Mar 29, 2019

Real Bacon Bombs

During World War II, handing over cooking fat to the government was doing your patriotic duty. The American Fat Salvage Committee was created to urge housewives to save all the excess fat rendered from cooking and donate it to the army to produce explosives.
Fats are used to make glycerin, and glycerin is used to make things blow up. Homemakers were asked to give their bacon grease to the local butcher, who turned it into the government, because it was needed for the production of glycerin.
One pound of waste fat equaled 1/10 of a pound of glycerin.
1/10 pound of glycerin equaled 1/5 of a pound of nitroglycerine.
1/5 of a pound of nitroglycerine equaled 1/3 pound of gunpowder.
1/5 of a pound of nitroglycerine equaled ½ pound of dynamite.


“A skillet of bacon grease is a little munitions factory,” announced a booming voice in a Disney propaganda cartoon. “Every year two billion pounds of waste kitchen fats are thrown away, enough glycerin for ten billion rapid-fire cannon shells. Making a roast? Don’t throw out those lovely puddles of grease drippings, save them for our boys on the front line." Housewives were directed to strain their leftover fats and store them in a wide-mouth can. Once a pound or more was collected, the fat was to be handed over to any one of 250,000 participating butchers and retail meat dealers or 4,000 frozen food plants who would then turn the fat over to the army. The donor received four cents a pound for the fat.

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