If you haven't figured it out by now, I really love propaganda posters. Especially those from World War I. But my absolute favorite poster artist is one no one seems to know anything about.

Carter Housh was apparently born in 1887 and died in 1923. And aside from an illustration or two for McCall's magazine, he is known ONLY for these six propaganda posters, encouraging Americans to preserve food during the First World War. 

As far as I can tell, nowhere else on the internet are all six of these posters displayed together. In fact, three of them were new to me! I discovered them as I was doing research on Housh, so that was delightful. 

Housh's work has been called "modern" before, but aside from the font with it's rather Z-looking S, the imagery and style seems very typical of the period. I love Housh's use of shadow and color-blocking and his depictions of produce are simply divine - perfect, gleaming, and blemish-free. Quite unlike the real world, alas.

I particularly enjoy Housh's depictions of people and Uncle Sam is no exception. Uncle Sam was long used to represent the United States, but during the War James Montgomery Flagg's depiction in his famous "I Want YOU!" poster helped lead to a resurgence in use of Uncle Sam to represent the U.S. I'm particularly fond of Housh's version because he's less scrawny and stern looking than other incarnations. Plus, when he's hard at work, shirtsleeves rolled up, his hair gets a particularly nice wild swoop to it. One that isn't present in his more sedate depictions, like the poster below.

One interesting thing about this time period is that both Uncle Sam and Columbia were used to represent the United States. The First World War is one of the last times the Greek-inspired secular goddess would be broadly used to represent America. 

As much as I love Uncle Sam, of course I prefer Columbia because she is just so Progressive Era - an inspiring mix of Greco-Roman, feminist, Romantic representation that doesn't exist anymore. Of course, today's American goddess would look quite a bit different, and probably would not be named after Columbus, and that's equally as wonderful. If you want to know more about Columbia, check out this overview from the Atlantic. 

Which of these beautiful posters is your favorite?

And if anyone happens to find anything on Carter Housh (or his printer, George P. Thomas of New York), please send me the info!

January is the time of year when many Americans, having made New Year's resolutions, try to eat healthier. But household food waste accounts for a good chunk of overall food waste, which besides being a big waste of water and energy, is also a contributor to the production of greenhouse gases. 

During both World Wars, food waste came up, but the First World War was a bit more significant. We were still coming off the effects of the Gilded Age, when wealthy Americans ate to excess, feasting on a great deal of meat, including some from rare or even endangered animals (for instance, terrapin, the diamondback turtle made so famous by soup, was hunted nearly to extinction and is still threatened to this day). Even as we underwent a series of depressions and industrial recessions between 1893 and 1914, the rise of restaurants and the proliferation of refrigerated railroad cars made more food accessible to more Americans than ever before.

But WWI made global competition for resources more intense than ever. As the United States entered 1917 with only enough wheat to feed itself, and hog, beef, and dairy production designed largely for domestic consumption, Americans had to conserve in order to free up enough food to send overseas. 

The United States Food Administration's anti-waste campaign was part of that conservation plan. Progressives loved statistics, and used them to good measure. If each American saved just one slice of bread per meal, for instance, it would add up to hundreds of thousands of loaves, which would translate into plenty of wheat flour to be sent overseas. 

Combined with messages of thrift (curbing waste saves money) were subtle messages about weight and consumption that fit in nicely with the new Progressive values of self-control, an active lifestyle, and the willowy Gibson Girl physique.  

This propaganda poster is a good example of just that. A rather large man, reminiscent certainly of the rotund gentlemen commonly seen in Gilded Age paintings and photographs, sits alone at a table, smoking a cigar. Clearly he has finished eating, although there is still food on all of the numerous plates in front of him, and two waiters in the background bear away trays containing more half-eaten food. One of the slender waiters looks back incredulously at the diner. The text says, "Sir, don't waste while your wife saves. Adopt the doctrine of the clean plate - do your share." Restaurants in particular would come under the jurisdiction of the United States Food Administration, but while there were restrictions on bread service and sugar bowls and meat on the menu, the federal government could not stop people from ordering as much food as they could afford, whether they ate it or not. The reference to the wife was perhaps meant to shame men. Women were largely in control of the household meals, and many middle and upper-class women were taking to voluntary rationing with a vengeance. Perhaps wealthy men escaped to restaurants to eat as they pleased. The federal government was urging them not to undo the patriotic war work of their wives and to pull their own weight in the fight for food conservation.

The first propaganda poster makes a slightly more subtle play, reading in part, "Leave a clean dinner plate. Take only such food as you will eat. Thousands are starving in Europe." Sound familiar? Perhaps your family used the (admittedly racist) "Children are starving in Africa," but the sentiment is the same. Photographs and images of children in Belgium and France were being used to good effect in the United States in an attempt to wake up isolationists to the terrors happening abroad. Both phrases use guilt and shame to get you to finish eating everything you took. Not exactly the most healthful advice, but at least during WWI they recommended you take only what you knew you could eat, instead of letting your eyes be bigger than your stomach. 

Although not as popular as calls to plant war gardens or can fruits and vegetables, the "gospel of the clean plate" nevertheless urged people to think more about food waste. Of course, as one woman complained in a letter to Herbert Hoover, the poor already saved food, planted gardens, ate less meat, and preserved what they could. 

Still it's advice that we would all do well to emulate today. We're pretty good at eating leftovers in my house, but sometimes we just can't finish them in time or (shocker, I know), dinner wasn't as good as you'd hoped, so eating the leftovers becomes a real chore. My leftovers usually make it to the compost pile, if not our stomachs. But other food waste reduction advice of the time included feeding 

But if you find yourself buying boxes or bags of leafy greens and salmon and fresh fruit in a fit of health this year, maybe hold off a bit, and eat down your cupboards instead. 

Most people know that the First World War official ended on Armistice Day - November 11, 1918 (the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, to be exact). The war that was supposed to be over by Christmas had finally ceased, just four years after it began. But although the guns had stopped firing, the Treaty of Versailles was not signed until June 29, 1919. Armistice came on the heels of winter, after several devastating years of war in Europe. Agricultural fields were destroyed and so many men had been killed it was uncertain if labor would be available to cultivate fields again in the spring. ​

Herbert Hoover and the United States Food Administration​, along with President Woodrow Wilson, knew that the food supply for both American troops staying on in Europe  for the next few months, the Allies, and even the defeated Germans would continue to need food aid. 

Hoover was left with the difficult task of convincing Americans that not only did they have to keep saving food, despite the official end of hostilities, they would also have to feed their former Hun enemies. But the American harvest, geared up for another potential year of war, had been a good one. And the USFA began to lift restrictions on commercial food production, retailing, and food service industries. 

By December 22, 1918, the last of these restrictions had been lifted, just in time for Christmas.

The New York Times article above, published December 23, 1918, reads:

"LAST BAN ON FOOD IS LIFTED TODAY

Federal Administration Drops Restrictions on Public Eating Places

BUT URGES CONSERVATION

Its Activities Are Now to be Centered on Preventing Profiteering and Speculation.

Special to the New York Times.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22. - Announcement was made by the Federal Food Administration tonight of the issuance of orders dropping all food restrictions beginning tomorrow morning. From time to time various regulations have been abandoned, and since Oct. 21 last the principal specific food regulations in force were those known as the "twelve general orders for public eating places." These latter are to be dropped, effective tomorrow morning.

In rescinding the "twelve general orders" the Food Administration emphasizes the need for continued care in food in order that the United States may meet its pledge to relieve conditions abroad. The twelve general orders for public eating places, which were designed as a war measure to restrict food at the time the devices of meatless and wheatless days and the substitution of one food for another were abandoned, went into effect on Oct. 21. It is estimated that 9,000,000 persons take their meals in public eating places - hotels, restaurants, cafes, clubs, and dining cars - and the food saving through this system of conservation is declared by the Federal food officials to have been very great, despite the fact that compilation of the total savings has not been possible to date.

In notifying the Hotel Chairmen on the staffs of the Federal Administration of the decision to rescind the present food regulations the Hotel Division of the Food Administration asked that they hold themselves in readiness to assist in putting into effect any specific measure which public eating places, through developments in world relief, may in the future be called upon to carry out. 

