Lizzie Collingham's The Taste Of War

In Lizzie Collingham’s The Taste of War, she states, “for most combatant countries total war placed an immense strain on the food system,” (pg. 9). This strain was caused by increase in physical labor by civilians and soldiers alike. During World War II, the United States was the only country that had an abundant amount of resources to face this strain. Collingham references this capability of the United States in her book. She emphasizes on page 9 that the rest of the countries involved in the war, struggled to produce enough raw materials and goods for their military and civilians. These countries had to face the question of “who gets to eat and who does not?” Lizzie Collingham addresses how each country deals with this question. These combatant …show more content…
Collingham depicts the strain faced by the United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union, Japan, and Germany. In addition, she explains how each country replied to the question of food during the Second World War. During the Second World War, the United States was the most successful at its wartime food production. Compared to other countries during the Second World War, the United States had abundance in resources and its people did not go hungry or without options. Due to no impeding threat of invasion, the United States’ agricultural sector was able to farmer openly and safely. However, the United States would not have been able to supply itself and its allies without the policies and practices implemented after the Great Depression. Coming out of the Great Depression, United States farmers saw an undesired surplus that scared American farmers. This surplus was seen as an end to the …show more content…
220). With the communist state, collective farmers’ main priority was producing enough resources for the state. The food for the state came first before the peasants could receive their portion. Like the British and the German, Soviet ideology was to relocate hunger. The Soviets chose to relocate this hunger from urban areas to rural villages (p. 221). In the Soviet Union, the Red Army was the first priority in Stalin’s eyes. Then, it was the urban areas with laborers. The peasants have always fallen under persecution by the collective government. With German invasion, the Soviet Union lost its most arable land, hurting their agricultural sector and affecting their wartime economy. However, this was not the first time the Soviet Union starved due to war. The Soviet population proved its resiliency by foraging nuts and edible grasses because they had become accustomed to literally living off the land like animals (p. 225). However, this supplementation was not sustaining for wartimes. The Soviet government needed to find a way to keep its people from starving. This meant Stalin would have to reach out for American aid via lend-lease. Without the determination of the Soviet people and Stalin’s willingness to ask for aid, the Soviet Union’s population would have famished and deteriorated. They faced starvation from the occupying Germans