How many can recall the food & supplies rationing of WW2 ?

[ironglow]

.
  I think it was tougher on city folks, since we living in the country, could swap perhaps an extra chicken for a bit of beef..or trde home grown taters for some squash... but don't get caught doing it !

   Still, that didn't help with manufactured products
 
   Some folks would trade some type stamps for anoother type, to get what they needed...illegally.
 
    Photo here shows rations allowed per person, per week during WW2..  As I recall, there were not near so many obese people running around then..

https://doyouremember.com/89359/items-rationed-during-world-war-ii

  Note;  The link furnished offered a bit of confusion..talking about government cheese and picturing Pres Reagan..both came at a later date, so far as I know.

[Mule 11]

That would be a bit rediculous to stop barter in a time shortages.

[ironglow]

That would be a bit rediculous to stop barter in a time shortages.

  Yes Mule, it would..but it was done. I never heard of anyone arrested, unless they did it in a wholesale manner.
   ..But then, who would have ever thought just -4 years ago, that govt officials would be insisting on such things as they are demanding now

  /At least back then, they had a world war as an excuse...    

[DDZ]

My parents told me of the many things that were hard to get. times were tough back in the day. My grandmother shoveled coal to be able to feed herself and family.  On moms family farm, they didn't get electricity until 1948.  People today have no idea how blessed they are. Yet many of them are in an attempt to destroy it. On the premise of utopia or something better.   

[orerancher]

If Ya don't Remember, Wait a Bit....The Shortages are already Starting.....

[Bob Riebe]

I remember well the free government cheese ( and state suppliied honey  in Minnesota)  from the Eighties, I splurged on it when I was in college, MMMM GOOD stuff.

Take pint of plain yogurt mix in as much honey as you prefer for taste and sweetness , good for the diet and tastes wonderful.
The govt. Cheddar and Colby was fresh, squeaky on the teeth fresh; so called American Cheese( I took it as it was free,) but it is an abomination to real cheese.

[ironglow]

.
  Correct; the REA.... Rural Electrification Authority was in them midst of getting rural areas electrified in 1948..

[oldandslow]

I remember some of it. We lived quite a piece from town and very seldom went because of gasoline rationing. We ate well as we raised most of our food as we lived on a farm . My parent married 2 years before the depression hit and knew how to get by. Of course most farmers back then did. No windshield farmers back in that time, at least in our neck of the woods.

[billy_56081]

I remember well the free government cheese ( and state suppliied honey  in Minnesota)  from the Eighties, I splurged on it when I was in college, MMMM GOOD stuff.

Take pint of plain yogurt mix in as much honey as you prefer for taste and sweetness , good for the diet and tastes wonderful.
The govt. Cheddar and Colby was fresh, squeaky on the teeth fresh; so called American Cheese( I took it as it was free,) but it is an abomination to real cheese.

How some tastes are different,  I thought the government American cheese was the best. My grandma would get a huge block every month.

[ironglow]

.
  For those who didn't experience rationing..  Folks were issued "books" of stamps..somewhat like the old S&H green stamps.
  I was not old enough that i concerned myself with how many were needed, but it took so many for a pound of sugar or a can of cocoa.  Another amount for your meat ration etc.
  We raised our own meat and garden, so others got some bonus stamps (which was verboten) .
 
  Of course, things we didn't furnish for ourselves, were more of a problem..sugar (only maple sugar around here),
  tires, almost any manufactured goods..or food grown elsewhere, required stamps. 
  There were also "tokens'..little coins, about the size of a dime, made of some kind of fiber, came into the ration game also, but I never understood  or cared about, their exact function.

  I found some onthe net..see below

 

[Graybeard]

As a boy I remember there being some of those stamps and tokens both in mom's cedar chest. I have no clue whatever happened to them.

I guess after she died dad either sold them or tossed them in the trash. That's what happened to everything else she owned.

[pastorp]

I doubt anyone here on this forum actually remembers those things but I was born in 1945 and I remember my family telling about it. All my uncles went to war and my aunts worked in the factory’s. My dad didn’t go to war in ww2 because he had already served in ww1.

Yes those were hard years following the Great Depression and then the shortages during the war. But I believe Americans were more resonant back then.

[Mule 11]

I doubt anyone here on this forum actually remembers those things but I was born in 1945 and I remember my family telling about it. All my uncles went to war and my aunts worked in the factory’s. My dad didn’t go to war in ww2 because he had already served in ww1.

Yes those were hard years following the Great Depression and then the shortages during the war. But I believe Americans were more resonant back then.

All ya have to do is look at the pictures of kids back then and people. They were a lot tougher and hardened...

