american history tv continues now with a discussion on world war ii food rationing including troop field ration innovations that led to modern day processed food. we also heard about government policies addressing farm labor shortages and food rationing on the homefront held by friends of the national world war ii memorial, this is 45 minutes. i'm very pleased to welcome karen cavanna to give her presentation, she participateded in the conference in 2017. two summers ago. the first one it was national instead of just local. we're very excited to have her back and she's going to talk to you about world war ii food provisions and how that can be an awesome thing to teach and do an activity with in the classroom. please help me in welcoming karen. [ applause ]

>> good morning, everyone. >> all: good morning. >> i hope everyone's had a good week so far. i certainly did whenever i was here a couple years ago. so this morning i'm going to talk to you about the food fights or rationing in world war ii. we all know that teenagers and most of us work with teenagers have large appetites. i have one at home with an incredibly large appetite. i'd like to try to engage kids with a 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 that 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 are war, and those we the people of the united states had to implement innovative solutions to foundational problems. food production and distribution. these solutions impact not only wartime but also the way that we eat today. in the book the combat ready kitchen, how the u.s. military shapes the way you eat, research and development for foods during world war ii not only helped us win the war but also created development proscessed for moden day processed foods. providing soldiers with food on the battlefield has long been a problem faced by military

leaders. the army 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. new difficulty arose that would demand greater ingenuity among the core. to address the food needs the army created a subsistence research laboratory that started five years before the u.s. joined world war ii. they were tasked with developing new field rations for the army. some innovation will be due to new social changes such as the implementation during the war of the woman's army core that will lead to modified menus that are more palateable towards the tie

da -- dietary preferences of women. for example, the implementation of the paratroopers to a wide extent. that will increase the demand for light, packable meals. research into longer lasting rations that carry much less weight for the soldiers will be critical. in the mid-1930s, the military will create an alphabet system to differentiate between the types of meals. field ration a were created with fresh meats and produce and served in dining halls. field ration be utilize can and

goods. c rations were developed in 1938 but not put into mass production until 1941 with the outbreak of war for the united states. thi they provided dense foods and were issue to soldiers who were in areas where kitchen could not be set up. early versions did not taste good. adding to the difficulties tin cans would rust, paper labels would fall off making your evening meal a bit of a surprise. they did so with some kk.

probably the biggest innovation is they would develop a whole new type of ration called the k ration which we'll discuss in a moment. the d ration that you see on the right hand side is referred to as the logan bar. it had to have high food energy value and have to taste better than a boiled potato. they don't want the soldiers eating them like candy bars. they would not be put into mass production again until 1941 with the intention to give soldiers

enough energy for about 24 hours in emergency's conditions. that equates to about 600 calories. it was not tasty but it was able to with stand temperatures of about 120 degrees and was relatively small and light. it became a viable option for soldiers to carry and consume in emergency situations. manufacturing problems occurred as was explained normal chocolate production is done with a flulds chocolate. you have seen chocolate melt and poured into mold because this with stands higher temperatures, it does not ever melt hershey had to devise new energying in order to develop these at a mass level for the u.s. military. the army masters worried about protecting these emergency rations from things like poison

gases. they engineered down from the sleeve to the type of ink they used on the packaging. taste is an issue. they provide americans with

something that is a bar just a few ounces in weight. does not easily melt packs a substantial energy boost and dare i say it, still just tastes a little better than a boiled potato. k rations are the lightest and most transportable developments of world war ii for food. it did get put into widespread use throughout the war. developed in 1941 it contained three boxed meals. breakfast, lunch and dinner. provided 3,000 calories in only two pounds.

chocolates could be rations. throughout the war modifications would be made and needed and as supplies allowed. originally there was a hard candy in ration for soldiers and when those became in limited supply they replaced them with caramels and would replace them with candy bars such as the milky way. hard biscuits would be replaced with cereal bars.

new flavors of drink would be offered. the soldiers claimed it would be better used as a floor cleaner than as a drink. i can only imagine. it looked basic to something that contained instructions to utilize and eat the ration to finally these color coded versions you see here on the screen which were designed in part to provide a morale boost. everybody loves a little pop of color. the military uses candy rations to fill a couple of needs. one is a morale boost. the second is a quick boost of energy.

the candy coding kept the chocolate from melting and became a sweet treat for soldiers throughout the war. after the war rationing was lifted. m&m's became a popular treat and remain so today. anyone like cheese? yes. maybe not this kind. cheese is a staple in military provisioning and it had been for quite some time. however, cheese is bulky and heavy due to its high water content. this army research core, the usda universities and even 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. it would be developed in 1943. it was a cheap, easily transportable option to flavor foods and make these cheese y. you can kind of get into the process of how they did this. the fat would melt out and separate if you heated the cheese. the cheese would be shredded and

hardened. once the water evaporated then the cheese would be ground up and at a higher temperature and turned into the powder. it would be formed into cakes and those cakes would then be shipped easily around the world to our military bases. after the war surpluses were sold off. in 1948, the frito lay company debuted a new snack.

