Thriftlady's wartime experiment

Emmy_L

So here is what has been going on...

I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism several months ago after I gained HUGE amounts of weight, slept most of my day away (at the start I was sleeping 22 out of 24 hours :eek: ) and had a lot of joint pains amongst other things.

I am now starting to get better and want to get back to feeding my family on a budget.
I watched that Jamie Oliver programme, and although I was impressed with what he wanted to achieve, I was more interested in the ACTUAL Ministry of Food.

Although there were still health problems during and after WW2, Britain as a whole were leaner, fitter and healthier than any time before OR after.

After much discussion with Himself and doing lots of research, we are going to try living on Rations!:D
It is both scary AND exciting!

The only problem I can really see, is that I can't seem to find out if rations for children were the same as for adults or not.
Does anyone know?

I'm going to use this as a way of keeping track of what the rations cost in modern money and how we are getting along with it!

newlywed

I think you need thriftlady's wartime rations thread...

Here: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=481412

spendingmad

Hi Emmy

These threads should help you!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=556929&highlight=WW2+rations

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=481412&highlight=WW2+rations

Good luck!!!

Emmy_L

Thanks guys!
Thats brill!

ascot64

I think they were. http://timewitnesses.org/english/food/Rations.html

We went to the Imperial War museum during half term and didn't see any mention of the rations being smaller for children and this site doesn't seem to suggest that they were.

Emmy_L

The main thing I have been able to find out about is that babies and young children were allowed 'priority' milk, meaning that instead of 3 pints, they were allowed 7.
I currently have two under the age of 2, which means they get extra milk, are allowed orange juice,3 extra eggs each and cod liver oil (yuck!).

here is my list of rations per person:

Bacon and Ham:4oz
Meat: 6oz
Butter: 2oz
Cheese: 2oz
Margarine: 4oz
Dripping/Lard: 4oz
Milk: 3pts (7 per baby)
Sugar 8oz
Jam 1lb per 2 months
Tea: 2oz (or the equivalent of 15 tea bags approx)
Eggs: 1
Sweets 3oz

Altogether, for my family of 2 adults, 3 children (two under 5 for rationing purposes) that gives me:

Bacon and Ham: 20oz (or 500g)
Meat :320z (or 850g)
Butter :10oz (or 250g)
Cheese :" "
Margarine : 20oz (500g)
Dripping/lard : " "
Milk :23 pts
Sugar : 40 oz ( 1125g)
Jam : 225g
Tea :10oz (250g)
Eggs : 11 per week
Sweets :15oz... though the only person who really eats sweets is Him self LOL

Also, the babies get Orange juuice and cod liver oil.

Forgot to add:
16 points of extra rations per month per person.
This could buy:
1 tin of fish or meat OR
Breakfast cereal OR
2lb (900g) dried fruit OR
Rice OR
Condensed milk OR
8lb (3.6kg) Split peas

thriftlady_2

Hi Emmy

It's nice to see someone else having a go at rationing:T We are also a family of 5 but all my kids are over 5 years so there was very little difference between their rations and ours. The only real difference was that children between 5 and 18 got an extra half pint of milk a week.

Under 5s held a green ration book which entitled them to the daily pint of milk, extra eggs, cod liver oil etc (I take 2 tsp of CLO every day with a splash of milk -great for your joints but it doesn't half make your cupboards smell). Under 5s also got less meat -I think it was half an adult ration.

Meat as you know, was rationed in money not weight so it is difficult to know exactly what it was. The source I used said 12 oz mince/stewing meat or 2 chops was about right. If 4 adults put their ration together you could get a decentish joint on Sunday.

I allowed more cheese than you have. The cheese ration went up and down throughout the war. I plumped for 3 oz each.

I also cheated by substituting margarine for butter. I believe butter is a healthier product than marge, not to mention tastier;) not very authentic though.

I shall have to think about having another stint at it. I only lasted 2 weeks but I often think about having another go.

One last point, although it is often said that Britain was healthier than it has ever been after rationing, it wasn't necessarily because people were eating less of one thing and more of another. A lot of it was down to the fact that rationing ensured that those who were malnourished got their fair share of body building foods. During the First World War something like 1 in every 3 men was not fit enough to fight due to malnourishment. And don't forget that free school dinners were introduced to all school children;)

well, good luck Emmy 'be like a kettle and sing', 'keep calm and carry on' and remember your blackout:D

Emmy_L

Thanks for that Lady
I did wonder if maybe the whole meat thing with the children was being rather generous, and many of the sites I have used for research seem to contradict in amounts of rations allowed, so I have pretty much generalised the whole thing to make it a bit more uniform!

I didn't realise until today that bananas were total no-go, and Himself and the oldest child have protested a lot about this, so I am going to sacrifice about half of the sweet ration for bananas.
Other than that, it has to be seasonal food all the way!
This means we get to have plenty of leeks, some onions, celery, chicory, any root vegetable, savoys, spinach,horseradish and coxs pippin apples!yum!
Grapes were only available if you knew smeone who was growing them in a "hothouse", so we are not going to be able to have these either :S

I am a bit worried about using the margarine, because I don't really like it on sandwiches or anything, and use it really for just baking, but most of the 'menu's' I have seen tend to expect you to bulk out a meal with bread and margarine, or have margarine spread on cold potoatoes or salad.~shudder~
I have found a recipe though for bulking out the butter ration, so I reckon I will do that so that Marg doesn't have to be used.

Tomorrow,I'll post my meal plan for this week, as I have to finish sorting that out and need to go shopping for groceries.
Breakfast tomorrow though is....
Porridge!
It *should* be made with water and salt, but yet another compromise with Himself means that we use sugar instead of salt!

Penelope_Penguin

Don't panic, Mr Mainwairing, but it looks like there's another war on I'll add this to thriftlady's WW II thread to keep all ideas together.

Penny. x

Emmy_L

Hehe
Thanks PP