[Lloyd Smale]

it was before my time. Korean war was over 3 years before i was born. My dad served at the end of the korean war and got out of the navy after 4 years and spent 4 more in the air force.  He was the youngest in a family of 11 and 4 of his brothers and his father served in ww2. Odd story with his dad. He volunteered to serve in the navy in ww1 and got out after 2 years when the war ended and then was drafted into the army at the beginning of  ww2. Dad said that if he would have finished his enlistment in the navy he wouldnt have been drafted.  Ive never heard of another who was drafted after already serving. I spent 4 years in the coast guard and 4 in the navy so 3 generations served in two branches of the service. All i remember about those food give aways is  theres some memory of them handing out cheese and powdered milk and dad refused to stand in line to get it. Honestly though i dont know if i really remember or just remember him talking about it when i was young. But that would have been in the late 50s not during ww2. I wasnt even a sperm cell then. 

I doubt anyone here on this forum actually remembers those things but I was born in 1945 and I remember my family telling about it. All my uncles went to war and my aunts worked in the factory’s. My dad didn’t go to war in ww2 because he had already served in ww1.

Yes those were hard years following the Great Depression and then the shortages during the war. But I believe Americans were more resonant back then.

[oldandslow]

Well, pastor, I was born in '37 and can remember some of it. I can remember my parents looking thru the ration book mostly and one incident when we needed a tire and had the stamp but it was difficult finding the tire. There was an airbase eight miles due west of us where glider pilots trained and I well remember a tow plane landing in our cottonfield when it ran out of gas. It was boll pulling time and cotton was flying everywhere for a little bit.

[Dixie-Dude]

My grandparents remember it, but had a backyard garden and my grandfather raised chickens.  Their bothers and sisters (my great aunts and uncles) also did the same and some lived in the country and farmed, so they had plenty.  Same with the Depression, they never ran out of food.  My wifes family lived in New York or Chicago, and had to live off beans and only had meat about once a week. 

Living in the country or small town is much better.  40% of Americas food came from Victory gardens in WWII.  City apartment dwellers had to live off rations. 

[ironglow]

I doubt anyone here on this forum actually remembers those things but I was born in 1945 and I remember my family telling about it. All my uncles went to war and my aunts worked in the factory’s. My dad didn’t go to war in ww2 because he had already served in ww1.

Yes those were hard years following the Great Depression and then the shortages during the war. But I believe Americans were more resonant back then.

   Sorry Pastor ..but I do remember the things I posted in the OP!  I feel bad that you doubted what I said. To clarify, I was born in 1936, started first grade in 1942 and by war's end I was 9 years old...and do remember what I said in the OP..
  No, I didn't watch my folks use their stamps/tokens, because there was a lot of us kids, and Dad only had a Model A Ford pickup..so Mom & Dad went shopping without us..but I do remember them tearing out stamps anfd handling the tokens at home.

  From Mule;
     " All ya have to do is look at the pictures of kids back then and people. They were a lot tougher and hardened..."

  Mule is right there..here is something i discovered when researching local school year books..   Historically, there were very few obese kids back the.
  Just to illustrate, I looked on the web for an old yearbook to demonstrate with.  I found a graduating class that traced their seniors in class photos from kindergarten to ninth grade..
  Here is the class of 1945, for Table Rock, NE..   https://www.tablerockhistoricalsociety.com/class-of-1945.html
   
  Now try picking out the obese ones!  Check most any yearbook from that era, and you will see the same..
   
     Note how most of the boys dressed the same..and most of the girls wore the same hair style..l
 ....And that little girl in the second grade, second row..seems to be sporting a black eye !  

[Bob Riebe]

My Father was raised on a farm, as was my Mom.
When I ask them about the great Depression, they said some things were annoyingly difficult to deal with but their was not great hardship for them, BUT, my Dad had yr harsh words about the situation state side during WW II.

He was drafted but due to extreme high blood pressure they sent him home, doc told him with some of the new medicines he might live to be 70.

[ironglow]

.
  BTW..Each driver had to have a windshield sticker..A, B, C etc..which stated how much gas he was entitled to.
  According to his job, or status (defense worker etc.) the sticker denoted how much gas he could buy each week..

[oldandslow]

I agree with Ironglow about the fat kids, at least in my school. There were hardly any and they were not really fat, just chubby. Think about it for a bit. There was no TV and radio was boring. My school was about evenly divided between farm kids and city kids and the few chubby ones were city kids. Most of the farm kids had chores to do, idiot sticks to swing, and most enjoyed being outside. I ate like every meal was going to be my last and was on the skinny side. Any day I wasn't busy with farm chores I was out with my 22 rifle, usually from daylight to dark. Fat wasn't fast enough to stick to most of us. Throw in the fact that we ate very little junk food is another reason there were few chubbies.

[ironglow]

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  In my graduating class of 96 students, there was just one, a girl..who would be considered obese..along with a couple guys who would be thought of as chubby.

  .. , there was not near as much "junk food' available, and no reason to be sitting around playing with a cell phone or video games..

  Here are some random high school photos from the 1950s..we do have an obesity problem..

   https://www.google.com/search?q=high+schools+photos+from+the+1950s&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiKz9Pd9cL1AhVkJUQIHQlZAjcQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=963&bih=420&dpr=1.42