By 1943 many of the common food items came under the rationing program, including butter, coffee, dairy products and some meats. Each item was assigned a certain number of ration points in addition to the monatery price. Grocery shoppers had red and blue food rationing stamps along with red and blue tokens that were given as change if your stamp's value was higher then the points required.
The red stamps and tokens were for meat and animal products and the blue stamps and tokens were for vegatable products like sugar. You couldn't substutute one color in place of the other. The stamps and tokens had to be paid just like the money for those items that were rationed. Shoppers could earn extra stamps by turning in their meat drippings and other fats for bomb production. Thus, shoppers looked not only at the price of an item, but how many rationing points or stamps they cost.
Close up of the red and blue OPA ration tokens and 1943 steel cents. The red tokens were used for purchasing meat, while the blue ones were used for processed foods. The steel cents were minted only in 1943 in an effort to save copper for use in making munitions.
