Anyone else interested in trying out ration dieting?

[sheeplady]

I haven't been doing well either. Hard to do with spouse and kids!

Just tell them it's war time. If they complain, tell them their great-grandparents had to eat this way and they're lucky they can have their pick of food from the ration diet. Tell them they can go back to school and share how they followed the ration diet for the summer. Other kids get summer vacations, they get a home-based historical experience.

I actually think following a ration diet would make a great reality documentary TV series. But given how they do reality TV, I'm sure it would be horrific.

ETA: I'd be interested in joining in after this year is up. Do you think you ladies would still be doing this in the new year?

 

[vintageTink]

New year? Yeah, if I don't start soon!

It occurred to me that when the steak ladies in the video talked about a 1.5 lb steak, that's precooked weight. Food always loses volume when cooked.

 

[vintageTink]

Oh! And I borrowed a cookbook from the library: Grandma's Wartime Kitchen.

 

[Flicka]

My plan was to do this fort a year, so if I stick with that, I'll be doing it until June, 2014. Anyone who feels like it can join at any time.

So far, I've been doing well. I bought some kippers the other day, so I suppose I should've queued for a few hours for realism. But apart from that and coffee, I've barely touched on my rations. A little oil, a whole lot of strawberries and new potatoes (both in season now), a little bread, a little margarine and lots of other vegetables like new beetroots, cucumber, onions and tomatoes. Barely touched my sugar ration and my butter not at all.

Until today, that is, when my mother invited me to dinner and fed me lamb and apple pie... Funny thing was, when she served me the meat, my first thought was "noooo, I can't eat all of your meat ration in one go!" I've sort of adapted to the system already! But I suppose I could pretend it was a restaurant meal... On the other hand, Mum probably would have used up all her rations if I was coming to dinner and lived off potatoes for the rest of the week, so not all that unrealistic. But I'd have felt horrid, and probably not eaten as much.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I actually think following a ration diet would make a great reality documentary TV series. But given how they do reality TV, I'm sure it would be horrific.

Think 1940s House meets Fear Factor.

 

[Flicka]

Oh, and I have reserved a bunch of Swedish cookbooks about wartime cooking at the National Library (I simply searched for cookbooks published 1940-45 and reserved the ones that looked interesting) that I will look at next week. I hope to get a comprehensive picture of the Swedish rationing system (which from what I heard so far seems surprisingly strict) and some interesting recipes. I'm very intrigued about the alleged Christmas meal cooked from badger!

 

[Stanley Doble]

"Are you going to eat that big steak all alone?"

"No - with potatoes"

Ha ha ha vintage joke to go with the vintage diet.

 

[vintageTink]

"Are you going to eat that big steak all alone?"

"No - with potatoes"

Ha ha ha vintage joke to go with the vintage diet.

 

[Flicka]

Like I said earlier, I started a blog for this purpose and would happily accept contributions from others. If you are interested in writing something - one off or regularly - please let me know! Would be especially happy if I could someone to write some information on America, Australia or other countries than the UK and Sweden (not that I wouldn't welcome that, though).

It's here: http://wartimedietexperiment.blogspot.com/

 

[esteban68]

great idea Flicka, the bolgs good too....I was brought up mainly by my grandparents in fact my nanna used to have all the old make do and mend books etc along with their ration books, they always used to talk about the war....my poor old grandad used to do 14 hours down the pit then Home Guard duty and firewatching everynight all on his meagre ration.
Living where he/we live on the edge of the Peak District you could always suplement the ration with wood pigeon, rabbit, squirell and even blackbirds too, he taught me to shoot with his old air rifle however if I got caught in the late 1970's it would have been just a ticking off during the war it was a bit more serious for him and the other men struggling to feed their families prison was a very definate reality.....WD forties the lure of the old curry eh! I too would have failed at that!!!

 

[Vera Godfrey]

Hope I'm not too late to the party! I stumbled upon The 1940's Experiment blog ages ago and after seeing this post, I think I'm in! I certainly have weight to lose!

I recently stopped eating meat and most grains, though I will occasionally eat soy protein. I also eat eggs, cheese, and seafood plus lots of vegetables and fruit.

 

[Stormy]

This is great! I'd love to join. I'll send out a FB request now.

 

[Stanley Doble]

It's inconceivable to me that they could revoke a gas ration card and you couldn't buy it!
I was born after the gas rationing during the Carter administration.

