British Rationing in the Second World War
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- Опубликовано: 10 апр 2022
- A rather rambling look at what was allowed in British food rations during the Second World War. If you want to see regular updates on how our rationing challenge is going you can search Instagram for #VictoryRationsProject or follow @thymeforhomelife.
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My Mum was nine when the war started. She told me that the British people were never as healthy as they were back then, either before or since. Everyone had enough but nobody had too little or too much.
You didn't see fat or obese people back during the war she said. Unlike now with our fat and sugar ladened diets and way too many calories in general. 🥺
Not to mention the lack of exercise now. Back then EVERYONE exercise . Like walking to work and school instead of driving a mile. Everyone grew a garden. 90%had a milk cow. Made their own clothes. And used and reused everything. NOTHING WAS WASTED.
You left out STARCH. And starch turn into SUGAR in the body. Not known back then.
Since then government has been funding pushing starch in the form of bread, pasta, and sugary treats like deserts and candy. Much has push the American diet into obesity and poor health. If we went back on the WWII rations for a generation it might reverse itself.
As a very young child in the immediate post war period in New Zealand I remember my grandparents packing food parcels to send to the UK. As I recall they contained a fair quantity of tinned and preserved foods and I seem to recall bacon, but I could be mistaken on that one. Tinned meat definately was in the mix.
Tinned bacon was a real thing untill about 10 years before c19. People used it to go camping in the 80s and 90s.
It was discontinued because the bacon was packed RAW and their was problems with people eating it spoiled. Causing food poisoning. It was in pound size tins.
Mother used lard for pie crust and American biscuits, margarine for baking cakes and cookies, and bacon fat for frying just about anything and for seasoning green beans and cabbage. Butter was used exclusively for toast, cheese was used exclusively for sandwiches, and honey was a substitute for jam. Potatoes, onions, and carrots were grown in the back yard in virtually any kind of container you could imagine. She always had sugar left over at the end of the month, as she used it exclusively for baked treats. Instead of tea, she drank coffee, which was also rationed. No sugar, just cream. I'm assuming eggs weren't rationed in the US. As in the UK, shoes, clothing, tires, and gasoline were rationed; she quickly learned how to maintain and repair her own shoes! She said she got by just fine, but she had to learn to strategize for every element of daily life. Til the end, she loved liver and onions fried in bacon fat, also corned beef and cabbage made with homegrown potatoes & carrots, and tinned corned beef. Most of the dietary habits I grew up with were the result of her wartime practices, and I was in my 40s before I made my first macaroni & cheese casserole!
People forget just how good we have it now.
Late to the party but to help avoid mouldy jam use a clean teaspoon to scoop your portion out. Mould is usually caused by bread/toast and butter/marge crumbs from your knife. This is why some people use a condement bowl and lid with dedicated spoon on their breakfast table.
In addition to your tips if you keep your jams and jellies in the fridge they don't mold.
Lord Wolton really came through for the British public with the ration! He improved the nutrition of the average Englishmen at the same time as controlling the rationing of foods.
A rich guy who put his money where his mouth was . Didn't say one thing and do another when he thought no one was watching. Lived what he preached, a basic, level playing field for everyone. Good, healthy, basic nutrition for all. When things were in abundant supply when a whole ship load of basic food stuffs landed they reduced the number of ration points to purchase the abundant supply of the item. Got people to expand their pallets mostly to healthy items being imported!
We had marg back then wow bad stuff. My mum remembers one tin of condensed milk she thought it was gold.
What about the National Loaf?
I did a ration experiment for a few months, a while ago. I went by pure cash value on meat. Also I went for mid war ration, which was more stingy. I recall I had half a tin of spam for a week.
Think I may have been short changing myself.
there were one egg cake recipes at the time. also, plain gelatin can take the place of an egg in baking. thank you. just found you today. shared you with my nephew who LOVES WWI,II history.
Here is a WWII recipe for an eggless chocolate cake. It's the only chocolate cake I make because it's so good:
CHOCOLATE WACKY CAKE
Sift together in an ungreased 8" x 8" pan:
1/4 cup baking cocoa
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon soda
Hand stir into dry mixture until moistened: (Don't overbeat)
1/3 cup oil (I now use melted butter because cheap oils, like Canola, are no longer considered healthy)
1 tablespoon vinegar and 1 teaspoon vanilla mixed into 1 cup cold water
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 -35 minutes. Don't overbake otherwise the cake will be dry.
I imagine it was a rare treat because of the amount of sugar that had to be saved up in order to make the cake.
I was born in 1947 and lived at the Elephant and Castle. I have a good memory and well remember post war rationing that went on until 1954 when bacon came off rationing. As it was central London and a flat where I lived there was no 'extras' from any gardens etc, rations were it. It must be realised that the money to buy was also required along with the ration coupons. If like me you were from a lower working class family money was tight. I only had jam once when my mother took me in 1951 to see my great grandmother, in her 90's, who lived in an East London terraced house with a garden. She had made her own blackcurrant jam.
