lectures in history, american artifacts, real america. the civil war, oral history, the presidency and special event coverage about our nation's history. enjoy american history tv now and every weekend on c-span 3. american history tv continues with a discussion on world war ii food rationing including 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 participated 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 of war and those who we lib lated in the civilian populations. the people of the united states had to implement innovative solutions to foundational problems. food production and distribution. these solutions impacts not only wartime provisioning but also the way we eat today. according to anastasia, in a book "the combat-ready kitchen: how the u.s. military shapes the way you eat" research and

development for foods during world war ii helps us win the war but also created development processes for modern-day processed foods. providing soldiers are 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 the u.s. military. issues such as fresh ingredients, the weight of provisions for soldiers that are on the move and just the sheer volume of food that the army must provide magnifies the difficulties of normal food production. prior to world war ii, new difficulties arose that would demand greater engiingenuity am the quartermaster corps. to address the food needs, the army created a subsistence research and development laboratory that started about five years before the u.s. joined world war ii.

they were cast with developing new field rations for the army. some innovation is going to be due to new social changes, such as the 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 are going to be the result of things like innovations in technology, by change the nature of warfare during world war ii. for example, the implementation of the army air paratroopers to a wide extent. that's going to increase the demand for very light packable meals. so research into longer lasting rations that carry much less weight for the soldiers is going to be critical. in the mid 1930s, the military is going to create an ounce of that system to differentiate between the types of meals.

field ration aid were meals created with fresh meats and produce and are served in permanent dining halls. field ration bs are served in field kitchens and they utilize canned goods where refrigeration is not really feasible. what you see on the left are c rations. they were developed in 1938, but not put into mass production until 1941 with the outbreak of war for the united states. c rations contained canned meat and vegetables and hard biscuits. they provided calorically fence foods, about 3800 calories a day per soldier and they were issued to soldiers who were in areas where a kitchen could not be set up. early versions of the c rations were heavy, about six pounds each, and they did not taste very good. adding to the difficulties, tin cans would sometimes rust, paper

labels would fall off. making your evening meal a bit of a surprise. [ laughter ] >> the subsistence research and development laboratory would work throughout the war to improve the taste and weight of these rations and they did so with some success. the probably biggest innovation was that they would develop a new type of rationing called the k-ration which we'll discuss in a moment. the d-rations on the right-hand side is also referred to as the logan bar. it is the emergency ration. it's a chocolate barmaid 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 basic requirements. it had to be a bar weighing about four ounces, it had to be able to withstand high

temperatures, it had to have high food energy value and it had to taste just barely 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 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, though. as hershey explained, normal chocolate production is done with a fluid chocolate, you've seen chocolate milk and poured into molds. because this with stands higher

temperatures, it does not ever melt. so hershey had to device new engineering and machinery in order to develop these at a mass level for the u.s. military. in addition, the army quarter masters worried about protecting these emergency rations from things like poison gases, so they developed new packaging techniques to make sure they would be safe in any type of emergency situation. they engineered everything down from the sleeve that it was put into, all the way to the type of ink that they used on the packaging. taste is an issue with our food. so in 1943, the army asked hershey to try to improve the taste of the bar somewhat, which led to the development of a second time of d-ration called hershey's tropical chocolate bar which would long outlive the war including a trip to the moon on

apollo 15. the development of the d-ration is a precursor to the idea of the modern energy bar. the four to five-meal replacement bar. today, there's a large industry that provides a variety of meal replacement bars in many different flavors. they provide americans with something that is a bar to keep down the 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. [ laughter ] k rations are the lightest and the most transportable development of world war ii for food. originally designed for paratroopers, motorcycle troops, soldiers on the move, it was intended to be eaten for limited amounts of time, no more than about 15 days. however, it did get put into widespread use throughout the

war. developed in 1941 by dr. ansel tease out of the university of minnesota along with the army subsistence research laboratory, it contained three box meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner. provided almost 3,000 calories and only two pounds. which was substantially lighter than the c rations. due to its development close proximity to the war, it was suggested until the 1942 implementation and would undergo many changes throughout the war. early versions contained malted milk dextrose and dextrose tablets. mm, delicious. those were quickly changed to fruit bars in the dinner box. sugar was included to help produce a chocolate drink with your d ration. throughout the war, modifications would be made as needed and as supplies allowed. originally, there was a hard

candy in the ration for soldiers. when those became in limited supply, they replaced them with caramels and eventually, they replaced them with candy bars, such as the milky way. hard biscuits would be replaced with cereal bars. new flavors of drinks would be offered. evidently, the original lemonade was so acidic and tart that the soldiers claimed it would be better used as a floor cleaner than as a drink. i can only imagine. packaging will also evolve from something that looks very basic to something that contains instructions on how to utilize and eat the ration to finally these color-coded versions you see here on the screen which were actually designed in part to provide a morale boost. everybody likes a little pop of

color. speaking of morale boosts, the military uses candy rations to fill a couple of needs. one is a morale boost. the second is a quick boost of energy. however, the candy has to have that ability to not melt. so in 1941, the military was provided a viable option by the mars company when they offered the military candy coated chak lat for military use only. the candy coating 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. but cheese is a staple in military provisioning. it had been for quite some time.

