Go back to the prosperous days and become a layman

Chapter 483 482 Countermeasures
Since the birth of mankind, what to eat has always been a major problem that has plagued mankind, and to a certain extent, it has even promoted human progress.

After the millennium, material resources have become extremely abundant. When faced with foods such as barbecue, steak, rice noodles, stir-fried dishes, ramen, donkey meat hot pot, roujiamo, and mutton soup bun, one has to use the elimination process, first eliminating the ones one does not want to eat, and then choose one that one is relatively willing to eat.

The process was a little difficult, but overall, it was a pleasant experience.

But it’s different now. What to eat to fill stomach every day is also a very difficult problem, and my mood is not so happy.

After the new century, the vast majority of Chinese people have not experienced the feeling of long-term hunger.

The biggest hunger you face is resisting the temptation of carbohydrates when losing weight.

What I see most is the daily life of left-behind children seen on the Internet:
What to eat in the morning?
Potato!

What to eat for lunch?
Potato!

what's for dinner?
Potato!

You can’t eat instant noodles every day.

You can’t eat it every day, today is his birthday.

……

But now, it has gone to the other extreme, and it would not be an exaggeration to magnify it a hundred times.

"Mom, I'm hungry." Fengzhi ran to the toilet, finished her homework, covered her stomach, and said pitifully to Zhang Guifang.

"Mom, let's have some snacks, one piece each." Tang Zhitong was also hungry. It has been almost a month since he started eating a fixed amount at home. Even though he occasionally had protein supplements on weekends, it was far from enough. The fat in his body was being consumed much faster than he imagined.

Tang Zhitong missed the days of his previous life very much at this time. He could eliminate the ones he didn't want to eat from many choices and choose the one he relatively wanted to eat.

Even when losing weight, there are fruits, yogurt, and fat-reducing meals to choose from.

Anyone who has tried to lose weight knows that it’s nothing more than controlling your diet and exercising. Losing ten pounds in a month is not an unrealistic dream.

But now the ration is stuck and the diet is also controlled. However, transportation basically depends on the legs, and it is not realistic to lie in bed, so the weight will also decrease accordingly.

Even classmate Xiao Wang, who has never given birth, has a tendency to sag and shrink.

"Well, eat." Zhang Guifang sighed and got up to get snacks for the children. Her metabolism was slower than that of young people, but hunger knew no age, and her stomach felt uncomfortable too.

Fengzhi slept with Zhang Guifang. As a mother, she knew very well what her child looked like.

Although Fengzhi is greedy, she has been very considerate of the family's situation over the past month. She has never stolen food from the house, nor asked for anything extra to eat, nor has she thrown a tantrum and begged for care because of hunger or greed.

Correspondingly, the child lost weight.

It would be a lie to say that she didn't feel heartbroken, but Zhang Guifang couldn't cook specially for her daughter either. Her mother-in-law and her limited life experience told her that she should try to keep her appetite low so that she could last longer than others and survive the disaster.

Tang Zhitong and his wife were both given peach cakes, so today's snack was peach cake.

Tang Zhitong didn't know when peach pastry originated, but he knew that in the following decades, peach pastry has always been the best gift for visiting relatives and friends, and is a rare delicacy in many people's childhood.

It can be eaten dry, dipped in water, or soaked in boiling water with an egg.

The peach cakes are quite big, with only five in a pound. Zhang Guifang took out a package, one for each person, which is two taels.

We ate the food dry tonight. Although it was a bit dry, no one complained. In addition, they all held the food in one hand and caught it with the other hand, for fear that any crumbs would fall to the ground and be wasted.

To be honest, the country takes great care of children in rural areas.

Before February 1958, dim sum was freely available and anyone could buy as much as they wanted as long as they had money.

After February 1958, purchase restrictions were implemented, with each person only able to purchase 2 kilograms at a time. If they wanted to buy more, they would have to queue up again.

Although there are no further regulations at the moment, it is not easy to buy it. There are only two exceptions: with a hospital certificate or a non-staple food book or grain book.

The hospital's certificate can show that the patient needs nutritional supplements, while the supplementary food and grain book are to prove that there are children in the family.

Starting from October 1959, each child was provided with a monthly subsidy of one and a half kilograms of snacks.

Zhang Guifang has been making purchases at the beginning of the month for the past two months. This portion was not given to other children, but all given to Fengzhi in bits and pieces.

Even so, Fengzhi still lost weight...

Liu Zhang’s approach was different from Zhang Guifang’s.

Liu Zhang's grandson Liu Jiaming also had a monthly ration of one and a half kilograms of snacks, but he made a fool of himself when he bought them.

Liu Jiaming was very smart and would count the remaining food every time. However, he would find that some were missing every time he ate. After asking around, he found out that some were eaten by Liu Zhang.

