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I've been browsing through WWI propaganda posters today (don't ask... I get on weird kicks sometimes. This one is mostly a product of bouncing around on Wikipedia, loading random articles and following long chains of links). A bunch of the US ones have to do with saving food or restricting food intake, and to a lesser degree growing and canning, as would pop up again in WWII ("victory gardens"). Amusingly, a good number of the Canadian ones are variants on "Britain needs more $FOODSTUFF! Get off your frozen butts!", a peculiar statement of obligation, which I guess makes sense given their lack of fully independent statehood at the time.
Anyway, I noticed this one:
2 pounds of sugar sure sounded like a lot to me at first, like it was way more than a person could possibly eat. But no - that's slightly more than just one ounce per day. Now, an ounce is 28 grams (or is it 29.5? I can never remember which of those is grams in a dry ounce, and which is milliliters in a fluid ounce). A can of Coke has 39 grams of sugar (corn syrup) in it. Case closed. :-/ (Actually, this is not quite a fair comparison - one of the posters advocates "syrups" in place of sugar, thus I assume they are referring specifically to granulated sugar. Still, I think the point about just how much sugar we do tend to consume is valid.)
Another interesting one:
Yes, well -- seems to me the "US Food Administration" is still saying almost the exact same thing today, albeit for different reasons. Can't they think up something new? ;) A couple of these posters also say "live simply" and "buy local foods". Hmmm... where have I heard that before?
Related - most of the Canadian "produce more xxx" were for meat and eggs, but one was specifically for butter, as though this was a food group in itself (and indeed I seem to recall that in the original FDA's "food pyramid", it was, and I don't mean in the "use sparingly" group either), and there were a pair in French and English which were like this US one here, "eat more vegetables and stuff; save the wheat, meat, fats and sugar for the soldiers". I'm a little horrified at the idea that wheat, red meat, fats and sugar is considered a good diet and the implication that fruits, vegetables, and fish are somehow inferior food and eating them is a sacrifice, but then, they are more concentrated sources of calories, which can be useful if you're not sure how often you're going to get to eat. *shrug*
I'm a little confused at the intimation in all these posters that eating less in the US (or more absurdly, not exactly eating less, but eating everything and not throwing anything away - "the doctrine of the clean plate", one poster calls it) somehow directly feeds either soldiers or European civilians, since this was in the days before jet-aircraft shipping networks. Unless I myself am a farmer (which granted, a much larger percentage of Americans were - and a number of these posters promote "sheep clubs" and "pig clubs" to encourage people to raise animals directly for war supply, I gather) and therefore able to somehow get my own produce into the ship-overseas system (which I still have doubts would keep and not spoil on the journey across the Atlantic, but I guess they must have had ways), it seems to me that it's not so much the end consumer eating less, but less supply that got to grocers (or whatever) in the first place, that would alter supply. I mean, there's no way to direct it back once it's been destined for civilian consumption, is there?
Here's where I trail off unusefully since I got interrupted for about twenty minutes and now have no idea where I was really going with this. Bother.
Anyway, I noticed this one:
2 pounds of sugar sure sounded like a lot to me at first, like it was way more than a person could possibly eat. But no - that's slightly more than just one ounce per day. Now, an ounce is 28 grams (or is it 29.5? I can never remember which of those is grams in a dry ounce, and which is milliliters in a fluid ounce). A can of Coke has 39 grams of sugar (corn syrup) in it. Case closed. :-/ (Actually, this is not quite a fair comparison - one of the posters advocates "syrups" in place of sugar, thus I assume they are referring specifically to granulated sugar. Still, I think the point about just how much sugar we do tend to consume is valid.)
Another interesting one:
Yes, well -- seems to me the "US Food Administration" is still saying almost the exact same thing today, albeit for different reasons. Can't they think up something new? ;) A couple of these posters also say "live simply" and "buy local foods". Hmmm... where have I heard that before?
Related - most of the Canadian "produce more xxx" were for meat and eggs, but one was specifically for butter, as though this was a food group in itself (and indeed I seem to recall that in the original FDA's "food pyramid", it was, and I don't mean in the "use sparingly" group either), and there were a pair in French and English which were like this US one here, "eat more vegetables and stuff; save the wheat, meat, fats and sugar for the soldiers". I'm a little horrified at the idea that wheat, red meat, fats and sugar is considered a good diet and the implication that fruits, vegetables, and fish are somehow inferior food and eating them is a sacrifice, but then, they are more concentrated sources of calories, which can be useful if you're not sure how often you're going to get to eat. *shrug*
I'm a little confused at the intimation in all these posters that eating less in the US (or more absurdly, not exactly eating less, but eating everything and not throwing anything away - "the doctrine of the clean plate", one poster calls it) somehow directly feeds either soldiers or European civilians, since this was in the days before jet-aircraft shipping networks. Unless I myself am a farmer (which granted, a much larger percentage of Americans were - and a number of these posters promote "sheep clubs" and "pig clubs" to encourage people to raise animals directly for war supply, I gather) and therefore able to somehow get my own produce into the ship-overseas system (which I still have doubts would keep and not spoil on the journey across the Atlantic, but I guess they must have had ways), it seems to me that it's not so much the end consumer eating less, but less supply that got to grocers (or whatever) in the first place, that would alter supply. I mean, there's no way to direct it back once it's been destined for civilian consumption, is there?
Here's where I trail off unusefully since I got interrupted for about twenty minutes and now have no idea where I was really going with this. Bother.