however, cheese is bulky and it's heavy due to its high water content. so the army research corps, the usda, some universities and even manufacturers started trying to research and develop some type of a powdered cheese during the war so that they could transport cheese and use it as a flavoring. the first real cheese powder would be developed in 1943 by george sanders, who is a usda scientist. it was a cheap, easily transportable option to flavor foods and make them cheesy. this is where, if you have students who are really sign sciencey, you can get into the process how they did this. according to an article in a magazine, it was considered impossible to dehydrate natural

fat-containing 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 or grated and then dried at a very, very low temperature, which would harden the surface proteins, forming kind of a barrier around fat. 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 those cakes could then be shipped easily around the world to our military bases. after the war, surpluss were sold off at low prices to grocery manufacturers, such as quaker oats, kelloggs, kraft. charles due lynn, one of the

founders of a company had been a military contractor during the war. he was aware of the cakes. in 1948, the frito-lay company debuted a new snack made with cheap, easily transported military powdered cheese. cheetos. i mentioned earlier that world war ii spurred the development of modern processed foods. this is a perfect example of processed food entering the american diet. i don't know about you, but i know a lot of kids that eat cheetos on the regular. innovations for meals on the battlefield were made possible not just by the military scientists, but also by average people back at home who would alter their habits and device innovative ways to aid the war effort from home. these efforts are recognized on the national world war ii

memorial here in d.c. as farmers are prominently shown growing food that would feed both the u.s., many of our allies and even some of our enemy. 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 that are discussed in this newspaper article helped farmers provide for wartime needs. however, these small changes in farming techniques joined the war 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 it. it's small. it's reported by the u.s. census bureau. you can see the numbers go up fairly 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 in 1942, the mexican farm labor program, more to as the bracero program, was a guest worker program between the united states and mexico. farmers were concerned that with so many men going to war there would not be enough workers to manage the increased demands 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, but the inventive implementation of foreign policy toward migrant labor helped keep farm products in strong supply to feed america and its allies. the farm program would not end until 1964 after over 4.6 million labor contracts had been issued.

other inno investigavative ways atypical workers such as young people. as you can see from the government propaganda, high school students were encouraged to use their free times and summers to help fill 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 the boys and the farms. in addition to producing more, americans were also asked to do with less so rationing began. sugar was the first thing to be rationed starting in the spring of 1942. due to its 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 don the needs of

the military became stronger and other food stuffs 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 well-balanced diet. despite rationing. the program guidelines were displayed in a variety of places including posters, newspapers, and in wartime editions of cookbooks such as the one here. rationing was instituted and overseen by the office of price information or opa -- administrati administration, excuse me -- or opa. families were issued ration books of stamps to obtain rationed items. for food, there was a system of red points and blue points. red points were for meat, fish and dairy products. blue for canned goods 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 ten blue points left, you may choose a can of vegetables that is worth ten points or choose two cans of five point fruit. the number of points necessary to obtain an item fluctuated with supply to stores and newspapers would regularly publish the government's updated point values for food stuffs 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 for our 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. the 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 is going to encourage the use of victory gardens through propaganda as well as providing instructions to novice growers and how to plant, tend and harvest crops. fa favorite things to grow included beets, beans, carrots, cabbage, peas, tomatoes and squash. with so many vegetables produced on homestead, the government encouraged women to help 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 effort worked as canning vegetables and fruit became a staple to preserve the

fruit that could not be eaten before it could go back. the usda estimates 4 billion cans of food were created in the united states. quani i canning amounts peaked during the war about the same time that victory garden production peaked demonstrating the successful link between the two practices. while canning has been a way of life for many americans prior to this, many mhad to learn the ar of canning as part of the war effort. the government enterprising 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 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.

