White/Wholeweat flour exchange experiment

[Deleted User]

bellaquidsin wrote: »

I have successfully used wholewheat flour in sponges, and yorkshire puddings. I always make scones with two parts wholemeal to one part white and used half and half it makes my ginger cake better than ever, it can sink using all white flour but the wholemeal seems to hold it up.

Bella.

Thank you. I was interested particularly in Yorkshire pudding batter as I'm going to make toad-in-the-hole from a recipe in my 'Ration Book Diet' book.
(If anyone is interested in buying this book, you can get them from Amazon. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's a slimming diet book - it's a book with recipes that is based on the diet of people on rations)

ceridwen

budgeteer wrote: »

Thanks. I personally wish to eliminate white flour from my cooking if I can, so prefer to use all wholewheat. I must say, when I took the muffins to the oven, it felt so heavy LOL! But the muffins themselves were, I felt, superior to the white in both texture and flavour. I also couldn't eat more than one at a time which was a bonus:rotfl:

That is actually one of the advantages of using wholemeal flour instead of white (errr...bit confuzzled here...as you say "wholewheat" - so I'm wondering if you're using half and half wholemeal/white flour???) - ie that I find one eats less of wholemeal products - as they are more filling:D

ceridwen

budgeteer wrote: »

Thank you. I was interested particularly in Yorkshire pudding batter as I'm going to make toad-in-the-hole from a recipe in my 'Ration Book Diet' book.
(If anyone is interested in buying this book, you can get them from Amazon. But don't make the mistake of thinking it's a slimming diet book - it's a book with recipes that is based on the diet of people on rations)

Ooh....I've got that book out at the moment on loan from the library:D

I got as far last night as reading what the World War 2 nutritionists had decided was a "basal" diet that they felt would cover all their nutritional needs. They set it at:
1 lb potatoes
12 oz bread (wholewheat I believe)
6oz vegetables
2oz oatmeal
1oz fat
just over half a pint of milk per day
- and NO meat.

Their idea being that this would form the basis of a person's daily food intake and other items would be surplus to their nutritional requirements.
That sent me off on a train of thought of "Guess a cheapest possible healthy diet would be the above and enough fruit/veg to make up to '9 a day' + something suitable for adding in the Omega Oils (2 tablespoons per day of walnuts/seeds/flaxseed oil or similar in the case of vegetarian me?).

[Deleted User]

ceridwen wrote: »

That is actually one of the advantages of using wholemeal flour instead of white (errr...bit confuzzled here...as you say "wholewheat" - so I'm wondering if you're using half and half wholemeal/white flour???) - ie that I find one eats less of wholemeal products - as they are more filling:D

Sorry for any confusion. When I say 'wholewheat', I mean 'wholemeal'. I didn't know there was a difference and have always used the term. I hope things don't get too confusing on this thread:D
I certainly find them more filling too.

[Deleted User]

ceridwen wrote: »

Ooh....I've got that book out at the moment on loan from the library:D

I got as far last night as reading what the World War 2 nutritionists had decided was a "basal" diet that they felt would cover all their nutritional needs. They set it at:
1 lb potatoes
12 oz bread (wholewheat I believe)
6oz vegetables
2oz oatmeal
1oz fat
just over half a pint of milk per day
- and NO meat.

Their idea being that this would form the basis of a person's daily food intake and other items would be surplus to their nutritional requirements.
That sent me off on a train of thought of "Guess a cheapest possible healthy diet would be the above and enough fruit/veg to make up to '9 a day' + something suitable for adding in the Omega Oils (2 tablespoons per day of walnuts/seeds/flaxseed oil or similar in the case of vegetarian me?).

I wonder if anyone has tried living on this basal diet.

ceridwen

budgeteer wrote: »

Sorry for any confusion. When I say 'wholewheat', I mean 'wholemeal'. I didn't know there was a difference and have always used the term. I hope things don't get too confusing on this thread:D
I certainly find them more filling too.

'Tis okays...may ha' been me at fault - just have this feeling that wholewheat tends to mean 85% wholemeal/15% white - but that might be just summat from my older cookbooks and a distinction that no longer exists?? (I've got cookbooks going back decades - so sometimes have to do a bit of "translating" into modern-day terms.)

ceridwen

budgeteer wrote: »

I wonder if anyone has tried living on this basal diet.

That would be interesting to know actually.

My feeling is that we are finding out more about nutritional requirements all the time. So World War 2 nutritionists would probably have had a less complete idea of what is necessary than some of us do nowadays. On from that - I think present-day nutritionists maybe dont have as full a picture as nutritionists in, say, 20 years time might have.

