The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1943-01-16
few HINTS ARE
GIVEN RELATIVE
TO RATlONINC
SLIGHT IDEA PRESENTED AS
TO HOW SYSTEM ON FOOD
STUFFS WILL BE HAN
DIED
By HERMAN ALLEN
APP Features Service Writer

AP Features Service Writer
The point rationlng" system
won't seem so complicated if you
look on your coupons as a sort of
money.
Beginning probably in Febru-
airy, you will have to spend"
these coupons for most varieties
of canned, dried and frozen fruits
and vegetables just as you spend
nickels and dimes. Of course you
will still have to fork over those
nickelS and dimes too.
Your Ration Book No. 2" will
contain red and blue coupons
numbered l, 2, and 8 and letter
ed from A to z. The numbers
stand for point values and the let
tiers for time periods. The blue
coupons are to be used for the
procesSed foods and the red ones
later for meat
1t may be that for the first
month of rationing you will be
permitted to use all coupons let
tered A, B and c. If so, you will
have 48 points to spend on pro-
cessed food. If<only the coupons
lettered A and B are released for
the first month. you will have
only 80 points. AS food supplies
vary up or down, the OPA may
permit you to use more-or few
er-coupons in any period OF
time.
The OPA explains that point ra-
tioning is necessary for things like
canned foods where it is not nee
essary for things like coffee and
sugar. The reason is that there are
few if any common substitutes for
coffee or sugar If you ration
them you've just about covered
the field. With canned goods it's
a different story. If you ration
Just one item, like peas, you
simply send people scampering to
buy other things similar to peas,
and before you know it you have
a shortage in them too. So you
have to ration the whole list of
canned, dried and frozen vege-
tables to keep the supply on an
even keel.
Here's the way it will work.
Let's pretend for thesmoment that
only dried beans are involved.
Let's say a shortage has devel-
oped in navy beans. 1t won't do
any good to ration them, because
the folks will simply jump in and
buy up all the kidney beans,
lima beans, black-eyed peas
(Which are really beans) and PIN
to beans they can get their hands
on. So you ration ALL kinds of
dried beans.
There are plenty of lima beans
-skads and scads of them-and
just about as many kidney beans.
Black-eyed peas and pinto beans
are not quite so plentiful. OBJ
viously the thing to do is to push
lima beans and kidney beans so
that there will still be enough
navy beans for everybody to get
at least few.
So you get out a point ration
book. You decide that grocery
buyers will have to pay" only
one point pound for lima beans
and two points for kidney beans
You decide to charge four points
for black-eyed peas and six for
pinto beans TIFh HT'EElg7
But the navy beans, which are
very scarce, you charge II points
pound.
Then yeugdeeide that the gem
era1 bean situation is such that
you can allow each customer 80
points worth of beans in Febru-
airy. You announce that coupons
lettered A and B are good for that
month. That means the housewife
can buy 80 pounds of lima beans
for each member of her house
hold, or 8 pounds of black-eyed
peaS-but only 2 2-3 pounds of
navy beans. She can take it all in
lima beans, or divide it up any
way she pleases, but she gets only
80 points worth of beans all told
for each person.