pamphlets were created to instruct women in the process and even children were able to help the war effort by helping to garden and to can foods. which for many turned into a lifelong practice. for some. i'm going to show you a quick video from janine johnson who was -- she was 6 to 10 during the war effort. and she still cans and she sat down with me and told about what food was like for her during the war. >> we use the farm system in a lot of the foods. we had neighbors who would trade chickens for -- well, chickens, too, but eggs for food that my grandmother canned. and we had a basement in our house and it had a huge pantry,

a cell ynar. and she had the shelves loaded with all kinds of food and would trade whatever she wanted to. and that's really basically you didn't have to buy much food because if you canned food, you don't have to really -- that keeps for a year or two. and that's where i learned how to can. and i know lots of jams and jellies. i've canned other things but i'm not into it like she was because it's -- it was -- it was a huge garden. you had to do something with all this stuff. and we -- she even canned -- if we had an overabundance of ekgg, she would boil the eggs and put them in a mixture of vinegar and things and they were -- they were really good. everybody thinks, oh, those eggs must have tasted -- but they

were really good. we always had eggs. if you want an egg, go get one out of the pickle drawer. they had great big jars that you get pickles in sometimes and that's what we put the eggs in and then another thing, they had -- i ate pickled pig's feet. you know what, blaecause of the war effort we couldn't buy a lot of the meat but we ate tongues, we ate livens. we had all the organs, you might say. tongue was really good. the way my -- i know, you're making a face. it's horrible. i lived on that stuff. look at me. you bought milk in milk bottles.

we didn't have in plastic or plastic i only think was on the hu horizon. but, anyway, we had -- my grandmother made butter from the cream and she would use it -- we had delicious desserts and my grandmother was really upset after the war because betty crocker came out with a cake mix and she said, that is the worst thing in the world. they are too lazy to make a cake. i don't think she even ate one. if she found out it was a betty crocker cake, no, she wants homemade stuff. that's where i got my patriotism from is my grandparents and my parents, too, because we all served in some way for the war effort. >> so for those who couldn't

make tongue taste good, still don't dwoeon't know if i could that. i asked her how do you make delicious desserts with sugar rationing? that was a whole different conversation. there were a lot of cookbooks that were published during this -- sorry. there you go. there were a lot of cookbooks created as wartime edition cookbooks that helped families use creatively ll lly what the 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. her part in that war effort. here are a couple of examples of

some recipes that you substituted items. for example, brown sugar, corn syrup, were used in place of regular sugar. whenever it was rationed. to make some different treats. in addition to government propaganda such as the one on the right-hand side of the screen, a variety of other people and companies helped to encourage ands educate americans on the path to aiding war through food. dr. seuss on the left is a favorite for many of my students in part because he's very familiar to them. he creates lots and lots of world war ii carcartoons. this one simply encouraging people to do their part. 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." it not only speaks to america's patriotism acts but also educates america -- or americans

about how to save cooking fats to use in the production of munitions. ♪ sorry. pause one moment for technical glitches. sorry, sorry, sorry. ♪ ♪ la, la, la, la, la, la

♪ la, la, la, la, la, la >> how would you like some delicious hot bacon grease? >> yeah, yeah. >> don't throw away that bacon grease. housewives of america, one of the most important things you can do is to save your waste kitchen fats, bacon grease, meat drippings. we need thousands of pounds of fats to help win the war. fats make glycerin and glycerin makes explosive. every year 2 billion pounds of waste kitchen fats are thrown away. enough glycerin for 10 million rapidfire cannon shells. about 150,000 miles long. six times around the earth.

a skillet of bacon grease is a little hue anythimunition facto. meat drippings asink act as warships. waste frying fat, on their way to crush submarines. ♪ your pound of waste fat will give some boy at the front an extra clip of cartridges. >> do you still want the bacon grease, pluto? ♪ >> pour your waste kitchen fats in a clean, wide-mouthed can. that's right. not a glass jar or paper bag. please strain the fats through a kitchen sieve. keep in a cool, dark place so it

won't 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. >> so you want weenies instead of money? okay. catch them. ♪ >> save waste fats to make explosives. look for the official insignia in your meat dealer's window. >> thank you.

>> who doesn't now want to save all your waste fats to bring mickey home safe? seriously. it wasn't just patriotic, rah-rah. it also was educating americans on what they needed to do, how they needed to do it. so everybody gets in on the action. well, 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 that develops for rationed items. some people are also going to produce counterfeit goods -- i mean, counterfeit ration coupe up 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 and those types of things. throughout the war, only about 7% of retailers were ever charged with violations of rationing. estimates are it was probably a little bit higher tha eer than t that's a hard number. far fewer were ever convicted and for nothose who were convicd of ration violations, they were only asked to pay small fines so this did not become a major deterrent for the black market. but it did exist. overall, though, 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 as well to make sthuure the transin from wartime to peacetime went smoothly. so we'll pause here for just a couple minutes for question and answer then we'll get into lesson ideas. that we can do with this information.