The twelve general orders provided that no public eating place should serve bread or toast as a garniture or under meat, allow any bread to be brought to the table until after the first course, or serve to one patron at anyone meal more than one kind of meat. Bacon was barred as a garniture. A half ounce of butter was regarded as a portion, and cheese was limited to a half ounce for a meal. Nos. 8 and 9 referred to the sugar restriction. The others referred to waste and the use of cream and butter fats.

Conservation Still Urged.
Notwithstanding the lifting of restrictions the Food Administration will not cease its activities entirely until a Presidential proclamation releases the public from the Food Control act, which may be some months in the future. Meanwhile, particular attention will be paid to profiteering and speculation in licensed food products. The profit and margin rules will be enforced as they have during the last few months. 

The New York Federal Food Board issued a statement yesterday urging the proprietors of eating places to continue conservation of foodstuffs.

"There should be no waste or extravagance in the use of any foods," said the statement. "All food should be prepared and served with the idea constantly in mind that America must send 20,000,000 tons of food to hungry Europe during the next twelve months and that the greater part of this food can be secured only by saving."

The board made public the following telegram from the Food Administration at Washington:

"Partial demobilization of the Food Administration and the withdrawal of many of its rules and regulations have given the impression in some quarters that all activities have ceased, or are shortly to cease. This is not the case. The act imposes upon the administration certain obligations, which continue until Presidential proclamation releases us from the Food Control act, and particularly the obligation to curb profiteering and speculation in licensed food products. This function must continue to be performed, and there is not intention of relaxing in this direction. It has been possible, now that peace is assured, to cancel many requirements for reports and many of the details of the regulations, but the profit and margin rules have been, for the most part, retained, and will be enforced by revocation of license and other appropriate penalties. It is expected that it will be possible from time to time to remove certain commodities from the license list, but this will be limited to commodities which do not seem likely to be subject to possibility of speculation and profiteering."

The above propaganda poster from the Chicago division of the US Food Administration, features doughtboys at a mess table and reads "You Saved Food for Them, Now Save to Make Their Victory Complete. Famine has spread throughout Europe - Anarchy is following. Feed the starving millions and Bolshevism will vanish. Are you doing your part? Eating only what you need - not all that you can. America must continue to save food. Live simply - follow the doctrine of the clean plate. The sooner normal conditions are established in Europe the sooner our boys can come home. Will you help bring them back quickly? Eat less, waste nothing."

Playing on fears of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the spread of socialism in Europe, the United States Food Administration used the admiration for "our boys" to convince Americans to keep up their thrifty wartime ways, even as food restrictions were being relaxed. 

Christmas, 1918, was likely a very happy one for most Americans - the war was over, the danger of German invasion a thing of the past, and the United States and her Allies victorious. Being able to have a basket of bread and butter before a restaurant dinner of steak probably didn't hurt, either. But many American soldiers remained in Europe, helping rebuild villages and roads, burying the dead, and otherwise securing the countryside. And 1919 would hold domestic unrest for the United States. It was the war to end all wars, and it changed the global balance of power, and Western society, forever.

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"Help in the Harvest - ICE is needed to Save Food for the Starving people of the World." Produced by the United States Food Administration in conjunction with the National Association of Ice Industries. 

This propaganda poster is a bit unusual for several reasons. For one, it does not actually feature a particular foodstuff. For another, the reason for this poster is the result of a very unique time period in American history.

For most of the 19th century and into the early 20th, if you wanted to keep food cold, you had to harvest natural ice on a pond, lake, or river, store it in an ice house packed with straw or sawdust, and hope that enough of it survived the spring, summer, and fall for you to keep your ice box well-chilled with enormous blocks of ice. If you lived in an urban area, the ice man would deliver weekly a giant block of natural ice to help keep meats, milk, and leftovers adequately chilled to prevent short-term spoilage. 

By the time of the U.S. entrance into the First World War, artificial refrigeration was on the rise, and frozen food storage and refrigerated rail cars were new and effective technologies.

However, artificial ice production, advertised as more pure than natural ice, which often came from polluted rivers and lakes, required ammonia to produce ice. But ammonia was also used to produce munitions, and during the war a shortage ensued. 

The harvest of natural ice was encouraged to assist with the shortage and ice was promoted to prevent food waste from spoilage. 