The one over riding memory I have is of being hungry nearly all the time
The powdered eggs was equal to 12 eggs... you would never use butter in cake making.. you would always use margarine.. .
1952-53 still had ration books and went to the clinic to be weighed and measured and sent home with a bottle of cod liver oil and one of concentrated orange juice. I still have my ration book egg was fried and spread very thin in the pan and then carefully cut in half and shared with my sister. Dripping was spread on a slice of bread for extra calories.
I would have loved to see more of these and how it progressed.
Thank you for being so thorough. I made carrot marmalade and just love it and my ancestors are English. Did you know they used to use up the potatoes to make beer as there was a lot of potatoes and they would store the potatoes and caves
Excellent
The amount of milk is silly powder milk is really good I drank it as a kid and loved it
watching this in 2024 in New Zealand look at that amount of butter, lard, cheese and marge and think that's just unaffordable now. $5 of meat guess that's about two chicken drumsticks here.
just watched a 'week on ww2 rations' video where the guy ate onion almost every meal haha, love the amount of research you've done - i'd deffo be entering one of those raffles haha
What I don't see there is the "National Loaf".
Corned beef is not tinned it is canned. Biscuits are tinned. All love❤
Brits tend to call it tinned.
Here in Bermuda, being as we're on an island in the middle of the Atlantic and ships could only come by rarely, food was strictly rationed by the government. My grandmother told us a story of a man who broke into a government warehouse and stole a huge sack of sugar. It was about the size of an adult male and too heavy to carry so the man dragged it behind him. However, he immediately accidentally tore a hole in it and the sugar leaked out, leaving a trail all the way to the man's house. All the constables had to do was follow the trail and it led them straight to him. We said "But Nan, didn't he notice that the sack was getting lighter?" and she said "No, criminals weren't too clever back then." We all had a good laugh 😂
My favorite thing is corn beef hash it over here in the US. One thing I found is that it’s diced up incredibly small edit cooks bit that way. Where is Christie? I’ve actually let my Akahana for upwards of 3040 minutes to get it. Absolutely amazing that way.
Any fat that came off any cooked meat was saved to make the fat ration go further.
Was flour on points? I haven't seen anything about that in the literature of the time. I would certainly like to know the point value if it was. Thank you so much for making this video. I have watched many about rationing, but I still enjoyed seeing yours, and have subscribed to check out other videos you make.
Would be a very interesting " Tiktok Challenge "
Wartime diet, weight loss program.
I don't think Celariac was available in the UK during WW2 as it mainly grows in the Mediterranean and would have had to be imported.
Celery would have been available and I think that is what he means. Celeriac is actually a root vegetable. Very trendy lately!
The powder eggs came from Canada. The packages held 12. You could chose it over the one egg, which is what I would do if I could not have chickens.
Moldy jam? Do you mean crystalized? I’ve never had jam mold in the 50+yrs I’ve been on the planet 🤷♀️ . Sugar is a preservative, I’m confused.
With refrigeration jam will mold. Leave it out on your counter in the summer and see what happens.
@@robyntinsley1548 I've kept jam in the fridge for months and have never noticed that it has gone off. I'm not sure where the idea of jam going off faster if stored in the fridge comes from...
Jam used to be made with 50% fruit and 50%sugar. If the fruit were a type that was low in pectin ie strawberries, you would peel and dice a cooking apple, apples being high in pectin, and count that as part of the fruit. It is the combination of of pectin and sugar that sets the jam, when it has reached the boiling point. But remember ,most homes in the UK did not have refrigerators until the 1960/70s, or indeed central heating until about the same time….and we still don’t have air conditioning.
It is the modern jams, with reduced sugar, that will keep longer in a fridge
Heat will make jelly mold. Skim it off the top and throw out eat within a month.
The only jams that molded were the ones I sealed with paraffin. It's why it's no longer recommended. Instead, you use a two piece lid and ring and process the jam for 5 minutes. I've never had moldy jam since then.
That is a lot of sugar and fat, meat and eggs. If you know how to cook that is more than enough for two people considering during the war bread and veg was not rationed.
Wow. 1 egg per person per week? What happened to the chickens in the UK during the war? Or is this for urban dwellers? So interesting, thank you.
One egg was for everyone except the wealthy who bought on the black market. Chickens hadn't been 'battery farmed' back then. Chicken was a luxury that was some times eaten for Christmas dinner, no turkeys for the general public.
Healthier
Jam doesn't spoil if kept in the fridge.
You would use powdered egg for baking.
What about bread, salt, pepper, herbs and spices?
They had the national loaf. Salt would have been available. But any spice that needed to be shipped in like pepper, ginger, and nutmeg would be different to get. However you could grow oregano, parsley, etc.
Interesting programme, shame about the almost, but irritatingly not inaudible background music bits
What about fish - for "fish and chips"`?
