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Food carries meanings and values beyond its monetary and dietary values. It can be used to convey gender roles, influence peoples’ lives, and is impacted by place and broader societal values. Since the preparation and consumption of food mainly occurs within the home, it is an important aspect of childhood. When the United States joined World War I in 1917, Herbert Hoover was appointed the head of the US Food Administration. He engaged in an intensive campaign to promote food conservation, famously saying “food will win the war.” (Janik 2010) Through this campaign, food was used as a tool to advance the war effort and in doing so, it placed a larger ideological meaning upon food and the home and brought a larger global conflict into the local scale of peoples’ homes and childhoods. In this project, I will explore how food relates to the structure of the family, particularly the roles of women and children. And, how this was affected and amplified by the food conservation campaign in World War I.