Liu Jiaming would not agree to his own food, even if it was his own grandmother eating it. He would throw a tantrum and everyone in the compound would know about it.

Liu Zhang was furious: "My son earns money, and I am in charge of it. What's wrong with me having a snack? If you make trouble again, I won't buy it for you!"
For a time, the behavior of the grandparents and grandchildren became a laughing stock among the neighbors.

The young ones don’t know how to respect the old ones, and the old ones don’t know how to love the young ones, and most of them look down on them.

Although the snacks distributed to the young couple were obtained by the unit, there must be a reason for it.

In the past few days, Xiao Wang heard a further statement: in order to meet the needs of employees to go home to visit their families, the number of products put on the market will be increased, and at the same time, they will be gradually distributed within government agencies, factories and mines to reduce market queues.

Is it possible that the people cannot understand whether the system is sound or not?

After eating the peach cake, I returned to the room.

Tang Zhitong pulled out two cans of tea wrapped in newspaper from the space and opened one of them. The can was made of iron and was quite beautiful.

"Wenwen, I'll keep one box for you, and you can give the other box to our mother tomorrow. Yan Xiongfei gave it to me today to thank Wang Bo for what he did." Tang Zhitong did not open the other box, but put it aside and said to Wang Jingwen.

"Do you have someone you want to send a gift to? I'll give you one first as a favor." After returning to the house, Xiao Wang boiled water as the two of them were going to soak their feet in a while.

"Tea can remove fat. None of my friends needs this stuff, so I'll save it for you." Tang Zhitong shook his head.

"Go away, just say something strange, I just need to get rid of the greasiness?" Student Xiao Wang rolled his eyes at Tang Zhitong.

Before this year, people in Beijing drank tea to cover up the unpleasant smell caused by poor water quality.

However, tea not only supplements vitamins, it also has the property of removing greasiness, so herders in the north and northwest are particularly fond of it.

"Look at my broken mouth. I'm saving it for you to drink. Is that okay?" Tang Zhitong patted his mouth lightly.

Student Xiao Wang really likes to drink these things. The last time I gave her barley tea was in early October, and she finished it in less than a month.

When Tang Wenbang sent something here in early November, Tang Zhitong also took the remaining two kilograms. But this time, Xiao Wang used barley tea as a way to replenish energy. After brewing it, he would chew and eat the barley, and of course, he would always share a bite with Tang Zhitong.

"Forget it. The more I drink, the hungrier I get." Xiao Wang shook his head regretfully, and then added, "Did you send roast duck to our mom's house yesterday? If Jingying hadn't told me today, I wouldn't have known. Why didn't you tell me?"

"How new! When have I ever received special treatment? Do I even need to explain this?" Tang Zhitong said complacently, taking credit for it.

"Hmph, you passed." Xiao Wang smiled sweetly, very satisfied with her husband's behavior.

"Hehe, then how about showing some appreciation?" After eating one more piece of peach cake, Tang Zhitong felt that the sky was clear, the rain had stopped, and he was fine again.

"Bah! Such a jerk." Without saying anything in agreement, Xiao Wang quickly stood up and poured water for her husband to wash his feet.

Tang Zhitong considered himself a gentleman. Even though he had climbed over the wall in his previous life, there were only two colors in his heart, and both colors were on the national flag.

After soaking his feet, Tang Zhitong put a handful of firewood into the stove to raise the temperature in the room.

Then he lifted the feet onto his shoulders, and Xiao Wang also cooperated, with the red sole facing the sky.

……

Due to insufficient food rations, the unit only lasted half an hour before the smell of the Changzhou streets in April and May wafted into the air.

"I heard today that food shortages are quite serious in other places, and the situation in Anton may not be much better, so don't make it hard on yourself." Afterwards, Xiao Wang lazily lay in her husband's arms and said with her eyes closed.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." Tang Zhitong wiped Xiao Wang's sweat with a towel, tucked her quilt in, and finally stuffed a load of firewood into the stove to keep the temperature in the room higher for a longer time.

"Well, whether it's good or bad, let's find a solution together. Don't just endure it alone." Xiao Wang opened her eyes and looked at her man infatuatedly with a smile on her face. Due to the limited energy intake recently, the dimples on her face were almost disappearing.

"It's not your turn to worry about these things while I'm here. It's getting late, go to bed." Tang Zhitong wiped the sweat off his body with a towel, then threw it aside, turned off the lights, and curled up in bed.

Although he rarely helps others selflessly, Tang Zhitong has a conscience and bottom line.

What Xiao Wang was thinking of was to get food from some channels. This approach was roughly equivalent to snatching food from other people's mouths. Tang Zhitong didn't want to do that.

Tang Zhitong also heard some rumors about the situation in other places, and many things could no longer be concealed.

When I went to Andong at the end of September, the forestry workers stopped their work and started the autumn harvest by picking pine cones.