Following the war, the spread of electricity led to the increasing popularity of electric refrigerators. Present before the war but enormously expensive, by the 1920s they were approaching ubiquity in the nation's urban areas. 

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Okay, so this is only peripherally about food, but it's an important image to give some context about.

During both World War I and World War II, gasoline was in short supply. It and rubber tires were actually rationed during the Second World War, as evidenced by the propaganda poster above. 

In it, a woman walks along, her arms full of packages. In the background, the silhouettes of soldiers, bayonets fixed, packs full, march behind her. She says, "I'll carry mine, too!" making a clear reference to the packs the soldiers behind her are carrying. Below it says, "Trucks and tires must last till victory." 

This image needs some context because most modern Americans don't realize what grocery shopping was like before the 1950s. As a rule, most cities did not have supermarkets as we know them today. That development was starting in the 1940s, but it was not until the end of the war that being able to roam a large store with a shopping cart and help yourself was a common occurrence for most ordinary Americans. 

Most Americans in the first half of the 20th century visited individual shops - a greengrocer for produce, a butcher for meat, a bakery for bread and pastries, and often yet another store for canned goods or staples like flour, sugar, and coffee. In big cities, you might also visit a cheesemonger, pickle store, or other specialty shop. Milk and other dairy products were obtained from a fluid milk dealer, who delivered. Although early in the century lower-quality milk was sometimes also available "dipped," meaning you brought your own pail and they dipped it out for you. This was largely consumed by folks who could not afford to have higher quality bottled milk delivered.

But many families also had other food products delivered. It made sense prior to the First World War. After all, milk, ice (for your ice box), and coal were already delivered. It was simple enough to use a telephone to place a weekly or even daily order from the butcher and greengrocer. But wartime meant efficiencies. So delivering small items to individual households multiple times a week was a waste of manpower and fuel. 

The campaign to cut down on deliveries started during the First World War as housewives were encouraged to actually visit the stores they ordered from. Propaganda persuaded housewives that they could better keep an eye on quality and sanitation if they went themselves. Which was likely true, as some housewives may have been duped by unscrupulous shopkeepers. But housewives visiting those shops themselves would have still had to place a request with a shop clerk, who would retrieve the items and weigh or measure them for you from bulk. With the exception of the increasing popularity of brand name products, many people still bought "generic" bulk goods. Gelatin, coffee, canned soups, boxed cereals, crackers and cookies, condiments like ketchup and mustard, spices, and coffee and tea were increasingly purchased pre-packaged. But someone else brought the package down from the shelf for you.

That way of shopping was changing by the 1940s, but home deliveries still abounded. During World War II, the emphasis was on saving fuel and tires. By walking and carrying her own goods, the housewife was saving on fuel, rubber, and manpower, too. 

Of course, changes to housing patterns post-war would also play a role. The development of suburbs meant that no longer could the housewife walk or take public transportation to the nearest store. She had to drive. Driving meant she could carry more, and bigger refrigerators and new deep freezers meant she could shop less frequently, too. It was a sea change in how life was lived. And the repercussions are what many people are trying to escape today, with a return to mixed-use and walkable neighborhoods. 

Despite living only a mile or so away from several grocery stores, there are no sidewalks in my neighborhood and I live on a very busy road where the speed limit is 55 mph. Which means I have to drive to stay safe. But I try to combine trips on my way home from work to be more efficient. 

In this day and age, communities are also increasingly banning or restricting the use of plastic bags. The county I work in has a total ban, and charges 5 cents for paper bags. As a result, I've started carrying reusable bags with me more often. But the lack of plastic packaging in this image is striking - the boxes are wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. In her paper bag, a bunch of carrots with green tops pokes out of top, along with what appears to be celery and paperboard boxes - maybe pasta or cereal? 

At any rate, it's a striking image, and one with some lessons in sustainability. Could we ever go back to an era of paper, cardboard, tin, and glass when we are currently so addicted to single-use plastic? Something to think about. 

How do you do your shopping? 

Remember last week's foray into home canning during the First World War? Victory garden and canning efforts returned for World War II. 

