Week 2: Food Rationing

Before the war britain imported 55 millions tonnes of food a year including 70% of its meat. With the outbreak of war German boat started blockading our ports so merchant boats could not get these food imports through. Fearing the country would starve the Ministry of Food introduced rationing. The first items rationed were butter, bacon and sugar on 8th January 1940. This was followed by meat, tea, jam, biscuits, breakfast cereals, cheese, eggs, lard, milk and canned fruit. Strict rationing created a black market but severe punishments were imposed on breaches of rationing order.

Rationing continued well after the end of the war with the official end on 4 July 1954.

In order to teach people about rationing the Ministry of Food created these 'Food Flashes' that were shown in cinemas before the main feature.

This week in order to fully appreciate the struggle housewives had to feed the family on rations the hubby and I will attempt to live on these rations for a week:

Chocolate:          50g

Butter:                50g

Bacon and ham: 100g  (4 rashers)

Margarine:         100g

Sugar:                225g 

Meat:                540g (To the value of 1s.2d) 

Milk:                 3 pints 

Cheese:             50g

Eggs:                 1 fresh egg a week.

Tea:                  50g  (say 15 teabags)

Jam:                  50g

Powdered Egg  1 packet to last a month

Sweets:             87g

Fruit and Veg    Unlimited as we will 'dig for victory' although yes we have no bananas!

I'l leave you with this clip of the Minister of Food explaining rationing: