Government Cheese
Every once in a while, you may run into someone who grew up on food stamps and hear them ranting about how they were forced to eat something called Government Cheese. Any cheese with the word government in it can’t be good! Throughout the 1960s-1990s, instead of giving out socialized medicine or socialized retirement funds, the government would give out socialized dairy products to welfare and food stamp recipients.
Government Cheese was first given out as military rations to troops during WWII. Following the war, the cheese was introduced into the public school system as part of the student lunch programs. Throughout the south and west sides of Chicago’s, impoverished families flocked to corner grocery stores to get their socialized cheese blocks.
When cutting into a block of government cheese, you never really knew what type of cheese you were eating. It was processed using leftover bits of Colby, cheddar, cheese curd, or granular cheese mixed with emulsifiers to give it a blocky shape. The taste and smell can only be described as a cross between very low-grade American cheese, a generic Velveeta knockoff, and a somewhat rancid cheddar. It was like biting into a cheese made from rotten socks. Once the dairy program was pulled and the food stamp program switched over to Link cards, Government Cheese was taken off the market.
sir i get food stamps. but you whont be live . that. they only gave me $28.00 a mouth. & iam 71 year.s old.. yes my son pay my rent.. & i live off my s.s. & that is 792.00 that i have to pay my car .is 399.89 then i get my med.s a othe 187.00 .. go to dr. . now that kind sir sure dont leve me much.. the gov. keep. puten in yther posket & they just wate for use to die off.. i know . you say . well hear is a other old man. . but . i think you sir. . have a good day….
I’m a low income person. Do they still give out the cheese and where do I go to get it. Near West St. Paul MN 55118
Please reply
James
They discontinued government cheese in the 90s.
Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program.gov website…….
find for your state Cheese and all other that was given years ago…..
Goverment Cheese is still given out, along with many other items. The program is called commodity foods
My Memories of the government cheese program was that the cheese was more then good, and helped my parents feed 8 children while my Dad worked for the NYC transit in the 1960′s and 1970s. In the early 80′s it helped feed my young family quite a few times. It is one of the better programs the government had. Rather then let the product rot in a storage silo, it helped economically boderline families survive, and the dairy farms survive as well.
If the cheese tastes like rotten socks, how bad do you think socialized medicine will be? You said it yourself, it can’t be good!
This article is very misleading. Government cheese doesn’t taste just like any processed cheese.When did you eat rotten socks to be able to compare the flavors?
“Like traditional processed American cheese, it consists of a variety of cheese types and other ingredients such as emulsifiers blended together, and may be made of any of Cheddar cheese, Colby cheese, cheese curd, or granular cheese. The cheese was often from food surpluses stockpiled by the government as part of milk price supports. Butter was also stockpiled and then provided under the same program. Some government cheese was made of kosher products. This cheese product is also distributed to victims of a natural disaster following a State of Emergency declaration.”
So, it isn’t just used for welfare and food stamps recipients. I am not going to get into how misinformed most Americans are about socialized healthcare.
Government cheese was delicious. My parent’s still have an old cheese slicer from the days of the government cheese block. It was awesome to melt and something in it was just addictive, kind of like MSG probably. But I don’t know if the author actually ever ate government cheese or maybe they did once and got a bad batch but I miss that cheese. Its a great running joke amongst all my friends who also grew up with government cheese.
I agree it was great cheese. That’s why I found this post, I was searching for it. The best toasted cheese sandwiches and Mac n cheese that puts Kraft to shame!
I have to say I miss the government cheese too. It was a cross between the old salty Velveeta, American Cheese, and a mild Cheddar. Granted this may have been dependent on the silo that it came from or something like that but it really was good. I so miss the stuff as one of the good food memories of hanging out at my Mom’s on the weekends
I grew up on Government Cheese, and just recently found one of the old empty boxes in the basement. It was not in a wrapper like this photo – it came in a grocery bag colored long box the size of a Velveta block, and I have no memories of it ever tasting like socks. It was a great help to a lot of poor people, and, believe it or not, created a good memory – one that has shaped me to be very appreciative of everything I have, and deeply compassionate for those who have not.
My grandmother would get gov’t cheese every now and then. It made the absolute BEST quesadillas! it melted evenly and tasted yummy. when it was cold it was a bit sharp tasting, but melted it was delicious!