Unlike the First World War, rationing during the Second World War was mandatory and regulated by the Federal government. Because purchased foods were restricted, Americans were strongly encouraged to keep victory gardens. And because commercially canned goods were needed for shipment overseas, ordinary people were encouraged to preserve the fruits of their victory gardens at home. 

​Propaganda posters like the one above made great efforts to frame the drudgery of home food preservation in wartime terms. Housewives were encouraged to "can all you can," while the poster cheerily chirped, "It's a real war job!" presumably to put the kibosh on all the naysayers who insisted otherwise. 

In addition to being a "real war job," canning efforts were framed in a number of ways. In the above poster, a proud housewife, with perfect victory curls, a ruffly floral apron, and an armful of jars (beets, green beans, and tomatoes from the looks of it, with more beets, raspberries, and corn below) indicates that not only is she preserving food for her own family, she's also "fighting famine." By "canning food at home," she's freeing up commercially canned goods to be sent overseas to help the civilians of war-torn countries stave off famine. 

In this final poster, a cherubic little girl, in a dress and frilly apron that matches her mother's outfit, helps place the rubber rings on wire bail jars of carrots and peas, preparing them for canning. Hopefully in a pressure canner, since low-acid vegetables like peas and carrots need to be canned at higher than 212 degrees Fahrenheit (boiling point) in order to be safe from botulism. 

The girl says, "We'll have lots to eat this winter, won't we Mother?" implying that a well-stocked home pantry like the one in the background provided security against future food shortages or tightened rations. 

Both the promotion of home canning and the implementation of wartime rationing reflected an agricultural system not designed to provide massive surpluses. Coming out of the Dust Bowl era of the Great Depression, agricultural practices in the United States had improved, but most of the food produced at home was still consumed at home. Cuts had to be made domestically in order to free up the food supply for shipment overseas. 

In the decades since the Second World War, American agriculture has been transformed, both by the leftovers of chemical warfare and explosives production (pesticides and chemical fertilizers come to mind) but also by the mindset that producing unlimited food brings global security. Improvements to global shipping have meant that it is now as easy (or easier, and certainly cheaper) to get garlic from China as it is from the farmer down the street. Or apples from New Zealand or Peru than from a local orchard. 

Home preservation and home kitchen gardens are certainly no longer necessary, given the world of food at our fingertips at both grocery stores and online. With home food preservation no longer necessary, canning and gardening have taken on a sheen of delight. For many people, it is preferable to can your own jam from berries you picked yourself, rather than buy from the store. But I think the romance that hangs around home food preservation today belies the struggles of the past - when poorly preserved foods or inadequate supplies meant illness and hunger. When a poor harvest didn't just mean higher prices at the grocery store, but threatened real starvation. 

it's important to remember that food preservation during World War II played an important role in both nutrition and improving the everyday diet of Americans. But it's also important to recognize the amount of labor spent on both victory gardens and home canning at a time when American labor was already stretched thin in the war effort as factories ramped up production and speed, women took on the work of fighting men, and everyone hustled to get things done with fewer people and fewer resources. 

The size of the United States meant that we never quite had the same threats of deprivation as the U.K., which is perhaps why they are so much better at telling their WWII home front stories than Americans are. The size and scope of our continent meant we could be self-sustaining and still provide food abroad, whereas the United Kingdom had to learn how to do without regular food shipments to its tiny island. 

So the next time you do some home canning, whether from necessity or for fun, I hope you remember the people of the past. 

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"Can Vegetables, Fruit, and the Kaiser, Too. Write for Free Book to National War Garden Commission, Washington, D.C." 

September is still preserving time, so I thought the next few World War Wednesdays would be about canning. 

This is another of my favorite World War I propaganda posters. Developed by the National War Garden Commission, the poster shows glass jars with zinc tops. Tomatoes at left, peas at right, and front and center, the profile of Kaiser Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia. His spiky German helmet and saber hang on the jar, which is labeled "Monarch Brand, Unsweetened." 

Eminently clever, the poster implies that home preserving has the power to defeat the might of the German Empire and the Kaiser himself. 

