Point rationing of processed fruit and vegetables: a brief guide for volunteer workers

              Point Rationing of Processed Fruits and Vegetables
A Brief Guide for Volunteer Field Workers
JANUARY 1943
Office of Price Administration      Washington, d. c.
How To Use This Guide
This folder contains basic information about point rationing of processed foods.
It includes:
Material suitable for talks to groups on this page and the back page;
Reprint of Consumer Instruction Sheet on two center pages;
Questions and Answers on Regulations on back page;
Poster on use of War Ration Book Two On inside fold.
Read everything on this folder. Then decide the best way for you to use the material.
In talking to a group, you may want to read right from the folder—or you may prefer to tell the story in your own words. One good place to use your own words is in explaining the Consumer Instruction Sheet, since a copy of this will go to everybody who registers for War Ration Book Two.
BUT, be careful not to change or leave out important facts.
When time is limited, spend most of it on the HOW of point rationing, rather than on the WHY.
When the folder is opened completely, one side of it is a poster which tells the basic facts about point rationing in a picture story. Wherever possible, hang this up where the group can see it while you are talking. Use each picture on the poster to drive facts home. A similar poster, larger and in colors, will be distributed to grocery stores, Rationing Boards, etc.
Why Canned and Other Processed Foods Are Rationed
Food is a weapon of war.—It is a weapon that is important on all fronts, including the home front. Our fighting men and our allies cannot fight and defeat the Nazis and the Japs without the strength and endurance that comes from body-building foods.
We at home must share certain foods with them. These are the fighting foods, particularly the kinds of foods that can be shipped easily and which will keep well under all sorts of conditions.
For that reason, we are sending over half of this year's pack of canned fruits and vegetables to our fighting soldiers and our fighting allies.
This means that we at home will not have as much canned goods as we would like to buy. Most of us will have to buy less canned and processed fruits and vegetables than we did during the past few years.
This means that we must ration these processed foods. Rationing is the only fair way to divide up the canned food we have left for civilians.
You know what happens when we DON'T ration essential things which are short.
If we don't ration:
Some people get more than they need.
Some get none.
Hoarders and chiselers take unfair advantage of honest, patriotic Americans who try to buy only what they need. War workers and others who cannot get to shop early in the day find the shelves bare when they get to the store.
Only Hitler and Tojo like it when things are like that. So the Government is rationing canned and other processed fruits and vegetables, including soups and juices. That is the only way of making sure everyone gets a fair share. It is the democratic way of assuring every American enough food to eat.
How Canned Foods Are Rationed
Canned and other processed foods are being rationed under a system new to America—the point system. Another version of this system has been used successfully for over a year in England. Americans who have visited England report that the British people have found point rationing a simple, easy-to-understand system of sharing.
Why the Point System?
Until now we have rationed one product at a time: sugar, coffee, tires, and so forth.
Take sugar. That's a relatively easy thing to ration. Nearly everybody uses sugar—and most people use about the same amount of it. So all we had to do was to take all the sugar available for civilians and divide it up—giving everyone an equal share. Of course, there are exceptions mainly people who do home canning—but we take care of them with supplementary rations of sugar. Another thing we must remember is that there is no widely used substitute for sugar.
Now let's look at the canned foods we are rationing. First of all, canned fruits and vegetables are not one thing. They are hundreds of different things. And many of them can easily be substituted for others. When you can't get canned peaches, you may switch to canned apricots or pears. But for most people there's nothing else to turn to when there's no sugar.
Because people are used to a wide freedom of choice when buying canned foods, straight rationing would not work at all. If we were to divide up all the canned apricots in the country and give everybody an equal share of canned apricots—whether he or she wanted it or not—then each person would get less than one can of apricots a year. Those who wanted apricots wouldn't get enough to do them any good and those who didn't want apricots would have ration stamps they wouldn't need.
That's why the POINT rationing system is being used. Under point rationing you have freedom of choice when you shop. You can buy anything in stock you like. The only thing limited is the quantity of rationed foods you may buy. It is the nearest thing to unrestricted buying that we can have under any rationing system.
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