At that time, Tang Zhitong didn’t know what “Minor Autumn Harvest” was, but he heard about it after he came back.

In early autumn this year, the highest institution issued a document that was not intended for the people. It was titled "Instructions on Deeply Mobilizing the Masses to Widely Collect and Make Full Use of Wild Plants." It had only one content: calling on all localities to launch a "small autumn harvest" campaign and go up the mountain to collect wild plant resources.

Tang Zhitong didn't know what the wild plants were collected for because he was not qualified and could not see the original text.

However, since the beginning of autumn this year, second-rate newspapers have repeatedly reported on the "small autumn harvest" in various places, with obvious encouragement and promotion implications.

Two days ago, on November 11, a second-rate newspaper even published an editorial entitled "Quickly Process and Utilize Wild Plants" to further promote the "Minor Autumn Harvest" campaign.

When Tang Zhitong saw this, he felt helpless.

The article was published a little late. This call is still useful for places like Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, but for the north, it is already the cold winter season and most wild plants have withered, making it a bit useless.

However, things did not stop there. As the situation worsened, in the days that followed, both second-rate newspapers and local newspapers would provide detailed information on what was edible.

For this purpose, there are not only reports, but also special books, including but not limited to "Wild Plants in Shanxi Province", "Native Starch Plant Resources in Gansu Province", "Wild Starch Plants in Fujian Province", "Utilization of Wild Plants in Henan Province (Native Part)", "Wild Starch Plants in Hubei Province", "Identification, Collection and Utilization of Wild Plants", etc.

Basically, wherever there is severe disaster, there will be such books.

In addition, Tang Zhitong noticed a report in a second-rate daily newspaper these days titled "Chlorella - can be used as concentrated feed."

The report said: Wenzhou Agricultural Science Research Institute successfully cultivated Chlorella using human feces and urine instead of chemical fertilizers;
Chlorella has the characteristics of fast reproduction, high yield and good nutrition;
Feeding pigs one pound of concentrated chlorella can increase their weight by 0.95 pounds per day;
It can be used to feed cattle, chickens, rabbits, etc., and their weight has increased significantly, which is equivalent to two kilograms of bean cake.

……

Who would have thought that this thing would be used to fill the stomach in the future?

Listening to the even breathing of the person beside him, Tang Zhitong cleared his mind of distracting thoughts and fell into a deep sleep.

Saturday, October 12.

Luo Zhiping was well behaved this time and ate the steamed bread he bought today.

According to him, there were fewer students buying rice today, and they didn’t even have to queue up.

After hearing this, Tang Zhitong still just smiled. Some things are not convenient to say, but you can vote with your feet. No one is stupid.

At present, the canteen is only practicing with rice and has not promoted other ingredients. After the full promotion, it is estimated that the previous balance will be restored.

After school in the afternoon, Tang Zhitong did not go to the escort office immediately, but rode his bike to the outside of Jianguomen.

The blueprint for the spinning wheel has been drawn, and he needs to contact his connections to see if it can be made.

Before this, Tang Zhitong had thought about it several times in his mind, and the spinning wheel had the simplest design and basically had normal functions.

"What is this used for? This kind of special-shaped part needs to be turned and milled. I'm afraid the cost is a bit high." Since they were old friends, and as a token of their friendship, Fang Chongzhi told the truth over a pack of cigarettes.

"Chief Fang, are these things difficult to make?" Tang Zhitong took out a cigarette and lit one.

"It is quite troublesome. I see that your drawing is accurate to the millimeter. It needs the help of a master craftsman. It will take at least three or four days. The labor cost alone will be nearly twenty dollars, not including the raw materials and loss." Fang Chongzhi put down the drawing, took the cigarette and said.

"Hiss~ It's indeed not low." Tang Zhitong had a slight toothache, so he struck a match to light a cigarette for Lao Fang and also had one for himself.

"There's no other way. We have never made this kind of thing. The smaller and more delicate it is, the more expensive it is. At this price, I haven't even mentioned the cost in case we fail along the way," said Fang Chongzhi.

"Okay, I'll think about it later." Tang Zhitong picked up the blueprint and put it into his bag.

After hearing what Fang Chongzhi said, Tang Zhitong had another idea.

I can't use this thing myself, so it's not worth spending my own money on it. It's better to make a wooden prototype myself. As long as I can use it for an hour or two, I can experience it.

After saying goodbye to Fang Chongzhi, Tang Zhitong went to the hardware store again.

I spent three dollars to buy a set of knives, the kind used to carve seals.

Although it is small in size, it is sharp enough for carving wood.

In addition, Tang Zhitong also bought several sheets of sandpaper for different purposes.

I'm preparing a birthday gift for Xiao Wang, and these are all necessary items for grinding and polishing.

(End of this chapter)