i mentioned earlier that world war ii had the twomt developmen modern foods. i don't know about you but i know a lot of kids that eat those on the regular. innovations remain possible not by military scientists but average people back at home who would alter their habits and device innovative ways to aid the war effort. these efforts are recognized at home as farmers are shown growing food that would feed the u.s., many of our allies and even some of our enemy.

new innovations to increase efficiency such as improved irrigation that are discussed in this newspaper article helped farmers provide for wartime needs. here you might be able to see. the increased numbers of livestock as reported by the u.s. census bureau. you can see the in your opinions go up fairly substantially. done by executive order in 1942, the mexican farm labor program, more -- was a program between the united states and mexico.

formers were concerned with so many men going to war, it would not be enough workers to manage the increase demand for farm goods. the program allowed for mexican migrant workers to obtain worker contracts and work on american farms. it was not without critics on both sides of the border that the -- it helped feed americans. the farm program would not end in the 1964 after 4.6 million m labor contracts had been issued. other ways was to use atypical workers such as young people. high school students were encouraged to juice fruse free . in the newspaper article the governor of nebraska went as far

as to advocate for the school year for high school boys to allow them to leave early and work on farms arguing it was good for the boys and the farms. americans were asked to do more with less. sh sh sugar was the first thing to be rationed. as the war drew on, the military became larger and other food such as coffee, processed foods, meat and dairy products were added to the list of rationed items. the government made shurp they ate a well balanced diet.

newspapers published the government's updated poipt values for food stuff 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 commercially grown produce to be used partial abroad which protected the american against food shortages here at home. at its height, 40% of the produce was grown in a victory garden. the victory gardens range from very small roof top gardens to people turning their entire backyards into a garden to participate and support the war effort. the government is going to

encourage the use of victory gardens as well as providing instructions on 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 homestead, the government encouraged women to tout the war effort through the practice of canning. propaganda designed to link the success of the family's food storage efforts with patriotism and the war efforts works as canning vegetable ts as and fru became a staple. in 1943 the usda estimates that four billion cans of food were created in the united states. canning amounts during the war about the same time that victory garden production demonstrating

successful link between the two practices. while canning has been a way of life, many had to learn arts of canning as part of the war effort. the government and companies helped american women learn how to can by not wasting fresh produce and making sure to always have enough. the usda will create almost 6,000 community canning centers throughout the united states to help women learn how to can as well as to share in the tools, the kitchen tools that they may not otherwise have. pam plphlets were created to instruct women and children help the war effort by helping to garden and can foods which for many turned into a lifelong practice. i'll show you a quick video from

je jeanne johnson. she was six to ten and she still cans. she sat down with me and told about ha fowhat food was like fr during the war. >> they were chickens. food that my grandfather canned. we had a basement in our house. it had a huge pantry. she had the shelves loaded with all kinds of food.

if you can food you don't have to, it's for you to and thags whe that's where i learned how to can. i've canned other things but i'm not into it like she was. it was a huge garden. you had to do something with all this stuff. she would boil the eggs. they were really good. they were very good. we always had eggs. another thing they had, i ate pickles pigs feet.

because of the war effort we couldn't buy a lot of meat but we ate tongue. we ate lives. we ate it all. tongue was very good. the way my grandmother -- i know you're making a face like it's horrible. i ate all that stuff. look at me. you got milk in milk cattle. my grandmother made butter from the cream.

my glm wrandmother was really u after the war because betty crocker came out with a cake mix. she said that was the worst thing in the world. i don't think she even ate one. she said no when she found out it was a betty crocker cake. she was a staunch patriot. that's where i got my patriotism from is from my grandparents and my parents too. they all served in some way for the war effort. >> for those that couldn't make tongue take good -- i still don't know i can could try that. i asked how do you make delicious desserts and that was a whole different conversations.

there were a lot of cookbooks that are with published. it would help families use creatively what they had to produce quality foods that didn't taste like you would think they probably should. cooking with little sugar, little butter or new cuts of meat became part of the war effort and one you can tell she still is very proud of. here are a couple of examples of some recipes that you substituted items. brown sugar, corn syrup were used in place of regular sugar when ever it was rationed to make some different treats.

a variety of other people and companies helped to encourage and educate americans on the path to aidsing war through food. dr. suess on the left is a favorite for my students. in part because he's familiar to them. this one just simply encouraging people to do their path. several disney shorts were also made regarding food. the one i'm going to play for you now is called out of the frying pan and into the firing line. not only speaks to america's patriotic acts but also educates america or americans about how to save cooking fats to use in the production of munitions.

