , help consumers plan meals around their available points. another way to ensure enough to eat and some what the war effort -- support the war effort was to , grow your own food. during the war, almost 20 million victory gardens were planted to allow commercially grown produce to be used for soldiers abroad. this also protected the americans against food shortages here at home. at its height, 40% of the produce was grown in a victory garden. victory gardens ranged from very small rooftop gardens all the way to people turning their entire backyards into a garden to participate and support the war effort. the government will

encourage the use of victory gardens through propaganda, as well as instructions to novice growers in how to plant, attend and harvest crops. favorite things to grow included produce like 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 that would not be eating before it went bad. in 1943, the usda estimates that 4 billion cans of food were created in the u.s. was about the same time the

victory garden peaked, demonstrating the success between the two practices. free preservation with the war effort. canning has been a way of life for many americans prior to this, many had to learn the art as part of the war effort. the government's cookbook offers and companies helped american women learn how to can by not wasting fresh produce and making sure to have enough. the usda would create almost 6000 community centers throughout the u.s., to help women learn how to can as well as to share in the kitchen tools 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 canned foods. for many that turned into a lifelong practice for some. i will show you a quick video from janine johnson.

she was age six to 10 during the war effort. she still cans and she sat down with me and told about what food was like for her during the war. >> we had neighbors who had chickens and they would trade eggs for food. that my grandmother canned. we had a basement in the house pantry or huge had shelves loaded with all kinds of food and we could trade whatever she wanted to. that is really basically, you did not have to buy much food. because if you canned food, you do not have to really, that

keeps for a year or two. that is where i learned how to can. i 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 if we had an overabundance of eggs, she would put them in a mixture of vinegar and things. they were very good. they had great big jars. you get pickles in sometimes. that is what we put the eggs then. , it another thing they had ate pickled pigs feet. because

of the war effort, we couldn't buy a lot of meat but we ate tons. we ate liver and all the organs. tongue was good. we ate. we ate very well. and you bought milk and milk bottles. we did not have any plastic. plastic was on the horizon. anyway, there is always cream on the top. my grandmother made butter. my

grandmother was upset after the war because betty crocker came out with a cake mix. people are too lazy to make a cake. i don't think she would even eat one. she was a staunch patriot, believe me. that is why got my patriotism from commas for my grandparents and my parents to we all served in some way for the war effort. ms. cabana: for those that couldn't make tongue taste good, and for those who needed guidance to make delicious ideas -- desserts. i asked her later how do you

, make delicious desserts with sugar rationing? that was a whole different conversation. a there were a lot of cookbooks published as special wartime addition cook book that would help families creatively use what they had. to produce quality foods that did not taste like you would think they probably should. looking with little sugar or little butter or new cuts of meat, became part of the war effort. and one that you can tell she still is very proud of. her part in that effort. here are a couple of examples of recipes that you substituted items. for example, brown sugar, corn syrup were used in place of regular sugar whenever it was rationed, to make different treats. in addition to propaganda, a variety of other

people and companies helped encourage and educate americans the warath to aiding through food. dr. seuss on the left is a , favorite to students, in part because he is familiar to them. he creates lots of cartoons. this one, 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. it not only speaks to america's patriotic acts but also educates americans about how to save cooking fat to use in the production of munitions. ♪

[patriotic band music] [preparing video] [video: patriotic music] ♪ [dog panting]

don't 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 need millions of pounds of fat to help win the war. that's make glycerin and glycerin makes explosives. every year, 2 billion pounds of waste that is thrown away. enough glycerin for 10 billion rapidfire cannon shells. about 150,000 miles long. six times around the earth. a skillet of bacon grease is a little munitions factory. meat drippings sank axis warships. speeds depthfat

charges on their way to crash - crush axis submarines. [bubbling sounds] your pound of waste fat will give it some boy at the front an extra clip of cartridges. pour your fat in a clean widemouth can. not a glass jar or paper bag. please strain the fat through 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. ♪ they will weigh the fat and pay you for it.