Plase to help! I lives in Flirida and nneds the chheese can yo really help telling to wher is the cheese>?
dont remember dirty socks but I do remember it would make the best grilled cheese mac & cheese and was awsome on burgers. I would love to be able to get “the cheese”
yes RICK you are sooo right, I grew up in DETROIT and yes I made some good @ss grilled cheese, slice that cheese just right (yes yes yes) and my mom made the BEST HOMEMADE MACARONI AND CHEESE (hmmmm mmmm good), and she would kick me out the kitchen because as fast as she was cutting up the cheese i would be grabbing it and eating it (lol), great memories under rough times!!!!
What Ronnie said… The cheese was delicious, melted to perfection on a grilled cheese sandwich. I’m not sure how my mom ever got her hands on it, but we loved to eat it. Specifically the one in the cardboard box, not like in the photo above…
Contrary to what this article says, I believe that government cheese can still be found. I live in southeast Michigan. My fiance’s mother occasionally gets foodstuffs from food banks and food pantries. One day she told my fiance to take a big block of cheese home because she didn’t like the taste. It comes in a long box, similar to have Velveeta is packaged. I can’t stand the stuff. Bland, not much taste. My fiance loves it though. He says it makes the best grilled cheese ever. I also did some reading online, and a person had mentioned that government cheese had been given to them after Hurricane Frederick. Good luck to anyone looking for it. I’d send you some if I could – my fiance is now addicted!
As I recall, the cheese was great. Melted to perfection for that cheese sandwich. My family was not on welfare but still managed to get it. Others said they also received it but were not on assistance. What gives?
The government gave large blocks of it out from what I hear. So much that the people passed it to others. I tasted some that my sister’s neighbor gave her…and you won’t taste a grilled cheese like it! Delicious it was!
It didn’t taste bad for possessed cheese and I used to make cheese for a living. Believe me, nothing tastes better than cheese purchased from a small dairy in Wisconsin, but Government cheese is award winning compared to “Sandwich Mate” slices.
No no ya bastids, Gov’t cheese would lock you up! If you actually ate that crap you know what I mean.
It did melt well and was not that bad but the stuff could counteract the effects of any lactose intolerance or bran muffin intake.
You know i needed help one time and was NOT proud of it. The one and only thing that I miss from the free help is not the checks, not the food stamps, or the free medical (well that was nice), but the free cheese. I don’t know where you got that pic from but that is NOT government cheese. It was a block like velvetta and had no writing on it.
The goverment cheese was and still is one of the bulk food products donated by the USDA to those who qualify. Yes, it still exists but only 32 states participate in the program.
I am providing a link to the list of all states that still participate in this program. Find your state and if its there, it will tell you where and how to apply.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/contacts/sdacontacts.htm
I live in CT. How do i apply?
The government still subsidizes cheese. It’s free on the W.I.C. program in every county in the USA.
My mother was a single parent in Ca. and we got a couple blocks of that cheese every month all through my teenage years. It did not taste like old socks and made the best quesadillas with a touch of tobasco on it, yum yum yum. Grilled cheese and mac and cheese have never tasted the same since. I would gladly buy this cheese if someone would sell it to the general public! Its the only thing I miss from the government programs of my childhood and being poor. We may have been poor but tortilla shells are cheap and the cheese was plentiful, I totally enjoyed it!
I remember the days of standing in line for cheese, honey, butter, peanut butter, corn meal and perhaps some other items. I loved that cheese! It was a box like Velveeta. I haven’t bought a box of cheese for a long time because it is so expensive.
Back then, didn’t have to be on welfare or food stamps or prove your income. Just had to wait in line.
Miss those memories of kids being excited with our food gifts for the month!
Around 1983, I not only received the cheese, but was employed distributing it during the Reagan admin’s subsequent unemployment. Although it never looked at all like the pic or tasted any less than excellent, I was always amazed by how much of it there seemed to be. I once asked the truck driver where it came from. He said it came from huge USDA stockpiles deep within abandoned salt mines in the great lake region, where because of the packaging and constant cool dry environment, much of it was over 40 years old, creating its savory aged flavor.
“Throughout the 1960s-1990s, instead of giving out socialized medicine or socialized retirement funds, the government would give out socialized dairy products to welfare and food stamp recipients.”
I think you want to bone up on your history. We’ve had an awful lot of welfare since well before the 1960′s, and little to show for it, BTW.
While there were a few celebrated TV moments of people waiting in line for government cheese, it was by no means some kind of dustbowl soup line.
We had CARS back then too!
To reiterate, the whole “underground stockpile” was in fact word of mouth, and to be considered as such. Nevertheless, I believed the guy as I talked with him. Seemed like a straight up guy. That aside, I couldn’t help but recall an episode of BBC’s James Burke – The Day The Universe Changed, where he attributed a large part of the Roman army’s success to the minimal supply lines required as a result of their cheese based sustenance.