♪ ♪ >> how would you like something hot and delicious? >> yeah, yeah. >> don't throw away that bacon

grease. housewives of america, one of the most important things you can do is save your waste kitchen fat, bacon grease, meat drippings. we need millions of pounds of fat to help win the war. fat makes glycerin and glycerin makes explosives. every year two billion pounds of waste kitchen fats are thrown away. enough for ten billion rapid fire shells. six times around the earth. a skillet of bacon grease is little munition. meat drippings act as warships.

your pound of waste fat will give some boy at the front an extra clip of cartridge. >> do you still want the bacon grease? >> pour your waste kitchen fats in a clean wide mouth can. that's right. not a glass jar or paper bag. please drain the fat. keep in a cool badark place so won't become rancid. when you have a pound or more take it to your neighborhood meet dealer who is cooperating. he will weigh the fat and pay you for it.

>> so you want weiners instead of money? okay. get them. >> save waste fats to make explosives. look for the official insignia in your meat dealers window. >> who doesn't want to save all your waste fat to bring mickey home from the front? i mean, seriously. it wasn't just patriotic but it was also educating american ons what they needed to do. how they needed to do it. everybody gets in on the action.

almost, everybody. as with all things, there is going to be a little bit of innovative thinking on how to skirt the rationing system in america. there's a black market. some people will produce counterfeit 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. for those who were convicted of

ration violations they were only asked to pay small fines. this did not become a major deterrent for the black market. overall, americans 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 as well to make sure the transition from wartime of peacetime went smoothly. we'll pause here for a couple of minutes for question and answer and then we'll 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 do they just go back to the same pl pl playbook which i assume made this easier to sell and start up. >> 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 process foods were starting to come into the markets and being pushed to the consumer because they were quick, they were easy, they were cheap. i think that's the big shift between i and world war ii is. >> we don't have a special

section on the army physical exam which was a knnotorious conversation in the '40s. the language involves the dental exam and the requirement titled sufficient dental digits to masticate. how is that to make you depressed? >> that's really interesting. >> there are ways you can go online and buy old ones. i did not get that deep into my verj. sochl them do not found very tasty. was there an effort to recycle

or reuse the ration feeds. >> not that i came across. i've talked with my students and it was brought up in a different part of an interview. it was so interesting. the way we have to consciously think of recycling seems to be more of natural every day life to them. they would just anything they had on hand just naturally reuse it because of limitations on some available supplies and whatnot. in the way that we think of purposely s ly purposely, consciously reusing and recycling not so much. just more of a natural engrained. >> not that i came across. that does not mean they didn't.

>> did it really work to do what it was supposed to do? >> i believe so. >> did you doful any research i the cigarettes? >> there were cigarettes in the k rations and c rations. the k had four cigarettes. they just put them in and figured out it destroyed them in transport. they eventually put the cigarette sbos into a cardboard sleeve to protect the integrity of the cigarette.

>> did we have any mexican labor on the coast as well in. >> i think a will the of it was in the southwest. also into the midwest. i was really surprised. ifts surprised how many ended up into the great planes region, nebraska, iowa, whatnot. it did seem look they went much further during this time period than what we would have normally thought. still going to be concentrated into the farming regions. >> did your research take you to any type of correlation between

the mid-30s with adjustment act and trying to diminish production to sustain prices to -- we hit ourselves in the foot there with that ax. >> i came across a little bit of that. they talked about it would impact farming amounts but i don't remember any of the specifics. i'm sorry. >> this is kind of a more random question but anything that you come across about the making of alcohol. i know they would use a lot of those products in other things but it probably was a necessity. >> it was never on any of the official rationing lists. i'm sure it's like i tell my

students, alcohol is a relatively inelastic commodity. i can confirm it was not rationed. >> did the rationing during the great depression have any impact of the rationing on world war ii since they were close in time? >> world war ii was government implemented and purposeful by the process of administration and when the war production board. it's more purposeful, more intentional. anything during the great depression was more self-imposed

for that. >> anymore questions? >> thank you. [ applause ] we're featuring american history tv programs as what's a review. lectures in history, american artifacts, real america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency and special event coverage on our nation's history. enjoy american history tv now and every weekend on c-span3. this weekend an american history tv special from fort monroe point comfort virginia. when the first africans arrived in america 400 years ago. our guest saturday is cassandra

taking your calls about slavery. an american history tv special from fort monroe point comfort virginia on american history tv on c-span3. next on american history tv, virginia high school teacher becky morrison and irene winchester talk about world war ii and clothes rationing. they explore gov