The First World War was one of the first times that ordinary Americans were called upon to preserve food in their homes. Many Americans, especially those in rural areas, were already canning and preserving the bounties of their home gardens. But as commercial canning became increasingly widespread, inexpensive, and safer, people with easy access to food retailers found it much easier to simply purchase canned goods, instead of going through the bother of putting up their own. Many people were still using the tried-and-true, but not necessarily safe, methods of their forebears. And while water bath canning was increasingly outpacing the traditional food preservation methods of fermentation, drying, and sealing jam with paraffin wax, water bath canning low acid vegetables still was not 100% safe. 

But as the government encouraged food conservation and food preservation, the National War Garden Commission stepped up to the plate. Founded (and funded) by timber magnate Charles Lathrop Pack, the National War Garden Commission published a series of food preservation pamphlets that were used all over the country by home economists and women's groups to encourage home canning. 

The National War Garden Commission was also behind the school garden movement, but that's another post. 
​ 

The Commission would go on to produce a number of pamphlets on war gardening (renamed "Victory Gardening" post-war, a term that would be revived during the Second World War), including one pamphlet entitled "The War Garden Guyed," published in 1918. A clever play on words ("to guy" someone was to make fun of them, or ridicule), the "Guyed" contained cartoons, poems, and slogans both promoting and making fun of the gardening and food conservation movements. Submitted by newspaper editors, soldiers in the trenches, magazines, and ordinary people, the collection is quite a fun read, and not the only version the National War Garden created. 

"Raking the Gardener and Canning the Canner" predated "The War Garden Guyed" by one year - published in 1917, a quick turnaround indeed and indicates how quickly ordinary people adjusted to the idea of home gardening and canning.

You can view almost all of the National War Garden Commission pamphlets on archive.org. 

In 1919, the National War Garden Commission used the "Can the Kaiser" poster image again, this time on their revamped "Home Canning & Drying of Vegetables and Fruits," rebranded "Victory Edition" post-war. At the bottom of the cover, it reads, "The Kaiser IS Canned." 

Although the fervor for home canning, thrift, and self-sufficiency continued into 1919 and 1920, by the time economic prosperity had returned full-force to give us the Roaring Twenties, most ordinary people who took up canning for the war effort abandoned it in victory. 

But I like to think that many of the food preservation lessons learned during the First World War would be revived and put to good use by the time the Second World War rolled around.

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During the Second World War, new research into nutrition science and the importance of vitamins meant that scientists and government officials alike were looking to increase public awareness about these new discoveries. In particular, emphasis was placed on the importance of keeping the populace healthy, strong, and able to keep up the punishing pace of total war. 

The Basic 7 was a precursor to the food pyramid and "MyPlate" interpretations of an easy way for Americans to know what healthful foods to eat. In effect from 1943 to 1956, the Basic 7 were replaced with a consolidated Basic 4, and later the food pyramid. 

Group One: Green and Yellow Vegetables
Designed to encourage Vitamin A intake, this group emphasized dark leafy greens and other green and yellow vegetables. These vegetables were recommended to be eaten raw, canned, cooked, or frozen. Although I'm guessing you were supposed to heat the frozen ones first. Night blindness and poor eyesight was a real fear for both soldiers and industrial workers alike and Vitamin A was touted as a preventative against poor eye health. 

Group Two: Oranges, Tomatoes, Grapefruit
This group also included raw cabbage and salad greens, both good sources of Vitamin C, along with oranges, tomatoes, and grapefruit. Vitamin C deficiency was by the 1940s long known as the cause of scurvy. Canned tomatoes and oranges in particular were popular sources, but as this group points out, other foods like raw cabbage and salad greens, especially spinach, also have very high levels of Vitamin C. 

Group Three: Potatoes and Other Vegetables and Fruits
This group was meant largely to round out the vegetables with fiber and carbohydrates. If you haven't noticed by now, the first three groups are all made of fruits and vegetables, as they were plentiful and not rationed during the war. Potatoes in particular were touted during both World Wars as an alternative to bread.  

Group Four: Milk and Milk Products
Long considered the "perfect food," - a balance of fats, protein, and sugars, by the 1940s milk and other dairy products were also recognized as excellent sources of calcium. With the exception of cheese, most dairy products were not rationed during the war and cottage cheese in particular was promoted as a high-protein meat substitute. 