Funny you should mention that. Gas rationing was nearly revived during the Carter administration. Ration stamps were printed up but never distributed. The closest they came was "odd and even days" in the early seventies. If your license plate ended in an even number you could only buy gas on even numbered days, and if you had an odd number you could only buy gas on odd number days. Come to think of it this was a form of rationing although, it was more to cut down on lineups at gas stations. There was no limit on the amount you could buy - if the gas station had gas.

 

[Meriana]

In terms of China and Japan, so far as I can tell:

I have never seen anything that suggests that China rationed anything for anyone, although to be fair, China struggled to feed her troops, and a lot of people died in the War from starving to death. It is also worth noting that my Chinese is terrible, but my research was lovely practice.

In terms of rationing for Japan, everybody agrees that there were rations, and that they were strict and terrible - the fish ration was exclusively squid towards the end of the war, and apparently everybody used the black market - but nobody can give me specific amounts of what for whom. I think this is partially due to the nature of Japanese rationing, which was stuff given in bulk to neighborhood groups to distribute. These neighborhood groups had existed before the war and played a pretty informal role in Japanese Society, but during the war, membership in these groups were mandatory.

 

[Flicka]

Funny you should mention that. Gas rationing was nearly revived during the Carter administration. Ration stamps were printed up but never distributed. The closest they came was "odd and even days" in the early seventies. If your license plate ended in an even number you could only buy gas on even numbered days, and if you had an odd number you could only buy gas on odd number days. Come to think of it this was a form of rationing although, it was more to cut down on lineups at gas stations. There was no limit on the amount you could buy - if the gas station had gas.

According to my mother, petrol was briefly rationed here during the oil crisis in the 70's, but I don't know how the system was designed.

As far as I understand, in the UK during the war, there was no petrol ration at all for "ordinary" driving from 1942, only for military use and priority civilian vehicles - farmers could get it for their machines, and doctors were allowed a certain ration for house calls. Also the bus companies were allotted enough to keep up a tolerable service, but all long haul coach lines ceased functioning. Otherwise, people walked, rode bicycles or even horses. That's one of the major problems of modern society – people walk too little and thus get too little exercise. You don't need to spend time on the treadmill at the gym if you walk 4 miles to work and the same distance home every day.

ETA: And for longer distances there were the trains though rail traffic was limited and military use had priority.

 

[Shantel Morris]

I'm in! I've wanted to try this for a long while now and it's always easier to make a big change when you know you're not alone in it.

I agree that it would make a great television show, or even a web series. The Supersizers Go... Wartime was interesting but it was only a week of the diet.

 

[renaissancemedici]

Very interesting idea. I was just reading the thread and my heart bled, because I realized how different food experiences were during the war. If I were to follow the greek war diet, I would simply starve to death. Because the occupying armies (plural if you please), were taking all the food for them. On the first winter of 1941 alone, people were falling dead on the street like flies, so much so in fact that nobody looked twice after a while. There are photos you don't want to see...

In the countryside things were a bit better, but only a bit. Whatever people could hide, which wasn't much, they did. Black market was thriving by the way. I think those who could fish were very lucky (the sea always saves people!). For one bucket of olive oil, my grandmother's family gave away an entire living room (the furniture I mean). It was an awful time. Meat just wasn't there. My grandmother told me that the lack of olive oil was causing all sorts of health problems.

So, when I read that for some countries the war resulted in a healthier diet I was stunned!

Anyway, the result was that after the war, all the new kids were fed more than they should have been, because the parents had experienced starvation. My grandmother was a big fan of canned food, and she always had supplies of everything at home. She also insisted that we always ate all our food, even if we didn't like it. Because it was a sin or something to throw out food.

So I would never go back to war diet. I do try to follow the original mediterranean diet though, which is very vintage indeed, and very healthy too. The war in fact destroyed that, as I have described, because up untill then obesity was unknown here. After the war all kinds of things changed in food habits, and now weight and heart problems are all over the place.

So, I could say I am on a vintage diet, but I'll pass on the war one!

 

[Flicka]

I think I have solved the mystery of the Swedish "milk egg product":

http://www.wartimedietexperiment.blogspot.com/2013/07/smp-cooking.html

 

[Kim Covell-Campbell]

I know this is an old thread but is anyone else still doing this? I follow 1940's Experiment. Just wondering if anyone in the states is trying.

 

[Wire9Vintage]

This is such an interesting thread. I'm curious, too, what folks are doing with this.