World War 2 Food Rationing

aVdub

My grandmother learnt to live off the land, done well at it and lucky for me she passed that onto me.

Plenty of rabbits, fungi, fish and looking at your location - probably shellfish as well from the river would see you well for the Month.

Oyster24

I actually did this in the war!  Don't remember much about it as I was only 3 when it started and 9 when it finished, although the rationing went on much longer.

EarthRod

The ration was a little over 1oz of sugar per day per person (8oz per week).

How is that a lot of sugar?

IronGiant

He's done a simple conversion to decimal, so not really "today's money"
1 shilling and 2d (which isn't one and six) would be 5.8p,  so 6p near enough.    He should then convert to today's values as you have done for him

(one shilling and sixpence would be 7.5p).
You also need to be clear that those are the items that were rationed.  Other foods, although not necessarily easy to obtain, were not rationed.  So, although you need to cut out any imported food stuffs and anything fresh that isn't in season, it doesn't mean other foodstuffs are forbidden.  So you can pretend you have an allotment and you home preserved produce last autumn.  In your "root cellar" you could conceivably still have some manky carrots from last year, but could easily have onions, swedes , turnips, beetroot, potatoes etc.  Peas and beans would be preserved in Kilner jars, so you can substitute canned veg for those.  Wild garlic is in season if you can find any of that. The only fruit available at this time of year would be apples stored from last year.  So there is no reason you can't "cheat" a bit so long as you research into what you might have available to you that isn't rationed.

hippo99

Maybe Marcaaron22 & this lady could become friends
The woman who lives in a 1939 time warp - BBC News

Tempest

Just to add this in......


Perhaps we should give out vouchers for the unemployed, so they are forced to buy fruit and veg and meat, as opposed to junk food & take-outs to eat in front of their SkyTV box, whilst waiting for a job to come along

jenam93

There are a lot of properly old people about, by that I mean 90 , and my Nan is one of them at 96.

For some reason I can help but think the enforced rationing they went through fundamentally changed them in some way and that is why they are all living still (plus a fair number that died recently in their 90s)

Conversely all you hear about these days is how the 70-something person has died.

hippo99

Or it could just be the simple fact that there is a bigger pool of 70 year olds vs 90 year olds hence why there are more deaths in the 70 year old group.

Eg (numbers below made up)
there was 5 people aged over 90 that died last week.
There were 100 people aged 20-30 that died last week.
It doesn't mean 20-30 year olds are 20 times more likely to die than a 90 year old. There are just a lot more 20-30 year olds than there are 90 year olds.

Member 55145

Careful, the government will get ideas and ramp up project fear for brexit...

"Brexit will be just like the war, rationing for everyone" ... Still "All in it together Dave?" Thought not

Good luck OP, I was thinking of trying the Paleo diet myself (Plus black coffee and corned beef )
With my liver problems I seem to have developed a lactose problem, so could be just the diet for me! I have been avoiding dairy products and my liver feels much much better.

marcaaron22

I need a more detailed account of what exactly was available to eat and drink