Group Five: Meat, Poultry, Fish, or Eggs
This group also included dried beans, peas, nuts, and peanut butter, and emphasized protein. Meat was quite heavily rationed during the war, so fish, beans, and nuts were often suggested as meat substitutes. Soybeans (called "soya" in the period) were a "new" miracle protein source that never really caught on. At least, not until West Coast hippies were introduced to tofu by Japanese Americans in the 1960s.

Group Six: Bread, Flour, and Cereals
In the 1940s bread and other cereal products were still the backbone of many American meals. Cold or hot cereal, toast, or pancakes for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, bread with every dinner - these were the typical meals of most Americans. But while the simple carbohydrates of refined white bread were vaunted before the First World War, by the Second World War nutritionists realized that white flour had been stripped of most of its nutrition with the elimination of the wheat germ. So whole grains, flour, and cereal products were touted for their nutritive value. But, because white flour was so very popular, "enriched" or "restored" cereal products were also allowed. This gave rise to foods like Wonder Bread - so-called because it was "enriched" with a half a dozen vitamins and minerals - something allowed thanks to technological advances in artificial vitamin production. 

Group Seven: Butter and Fortified Margarine
Yes, you read that correctly. Butter was it's own food group during WWII. Seems crazy these days, but this group was also focused on getting Americans adequate supplies of Vitamin A. Today, the Vitamin A found in animal-based foods is called Vitamin A1, or retinol. Vitamin A deficiency includes dry eyes and eventual blindness. So it was an important vitamin to keep people in top working condition. Ironically, a tablespoon of butter only gives you about 11% of your daily recommended intake of Vitamin A, whereas other common WWII ration-relievers like beef liver and the oft-dreaded cod liver oil, provide more than enough Vitamin A per serving. But perhaps because rationing limited fats, officials felt that by putting butter on the Basic 7, they would be relieving some of the monotony of rationed diets. In addition, the more detailed poster below, indicates that eating butter or margarine helps you feel more satisfied or fuller after a meal. Conventional wisdom that has stood the test of time, as fat helps you feel more satiated than just about any other food.

By equating butter with fortified margarine, officials also helped remove some of the stigma from margarine, which still held some stigma as poverty food with a whiff of slaughterhouse about it, as originally margarine was made from scrap meat fats, as opposed to the supposedly more wholesome vegetable oils that were common by the 1940s. Of course, we know now that the hydrogenating process to solidify vegetable oils creates trans fats, one of the most harmful fats you can eat. But, like the effects of the atomic bomb, no one really knew that in the 1940s. 

Altogether, the Basic 7 emphasized nutrients, rather than calories, as later version would come to embrace. The Basic 7 focused on bodily performance, rather than weight loss. "Eat a Lunch That Packs a Punch!" was a common motto from the war and was designed to keep up health, strength, and stamina during mobilization. 

All images in this blog post are from the National Archives and Records Administration.

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During the Second World War, Americans were under mandatory rationing to free up food supply for the American military and Allied nations. But for the men and women abroad, particularly aboard Naval ships where the war came and went as ships stalked each other across oceans, food was plentiful. Naval ships in particular were famous for carrying ice cream on board at all times. For many enlisted men, life in the military provided some of the best meals of their young lives.

The draft had revealed just how deep the deprivations of the Great Depression went. 45% of American men were deemed unfit for military service in 1942. Standards had increased, but bad teeth, poor eyesight, and other defects were blamed at least in part on malnutrition. 

Faced with abundant, well-prepared food, many young people went whole hog in the mess hall. But military brass were keenly aware of the sacrifices being made at home, and did their best to prevent food waste. The Navy produced a series of propaganda posters discouraging food waste. 

The above poster is among my favorite. In it, a red-faced, mustachioed Naval Captain sits in a dented trash can, arms crossed, glowering. The Chief Petty Officer says, "You were right, Sir! The men do seem a little reluctant to throw food away!" While worried-looking sailors with full mess trays (including chicken legs with just a bite or two out of them) hover by the trash, unsure how to proceed. 

The message was clear - troops were not to waste what ordinary Americans had sacrificed to provide for them.

For more from the National Museum of Health BUMED collection, all by the same artist in the same engaging style, see the gallery below. 

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