>> do you mind? just looking for the mic. >> raymond? >> great. i'm wondering -- so my question is i know that the american government had also instituted similar programs in world war i. to what extent do they just go back to the same playbook? and, which i assume maid thde t easier to sell and start up and to what extent is this new? >> 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 markets and being pushed.

you know, to the consumer because they were quick, they were easy, they were cheap. that's a big shift between world war i and world war ii is. >> we don't have a special section on the army physical kbam which was a notorious subject of conversation in the '40s, but my favorite bureaucratic language involves the dental exam and the requirement, quote, sufficient dental digits to masticate the ration. how is that to make -- >> that's very interesting. >> masticated ration. >> from what i research, i'll be honest, there are ways you can go online and buy either old

ones or reyeah recreations and not get that deep into my research, but some of them do not sound very -- very tastepy. >> was there an effort to either recycle or reuse the rations? >> not that i came across. here at the homefront, i've talked with my students and actually miss johnson actually brought it up in a different part of our interview. that sbriinterview, i wish i co have played the whole thing. it was so interesting. the way that we have to consciously think of recycling seems to be just more of natural everyday life to them. so they could just -- anything they had on hand just naturally reuse it because of limitations on available supplies and whatnot, so in the -- in the way that we think of, you know,

purposely consciously reusing and recycling, not so much, but just more of a natural engrained -- >> but even the canisters, were they used for oath materials, was there any effort to collect those? >> not that i came across but that does not mean that they didn't. i just didn't come across it. it would be a good question to research. >> -- really get sent to the front or to the factories, did it really work to do what it was supposed to do? >> i believe so. yes. >> did you do into research into, like, cigarettes or the tobacco rations or -- >> there are cigarettes in the "k" rations, in the "c" rations. i know the "k" rations had four cigarettes and actually talked about that originally they just put them in and pretty quickly figured out that that destroyed

the cigarettes in transport so then they -- we talked about they were changing the packaging and whatnot. they eventually put the cigarettes into a little cardboard sleeve to protect the integrity of the zbrecigarette. so, yes, they did include those in the rations. >> for the programs with the mexican laborers, was that mostly in the western half of the united states? i read the research we used german p.o.w.s on the east coast. did we have mexican laborers on the east coast as well and germans on the west? >> i think a lot of it was in the southwest. also into the midwest. i was really surprised because in our classroom we talk about the bacero program. once we started getting deeper into it. i'm surprised how many ended

up -- doesn't seem like they went much further during this time period than we normally have thought. still going to be very concentrated into the farming regions. >> did your research take you to any type of correlation between the mid 30s with the agricultural adjustment act and we're trying to, you know, diminish production to sustain prices to the need for rationing? did we hit ourselves in the foot there with that act? >> i came across just a little bit of that. that was not really my focus here so much. i did come across a little bit about that where they talked about that the aaa would impact farming amounts but honestly off the top of my head i don't remember any of the specifics. i'm sorry.

>> this is a kind of more random question. anything you came across about the rationing of the making of alcohol? i know they would use a lot of those products in other things and i know they still produced it but it probably wasn't a necessity. >> it was never on any of the official rationing lists. so i'm sure it's like i tell my students, alcohol is a relatively inelastic commodity so times are good and times are bad, you know, so i did not ever come across anything specific to alcohol, but i can confirm it was not rationed. intern question. >> did the rationing during the great depression have any impact on the rationing during world war ii since they were so close in time? >> world war ii rationing was more government implemented and very purposeful by the office of

administration and the war production board and so that -- it's more purposeful, more intentional. anything during world war -- anything during the great depression was i think more self-imposed. for that. >> anymore questions? >> all right. >> okay. well -- >> thank you. >> -- thank karyn for her presentati presentation. [ applause ] week nights this month we're featuring "american history tv" programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. tonight we examine slavery and emancipation. colonial williamsburg is revisiting the roots of its african-american storytelling. "american history tv" was there as former interpreters from the earliest days of the program describep portraying the lives of slaves. see it tonight starting at 8:00

eastern on c-span3 and you can watch "american history tv" this week and every weekend on c-span3. all week we're featuring "american history tv" programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span3. "lectures in history." "american artifacts." "reel america." "the civil war." "oral histories." "the presidency." and special event coverage about our nation's history. enjoy "american history tv" now and every weekend on c-span 3. next on "american history tv," virginia high school teachers becky morrison and irene winchester talk about world war ii and clothes rationing. they ocean employexplored gover restrictions on styles and colocolo colors and its impact on innovations in fashion such as cork wedge heels, shorter hemlines and glow in the dark buttons. held by frs