Make It Do or Do Without: 1940s Ration Recipes - Retro Housewife Goes Green (2024)

FAQs

What was the food rationing system in 1940? ›

The categories of rationed foods during the war were sugar, coffee, processed foods (canned, frozen, etc.), meats and canned fish, and cheese, canned milk, and fats.

World War II put a heavy burden on US supplies of basic materials like food, shoes, metal, paper, and rubber. The Army and Navy were growing, as was the nation's effort to aid its allies overseas. Civilians still needed these materials for consumer goods as well.

Ration books worked on a coupon system, so people could only purchase their entitlement and no more. A typical person's weekly ration allowed them 1 egg, 2 ounces each of tea and butter, an ounce of cheese, eight ounces of sugar, four ounces of bacon and four ounces of margarine.

Other products soon followed, especially foods that were normally imported or came from scarce animal sources, such as meat, cheese, margarine, eggs, milk, tea, breakfast cereals, rice, and biscuits. By mid-1942 most foodstuffs were rationed, except fresh vegetables, fruit, fish and bread.

The rice diet is a high-carbohydrate, low-fat, low-protein diet to lose weight. The diet features calorie deficit, reduced sodium, and mindfulness and may help some people lose weight and achieve better health. A research scientist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina created the rice diet in the 1940s.

An English Breakfast during WWII. Breakfast tended to be porridge with milk if available but some families would use melted lard! OMG. A special treat was toast or bread and jam (we always had jam apparently – my grandmother would make it, but so little sugar, she relied on the fruit.

Ration cards included stamps with drawings of airplanes, guns, tanks, aircraft, ears of wheat and fruit, which were used to purchase rationed items.

C-Rations were developed in 1938 as a replacement for reserve rations, which sustained troops during World War I, and consisted chiefly of canned corned beef or bacon and cans of hardtack biscuits, as well as ground coffee, sugar, salt and tobacco with rolling paper — not much in the way of variety.

She said: “Health improvements were due mostly to the reduced meat in their diet, an increased reliance on plant-based food, fewer eggs and, most importantly, less sugar. “In fact, infant mortality decreased and the average age that people died from natural causes increased.

Even though thousands of items became scarce during the war, only those most critical to the war effort were rationed. Key goods such as sugar, tires, gasoline, meat, coffee, butter, canned goods and shoes came under rationing regulations. Some important items escaped rationing, including fresh fruit and vegetables.

When did sweets come off the ration? ›

From the archive, 6 February 1953: Wartime sugar rationing finally ends - sweet! Careless of spoiling their dinners, and mortgaging their Saturday pennies for weeks ahead, children flocked into the sweet shops on their way home from school yesterday - the first day of unrationed confectionery.

After the US joined the war in December 1941, essential supplies began to flow in increasing volume to Britain. Rationing was implemented allowing a person one fresh egg per week; extra allowance was allowed for those with special circ*mstances such as giving expectant mothers and vegetarians two eggs a week.

Americans received their first ration cards in May 1942. The first card, War Ration Card Number One, became known as the “Sugar Book,” for one of the commodities Americans could purchase with their ration card. Other ration cards developed as the war progressed.

Rationing was introduced in 1940 and lasted 14 years. For most of that time, meat, cheese, butter, cooking fats and sugar were heavily restricted, but potatoes, other root vegetables and bread were freely available. People ate a diet much higher in carbohydrates and lower in fats.

A weekly adult ration during the war allowed for 100g of Bacon and Ham, up to 226 grams of minced meat, 50g of butter, 50g of cheese, 100g of margarine, 100g of cooking fat and three pints of milk. It also included 225 grams of sugar, 50 grams of tea and one shell egg or one packet of dried eggs every four weeks.

Food rationing was introduced in January 1940. Everybody was issued with a ration book. This contained coupons that had to be handed in to the shops every time rationed food was bought. As well as the basic ration everybody had 16 coupons each month that they could spend on what they wished.