INTRODUCTION 
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This handbook is compiled to reveal facts about food waste in this 
country; to outline ways of curtailing waste; to request cooperation in 
all channels of information in order to reduce this waste and turn the 
full force of our food supply into winning the war. 
This handbook deals primarily with preventing food waste in the 
home. Supplementary information to be issued later will deal in 
detail with food waste in other areas—on the farm, in transit, in the 
wholesale house, in the retail store, and in the public eating place. 
The need for fighting waste is explained in detail in the program 
book, Food Fights For Freedom, prepared by the Office of War Informa¬ 
tion and the War Food Administration in cooperation with the Office 
of Price Administration. Food Fights For Freedom calls for an educa¬ 
tional program to present reasons why action by every citizen is 
essential to shorten the war and save lives. The calls to action are 
summarized by the appeal—PRODUCE AND CONSERVE, SHARE* 
AND PLAY SQUARE. 
This handbook deals with the conservation phase of the Nation’s 
battle to make food fight for freedom. 
Last year, we, the people of the United States, wasted more food 
than was needed by our armed forces and for the lend-lease require¬ 
ments of all our allies. We wasted from 20 to 30 percent of what we 
produced, or about 1 pound out of every 4. 
We therefore have a direct means of increasing our food supply, 
simply by not throwing food away and by using all we have. 
A substantial part of this waste is accounted for as follows: We let 
immense quantities of food go to waste unharvested on farms. We 
lost some more in transit. It was dropped by the wayside at whole¬ 
sale houses. More of it, bruised and spoiled, was swept out of the 
back door of retail stores. And staggering amounts of it were scraped 
off unfinished plates in restaurants and public eating houses. 
But one of the greatest single scenes of this astounding waste is the 
home. Here food is cooked away, drained down the sink, left on 
plates, and dumped into kitchen garbage pails. 
Three-fourths of a pound of food wasted by each of us every day 
adds up to a staggering total. A slice or two of wasted bread a week 
in each home is the equivalent of 2,000,000 loaves. Dabs of butter 
left on each plate, totaling perhaps as little as one-half ounce a week, 
would make enough to have supplied our Army last year. The one- 
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