Fish and Chips where not rationed.
Food allergies were not heard of , you ate what you got.
We were all underweight and hungry my Mum smoked to take the edge off being hungry so we had a bit extra food.
People still had food allergies; allergies were not taken into account for rationing purposes. I’m allergic to strawberries. My mom wouldn’t force feed me jam; I just wouldn’t get any jam on my toast.
Frankenfoods , other than seed oils had not been invented then. Wheat had 16 chromosomes, not 58. Milk was not homogenized, changing the protein.
The average woman gained a dress size during the war dispite the lack of calories and hard work. Too many carbs.
Even if it killed you.
There is no real rationality to how women’s clothing sizes are assigned
Didn’t have onions?? My uncle grew whoppers in his gardens
Do any thing to people with allergies???
I believe...but dont know for certain..
Pretty much they let us Allergics fend for ourselves back then, no extra rations for allergies...just trade what you can't eat for what you can.
I hear in some countries now you get some sort of monthly stipend or tax credit for Allergies. I'm in the USA at the moment and they don't but the prices for gluten free products have really come down in the past 5 years now that being GF is trendy. Tons of GF products available.
If you save your bacon fat then you could have a little more lard
My mother never threw out bacon fat.
People made preserves from there victory garden
No gardens for us living in flats in central London!
What about people who have a lot of food issues? I have been a vegetarian for 20 years due to my beliefs (ethics and environment), and I have acid reflux which has a lot of restrictions (including no tomato products, no citrus, no chocolate, no fried foods, no carbonated drinks, no pepper the vegetable, no pepper the spice, etc)? Thank you.
I believe they did have an allowance for those who were vegetarian. Otherwise, I believe, any other food restrictions/allergies were yours to sort out - buying those things you could eat, etc. and avoiding those you couldn't.
Then you starve
Food issues never existed, you ate what you got.
Vegetarians were catered for...extra cheese and legumes.
As a post war, yet during rationing child, I was registered as a vegetarian, thus providing more cheese for everyone in the family…and I got a tiny bit of their meat
An onion for a raffle prize! Just imagine.
I'm an adult Canadian male and I honestly would not now eat half of what's on that table. It just shows how tastes have changed. Nobody I know eats organ meats anymore. We worry about antibiotics and hormones. I don't eat much bread, no dairy other than cheese and maybe one or two eggs a week. What I do eat a lot of that wouldn't have been common for Brits back then are citrus fruits and bananas and pasta. Also loads of fish and chicken. I would have traded all that lard and butter and sugar for coffee. And I would have suffered a lingering death without olive oil by the gallon!
As a Brit, i would eat all these things and had Liver and Bacon yesterday, also Coffee was hard to get hold of but not rationed.
A shilling is equivalent of five pence.
Your information on this post is incorrect, Re WW2 Rations. Please update this for 1 adult person ration and 1 child Ration.
Why? ... they are two adults.
For people with allergies?????
You would have your chickens for eggs and meat rabbit were cooked victory garden legumes brown bread home baking
Hovis😊
Don't you put the jam in the fridge? Takes months to mold...
And how many people had a fridge during the war?
We and many,many others didn’t have a fridge!
No fridges in any house that I knew.Are you from the USA? I’m from Scotland originally. I grew up with ration books.
Why does your jam mold? Don't you store it in the fridge?
Fridge? No fridges only a galvanised metal bucket with cold water to keep your milk bottle in. You made me laugh with that comment. By the way I was born 1947 and lived through post war rationing till it ended in 1954. It wasn't just food either, furniture and other items were hard to get or of 'utility' design and construction.
Modern jam molds because it does not have enough sugar to preserve it. It requires 50% sugar 50% fruit……which is why not much was made….when you could you preserved in Kilner jars. Or by slow drying . Both jam and butter were consumed by the ‘ take very VERY little and then scrape it over the bread so you can see through it’ method…anymore and you were a hog!
What are telling me?. You said food allergies were not not u heard of. Your point?
allergies were not unheard of. So what is your point???
The amounts are ridiculous, the only reason cilvinan lived was the started victory gardens to live. Not thoughtful England nor kind t non military pesonel. They were being starved to feed troops.
It was actually a very healthy diet for civilians.
I'm going to imagine I am a pig farmer or in charge of raising a few pigs and having to give half the pig meat to the representative and I keep the other half. Seems only fair.
As a pig farmer you would not have been aloud to keep any of it. Only pig clubs could keep one pig and you split half with the other members while the ministry took the other half. They were very strict about this.
@@yayasorensen4351 Farmers got to have certain luxuries, that urban dwellers would not.
*laughs in plant based*
I don't see benefit for it.
You are absolutely giving Wrong information about the Ration system for WW2. Please do some research on the facts before you post your misinformation
It seems pretty correct to me. Are you in the UK, because this is how it was here.
Did any one care?????
Dis any one care???
These two are irritating with their modern attitude.
Painful presentation.