2023 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Cherryfudge

Good news on Mr E's clean bill of health! It must have been a worrying time for you, no wonder some protective pounds got into the picture. Do you have a plan for more exercise?

I have a small mend and a tiny make to report: a blue kitchen towel now has a red felt ladybird over a hole, with a matching flower. There is also an embroidered felt mouse, for fun and to give me practice cutting things out.

Nelliegrace

Tea? DH has just made a pot, and topped it up, and poured the second potful into a flask. It is a cold morning, the mug of tea goes cold quickly. 

I have been having dinner a bit earlier and breakfast later, more of a brunch with a small bowl of porridge with some fruit, and an egg, and it has been easy to increase the fast between dinner and the first meal the next day for the 16:8 intermittent fasting.
I cook the meals my Granny made with ingredients and quantities she used. It is getting easier to say no to snacks. My waist measurement is dropping steadily. I look forward to wearing some favourite old clothes again. £200 for a wool mix duffle coat?
I can have an old wool one without any coupons for about three inches. 

Cherryfudge

Nelliegrace said:

I cook the meals my Granny made with ingredients she used. It is getting easier to say no to snacks. My waist measurement is dropping steadily. 

When I see photos of the 1940s, everyone is so slim! But then, sugar and fats were rationed... so many things that we think of as treats are false friends really...

Laura_Elsewhere

Yes, the research coming out about how both artificial sweeteners and low-fat foods fool our bodies into demanding we actually eat more than we would do if we ate real sugar and fat... 

I'm starting by really properly looking at what I eat and when and how and why, and seeing what easy reductions can be made (already today I've had an apple where I'd fallen into the habit of some chocolate or a handful of sweeties...  like I said, it ain't rocket-science). 
And I'm also working out how I use my time, and how I can make time to have a brisk walk in the middle of the day. I never have time for anything, but I am already aware this is partly because I poddle along in a leisurely manner at all times, no matter what. I get up nice and slowly, even if that means setting my alarm earlier, and I do everything else in a nice leisurely sort of way. Maybe it would be an idea to have some brisker periods in my day, including a brisk short walk, and perhaps actually getting more done as a result...! 

Nelliegrace

Fats were rationed to make sure that everyone got the essential amounts of butter, cheese and lard, with margarine from oils to make up the amount needed, 10 oz, 280g a week. Milk was full fat, three pints a week for adults and more for children. 
One could say that people were slim because they had these fats which help to make them feel full. The low fat diet has been a disaster, the NHS recommends just 5 oz, 140g a week for women. 

Sugar was just eight ounces, 227g a week for everything including baking and puddings at a time when most people had sugar in tea. The average consumption of sugar in the UK is over 1lb 12oz, 800g a week though accurate figures are hard to find as sugar is in most bought food and drink. Sugar highs and lows make you feel hungry.

To keep on topic, I was looking at 1940’s fairisle knitting patterns and they stopped at 36 inch bust maximum. 

2Scratters

Nelliegrace 

To keep on topic, I was looking at 1940’s fairisle knitting patterns and they stopped at 36 inch bust maximum. 

I have recently received a box of sewing patterns from my parents house. Most are unused but there are some that I remember very well. When I looked at the opened and used patterns they are definitely smaller than the same size of today. There are also 3 part made pairs of high waist flared trousers too. I remember them being put together and mother and me having a fall out  hence them never being finished, that's nearly 50 years ago!! onto ebay they will go as they are current. 

2 Scratters xx

Nelliegrace

I have a collection of vintage cotton and linen table napkins, bought cheaply on eBay and at Church fairs.
They sit in a square, coated-wire tray from TKM on the kitchen/dining table. 
It has become a habit now to use one regularly like Granny. It is much easier to wash them than to get stains out of clothes. I really must get one of her old napkin rings out.
Wearing an apron might be the next challenge. 
Who remembers the apron made by Valerie Singleton out of a tea towel and cotton webbing? We had just time to watch Blue Peter then cross the road to Brownies in the old Army Hut Village Hall.

PipneyJane

Nelliegrace said:

Fats were rationed to make sure that everyone got the essential amounts of butter, cheese and lard, with margarine from oils to make up the amount needed, 10 oz, 280g a week. Milk was full fat, three pints a week for adults and more for children. 
One could say that people were slim because they had these fats which help to make them feel full. The low fat diet has been a disaster, the NHS recommends just 5 oz, 140g a week for women. 

Sugar was just eight ounces, 227g a week for everything including baking and puddings at a time when most people had sugar in tea. The average consumption of sugar in the UK is over 1lb 12oz, 800g a week though accurate figures are hard to find as sugar is in most bought food and drink. Sugar highs and lows make you feel hungry.

To keep on topic, I was looking at 1940’s fairisle knitting patterns and they stopped at 36 inch bust maximum. 

Thanks for the reminder @Nelliegrace that the best way to make your sugar ration go further, is to halve the amount you use in your tea/coffee and then stir like mad to distribute the sweetness. Your tastebuds will soon adapt and you won't miss the extra sugar.   (I did that to cut down on my sugar consumption years ago - 1990's - before I discovered aspartame.  Until then, all sweeteners tasted awful.  Got down to half a teaspoon per mug.)

- Pip

Cherryfudge

Nelliegrace said:

I have a collection of vintage cotton and linen table napkins, bought cheaply on eBay and at Church fairs.
They sit in a square, coated-wire tray from TKM on the kitchen/dining table. 
It has become a habit now to use one regularly like Granny. It is much easier to wash them than to get stains out of clothes. I really must get one of her old napkin rings out.
Wearing an apron might be the next challenge. 
Who remembers the apron made by Valerie Singleton out of a tea towel and cotton webbing? We had just time to watch Blue Peter then cross the road to Brownies in the old Army Hut Village Hall.

I discovered lots of cotton hankies when clearing my parents' house - so much better than tissues, though I admit to using either.

I have aprons aplenty, but I forget to use them: why on earth did they go out of use, though? They always had pockets and they do protect your clothes. One of the best was a gingham tabard made in sewing lessons ready for cookery classes the next year. We were allowed to place the pockets as we wanted and decorate as we liked so a uniform item was nicely personalised (a habit I retain to this day). The tabard is still in my drawer waiting till my sewing skills ascend to a level where I can make another, but the fabric is disintegrating through years of use. There's also a gaudy red apron with chickens rescued from Mum's house, and a very useful white cookery apron from when my son did domestic science - this last one is mega-useful but shows every mark.

Laura_Elsewhere

I like my aprons huge - I have a white one from my waitressing days, the ones that tie around your waist and even on me they virtually meet at the back; left flat, they hang to well below knee but there are various means of folding them up so you get pockets, or so you can turn the folds and (more than just once) have a clean apron with none of the dirty part touching your clothes, etc. I also have a lovely deep cobalt blue butler's apron, obtained from a stately home's old stock (from its old days) which has a bib and front pocket but is also big enough to almost meet at the back, and the bib really covers my front, not just a decorative bit. 

And I've never ever ever liked tissues. Not least because for every one person I've ever known who used them and disposed of them properly, I've known three or four who use them and tuck them up their sleeve to fall out later, or leave them on a table by their coffee-mug, etc... how is that "more hygienic" than a good supply of cotton handkerchieves so you change to a clean one when you need to, whether that's weekly or three times a day... 

I make my own handkerchieves nowadays, as it's got more and more difficult to buy decent quality ones - I find Rose & Hubble's cottons are extremely good, very washable, nice and soft on my nose, and don't need ironing, just dry fairly flat if laid over a rail to dry.