>> so you want weenies instead of money. catch them. ♪ announcer: save waste fat to make explosives. look for the official insignia in your meat dealer window. [applause] ms. cabana: who doesn't want to save your fat to bring mickey home safe from the front. notice that it was not just patriotic but it was also 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. that is a hard number. far fewer were convicted. for those that 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, america's 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. we will pause for a couple of minutes for questions and answers and then we will get into lesson ideas. that we can do with this information. >> 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. 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 were were to s. -- world war ii is. we do not have a special section on the army physical exam which was a notorious subject of conversation. my

1940's. my favorite involves the dental exam and the requirement, "sufficient dental digit to masticate the ration". how is that for impersonality? [laughter] ms. cabana: that is 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. some did not sound very tasty. >> was there an effort to recycle or reuse?

ms. cabana: not that i came across. on the home front, i talked to my students and ms. johnson brought it up, i wish i could have played the whole interview. it was so interesting. the way that we have to consciously think of recycling seems to be more of a natural everyday life to them. anything they had on hand would naturally reuse it because of limitations on available supply. in the way that we think of, purposely and consciously reusing and recycling, not so much. more of a natural, ingrained. was there any effort to collect those? ms. cabana: not to that came across. but that they didn't.

i'd -- i just did not come across it. it would be a good question to research. did he gets sent to the front of the factories, did he do what it was supposed to do? ms. cabana: i believe so. >> did you do research into cigarettes or tobacco ration? ms. cabana: there are cigarettes in the k and c rations. the k rations had four cigarettes. originally they just put them in. pretty quickly they figured out , that destroyed the cigarettes in transport. than they were changing the packaging. they eventually put them into a cardboard sleeve. that protected the integrity of the cigarette. they did include those in the rations.

>> for the program of mexican laborers, was that mostly in the western half of the united states? i read that we used german pows on the east coast. did we have mexican laborers on the east as well and germans on the west? ms. cabana: it was a lot, was in the southwest. also in the midwest. i was really surprised. how many ended up in the great plains reason, 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 the research take you to any type of correlation between

mid-1930s and agricultural act , trying to diminish production to sustain prices, to the need for rationing. do we hit ourselves in the foot? with that agricultural production 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 where it would impact farming amounts. off the top of my head, i don't remember any specifics. >> this is a more random question. anything regarding the rationing about the making of alcohol. they would use those products and other things. they still produced it but probably was not a necessity. ms. cabana: it was never on any

of the official rationing lists. its like i tell my students, alcohol is a relatively elastic commodity. good when times are good and when times are bad. i did not ever come across anything specific to alcohol. i can confirm it was not rationed. >> did the rationing during the great depression have any impact during the rationing on world war ii? ms. cabana: world war ii rationing was more government implemented and more purposeful, by the office of price administration. it is more purposeful and more intentional. anything during the great depression i think was more self- imposed. any more questions?

ok well thank you karen for her presentation. cabana for her presentation. [applause] announcer: sunday 9:00 a.m. eastern, a washington journal special calling program looking back at woodstock, the 1969 cultural and musical phenomenon. a historian author of the book the age of great dreams, america and the 1960's joins us to take your calls. >> drugs matter but who takes them and why those drugs have the effect they did in the 60's and 1970's is something that we are still wrestling with as scholars to understand. the technology of drugs. we have people here who are thought long and hard about this. it is imperative as an understanding not just for the

1960's, but for the production of history. what drugs we use for an given. and place have an incredible ability to change a society. announcer: collin to talk with david about the social -- call into talk about woodstock, 50 years, sunday at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span's washington journal. also live on american history tv on c-span3. sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern afterwards with journalists natalie wexler, author of the knowledge gap. >> one reason kids often score well on those tests is they do not have the background knowledge to understand that reading passages in the first place. is not that they cannot make inferences. they make inferences in their lives all the time. toddlers can make an inference. that is not the problem. so that is not the problem so much as they lack the background knowledge and vocabulary to understand the passage.

and that has been a big problem that has been overlooked. announcer: watch afterwards, 9:00 >> monday night on the communicators, daniel castro, vice president that the innovation and technology foundation, on data privacy and if enough is being done to protect americans. so it isld make it illegal to use social security numbers for identification and verification purposes outside social security. this is something social security numbers were never intended to do. for a long time it even set on the card, this is not for identification purposes. they stopped printing that. but that is something that could be a requirement, that no bank could ever open an account using a social security number. you have to prove your identity through other means. >> watch the communicators monday night at 8:00 p.m.

eastern on c-span2. minnesota republican congresswoman walter judd served in the house from 1943-1963 had was a medical doctor, missionary to china in the 1920's and a devoted anti-communist. from 1970,erica," "communists on campus." ae hour-long film takes critical look at a 1969 revolutionary conference held in oakland, california, and other protests seeking a communist that -- of her protests that he argues seek a communist overthrow of the u.s. government including the black panthers, and vietnam war protesters and includes numerous statements by notable leaders including bernadine dore, h rap brown, angela davis, mario saab vio, bobby seale, he newton and mark arad. -- he we newton and mark