Hoarding food illegal?

[snopes]

Comment: Is it true that it is illegal to hoard food?

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Comment: I have heard that a law was passed making it illegal in the
United States to keep more than 1 months worth of food in your home. Do
you know if this is fact.

[MidgardDragon]

Umm...I'm gonna go out on a limb here (not really) and say no, this is completely false. If there is any law of the sort on the books I'm sure it was meant for times of war or great poverty and hasn't been enforced and many many years.

[AnglRdr]

Originally Posted by MidgardDragon

Umm...I'm gonna go out on a limb here (not really) and say no, this is completely false. If there is any law of the sort on the books I'm sure it was meant for times of war or great poverty and hasn't been enforced and many many years.

I can't imagine it was ever a law.

Back when my great-grandparents were still farmers, they put up as much produce as possible to get through the winter, which, in northern Wisconsin, was a lot longer than a month.

The LDS church counsels people to have stores of food (I think it was for some end-times thing, but I can't remember really anymore).

Plus, how would anybody police such a requirement? How much is a month of food, anyway?

[Chinchy]

When I read the OP, the first thing that came to mind was how foodstuffs were rationed during World War II, and how sometimes people would hoard food or coupons and sell them on the black market. Am I remembering my U.S. history correctly? It's been a while...
But even if that is right, there's no way that the rule/law forbidding this still applies. And it just seems rather ridiculous; not only the idea of the law itself, but also that it could be passed quietly without causing public outcry.

Originally Posted by AnglRdr

Plus, how would anybody police such a requirement?

I'm getting a mental image of one of those Cops-types shows:
The police, guns drawn, bust down someone's door. After chasing down, tackling, and subduing the occupants of the house (one of whom is, of course, a scrawny white guy clad only in a pair of jeans), the officers (guns still drawn) head to the pantry. They kick the door open. The camera pans wide to show the well-stocked shelves. One of the cops shakes his head.

Cop: "That's Campbell's soup. They've got like, 35 cans of Capmbell's soup in here. And there's Pasta Roni, too."

Scrawny Guy: "This is *beep*, man! I want a *beep* lawyer!"

[Mycroft]

I think that in the UK during WW2 there was a criminal offence of food hoarding; but this applied mainly to canned goods. Many foodstuffs were rationed, the principal exceptions being vegetables and bread (although bread was actually rationed post war), and some rationing continued into the 50s.
I believe the law was not actively enforced (police did not check the contents of peoples larders); and was mainly used as an addition to black market legislation.

[PointySextant]

I'm going to say no. Food hoarding laws usually have more to do with the quantity of food you keep around more than the duration, and considering that many American staples have a shelf life of over a month, I think it would be almost impossible to pass such a law without almost immediate legal challenge from major corporations.

[Embra]

I was sure that hoarding was illegal in WW2 as well - I keep thinking of the Just William story where someonei s hoarding lemons (that turn out to be novelty soap).

Spartacus Schoolnet has quite a good summary of WW2 rationing laws, and the lengths to which The Authorities apparently went in order to catch people trading illegally. I can't find mention of hoarding though, except as a "patriotic duty".

This article says that hoarding was illegal in Canada during WW2 and "punishable by up to 2 years in prison".

Hoarding was apparently illegal here in WWI, in order to prevent panic-buying. ON a recent episdoe of Who Do YOu THink You Are, one of Jodie Kidd's ancestors was revealed to have been fined for hoarding food in 1918.

[rangerdog]

When my folks moved from the big house to their condo a few years ago (circa 2005/6) my sisters and I went through the cupboards and pantry and found canned goods, rice-a-roni, and some other choice staples dated as far back as 1974.

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

I think that in the UK during WW2 there was a criminal offence of food hoarding; but this applied mainly to canned goods. Many foodstuffs were rationed, the principal exceptions being vegetables and bread (although bread was actually rationed post war), and some rationing continued into the 50s.
I believe the law was not actively enforced (police did not check the contents of peoples larders); and was mainly used as an addition to black market legislation.

Food hoarding was also used as a storyline in a girls' comic I read in the 70s. In this case it was sugar, because there was a sugar shortage at the time and there was a 2 bag allowance per person (back in the days when shops were small and local and knew if a customer had already bought their allowance). In the story the police were involved, but I can't remember if it was because hoarding was actually illegal or because the hoarder was using disguises to buy more than her allowance.

I always have enough canned and dry good in my cupboards to keep me going for a few weeks.