[Deleted User]

I think that the definition of wholewheat flour has evolved so that they now both mean the same thing

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif] "There is no difference between wholewheat and wholemeal flour, unless the packaging on wholemeal flour states that barley and/or rye are added to the wheat.[/FONT]"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2198586

[Deleted User]

budgeteer wrote: »

It is well-known that the diet of families under rationing during the second-world war caused our nation to be the healthiest it has ever been, (Soon became unhealthy again when rationing stopped)

The reason we were a lot healthier during the war and afterwards on rationing was down to the fact I believe that there were restrictions on sugar and fats.Plus the only 'take-aways available were fish & chips and that was also restricted by how much money your Mum had in her purse.My Mum rarely, if ever bought fish and chips from a shop .There was a wet-fish shop locally where she bought her fish fresh on Friday morning for tea that night (no fridges or freezers in our house)her chips were home made and cooking in a pan of fat that was kept with its wire basket especially for that purpose.She peeled and cut the chips with a corrigated cutter that gave lovely 'crinkly' chips.We only had those once a week anyway as the rest of the week it was mash or boiled or on Sundays roast spuds.Beefburgers were unheard along with fish fingers, of although spam fritters sometimes appeared if she managed to get hold of a tin of spam ,mostly it was corned beef fritters.Food was cooked from fresh and there was little in the way off storage anyway. We seemed to quite a lot of puds usually rice, semolina,sago or tapioca. I think she had cornered the market and stored dried pudding stuff for ages in big old National Dried Milk tins. The cheese ration was very small as well so a piece about the size of a matchbox per person per week had to go a long way.
Food was such a hit and miss affair at time depending on what queue you were plonked in.As a child my Mum quite often stuck me in a queue and she went in another one I always hoped she would return from hers before I got to the front as I hadn't a clue what I was queueing for:D
We never went hungry but there were times when the diet was a bit samey.:D
Sunday Roast something ??? with lots of veg from the garden

Monday (washday) so it was cold meat and mash and anything she could find in the way of pickles

Tuesday maybe sausages & mash and onion gravy to liven up the bangers (often not brilliant as the meat content was a bit dubious at times

Wednesday: dependant on how obliging the butcher was it could be a stew of sorts with again lots of veg,or if really lucky some chops the biggest going to Dad as he was the breadwinner and what ever was left shared out between the three kids.My Mum always ate afterwards as she said she wanted to see the family fed first I think she quite often didn't have enough to go around so made do with what she could find.

Thursday If we were lucky a rabbit stew:eek:,which I hated, and have never eaten since, or some liver or kidneys with gravy,veg and mash

Friday was always fish day

Saturday was always a hotchpotch of what ever she had available in the cupboard,sometimes a pie of sorts with who knew what inside it .You didn't investigate you just ate it.Couldn't afford to be fussy or my mum would rest her stern eye on the child and say 'Sailors died to get food to this table, so eat it'

Sunday was the roast whatever and three veggies and for tea my Dad always made proper scones on an old iron girdle on the kitchen range.

It wasn't a particular lack of funds at times it was often the lack of availability in the shops .You went to the same grocer,butcher,greengrocer(in hope of fruit)and fishmonger and they got to know thier customers well.
In the middle 1950s a big shop opened in Lewisham which was self service, and I was amazed that you could go around and help yourself to what was on offer.In those days it was still possible to buy a carton of three eggs in Sainsburys, they were around 7d-8d (4p)
There had been a Sainsburys 'proper shop' that we went to for years where you were served butter in quarter pounds off a big block and the man cut it very precisely with wooden paddles.he never got it wrong either , and if your Mum asked for 4 ozs of ham that's what she got not 5 or 6 but 4.
There were few, if any snacks, and food was eaten sitting at the table ,breakfast, lunch and tea and few if any sweets, as they were rationed as well.Crisps were only available in a pub and my Dad never went into one of those.
If you were hungry than you tried to find an apple or maybe if Mum was in a good mood and cooking, a handful of raisins or really lucky a few sulatanas.Food between meals was rare as mealtimes were set in stone and thats when you ate .So not many folk got as chubby as today .In those days the odd large person was usually thought to have a thyroid problem, and in Lewisham the only shop that catered for them was called 'Evans,the Outsize shop' very un-PC by todays standards
We kept chickens in our large garden for eggs, and if they stopped laying they were killed for the pot,they wern't pets, they were food.Although most chickens were bought around Christmas time, and I was an adult before I ever tasted a turkey.Plus of couse there were few cars around and people either walked,bicycled or caught a bus.Often the walk to and from the bus stop was the excercise that you got morning and night .my Dad had to walk to the station which was at least a mile away and I walked four times a day to and from school which was a mile and a half away as I came home at lunchtime
I remember eating snoek which was a tinned fish and it was revolting stuff but you ate it or went hungry and also tripe and onions another dish that makes me feel a bit nauseous now, but beggers couldn't be choosers and it was better that going to bed hungry as my Mum always made us eat what she put in front of us and no 'faddy ideas' at all.
I definitely prefer the variety of todays food to war-time food and enjoy all the herbs and spices that we can buy today I often wonder what my old Mum would have made of todays diets and how todays generation seem to be eating constanly whilst walking down the road .My Mum would have tanned my hide if she caught me eating in the street:D

[Deleted User]

So much interesting information, JackieO, especially because of your own experiences.
We too were never allowed to eat in the street - it was considered very 'common'. I was born in 1959 and rationing had fully finished in '55, but times were still very hard and we certainly didn't waste food and there was not much variety as far as I remember.