Click above for great movie clip
So I have been asked exactly what I can and can’t eat on 1940’s wartime rationing..
When rationing was introduced in England on January 8, 1940 (incidentally that is my birthday…the January 8 bit NOT the 1940!!) it was to ensure that food was distributed fairly and that the dwindling food supplies lasted. However, rationing did vary slightly month to month depending on the availability of foods increasing when it was plentiful and decreasing when it was in short supply..
NOTE: Although the 1940sExperiment is based on wartime rationing in the UK I will be incorporating occasional recipes from Canada/US during WWII as for the last 5 years I have been living in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Here is the weekly ration allowance for one adult in the 1940’s… (remember that in addition to this people were encouraged to incorporate lots of fruit and veggies into their diets and grow even more in their back gardens!)
Weekly ration for 1 adult
- Bacon & Ham 4 oz
- Meat to the value of 1 shilling and sixpence (around about 1/2 lb minced beef)
- Butter 2 oz
- Cheese 2 oz
- Margarine 4 oz
- Cooking fat 4 oz
- Milk 3 pints
- Sugar 8 oz
- Preserves 1 lb every 2 months
- Tea 2 oz
- Eggs 1 fresh egg per week
- Sweets/Candy 12 oz every 4 weeks
In addition to this a points system was put in place which limited your purchase of tinned or imported goods. 16 points were available in your ration book for every 4 weeks and that 16 points would enable you to purchase for instance, 1 can of tinned fish or 2lbs of dried fruit or 8 lbs of split peas.
Does this sound a lot or little to you? When you try and produce all your own food from scratch using the above ingredients and realize just how precious or even how difficult it was at times to obtain other necessary food stuffs like flour, oats etc it really makes you appreciate how difficult and how IMPORTANT the role was of the 1940’s housewife to feed her family and keep them healthy. It was for sure a long and hard job..
HERE IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I HAVE EATEN THE LAST FEW DAYS…
BREAKFAST
2 slices of wholemeal (wholewheat) toast with margarine and marmalade or marmite
or large bowl of porridge oats (oatmeal) made with water, splash of milk and a little sugar or honey mixed in.
LUNCH
Oslo Meal- [Click here] + a piece of fruit
or I bring in to work with me a huge plate of steamed veggies such as broccoli, parsnips, potatoes, cabbage with a blob of butter on and seasoned. (sometimes with some meaty gravy [click here] over the top ) In addition to that I have a piece of fruit like an apple or a pear.
DINNER
By the time I get home and start cooking it’s between 6 and 7pm and by this time I am starving! I always eat a BIG meal.
Yesterday- Two large baked potatoes topped with a little bit of strong cheddar, generous serving of meaty gravy, a chunk of freshly baked wholemeal bread, a few spoonfuls of steamed carrots, big mound of steamed cabbage. For dessert I didn’t have anything cooked so had a pear.
Today- A big mound of mashed potato (a blob of marg and some thyme, salt & pepper for seasoning), served with large portions of cabbage and cauliflower and the remainder of the meaty gravy I made yesterday. For dessert I had two freshly baked Rock Buns [click here] and two steaming hot cups of tea!
SUPPER
I like to round off the day with a glass or two of milk- usually one small glass of cold milk and a cup of milky coffee. The amount I have depends on how much I have left to use!
Obviously my diet depends on what I have available or what recipes I have been re-creating. I quite often make veggies stews with beans and pulses in for extra protein..
Hope this helps!
C xx
PS: I am convinced that the diet industry has got it ALL wrong (actually that is an unfair generalization as things have really changed over the past 10 years)…BUT what I mean to say is
WE SHOULD ALL BE EATING MORE TO LOSE WEIGHT….seriously!
was wondering if you are getting this info all out of a cookbook, if not where did you get the information on portion sizes?
Hi there
I get most of my recipes from Marguerite Patten cookbooks like
We’ll Eat Again
Victory Cookbook
Post War Cooking (still on ration!)
and historical cook books and most will tell you how many it serves..
I try and go by this for the main part of the meal to give me a good idea of portion size and fill up with veggies and potatoes as recommended and encouraged by the media throughout the second world war.
Sometimes I worry that I am eating too much but my weight seems to be coming off steadily (and my diet was terrible before) so I think it’s working Ok for me at the moment although I can see me having to reduce bread and potatoes intake at some stage again..
C xx
Hi,
What about vegetables and fruit ? Vitamine supplement ? That is the only thing that I find is missing in your plan. Keep in mind meat, milk, vegetables and fruit do not have the nutrients from previous years. Hence, the importance to include a multi-vitamine to your diet.
Oh I eat a TON of veggies and fruit and I take a vitamin supplement…
The rations were the items that were rationed during the war such as butter, margarine, meat, cheese, eggs and imported goods…
People were encouraged to grown their own veggies and fill up on them as much as possible and I eat several portions of veggies and fruit a day..
I LOVE veggies!
C xx
I have been watching the Coal House, BBC I player, which is about a group of families living in a small welsh coal mining community. Breakfast for them consisted of porridge made with water. They rarely appear to have bread, which is reserved for the miners lunch.
[...] Rationing & Diet Sheets [...]
Of all the rationed items I consistantly find the limitation of fresh (and dried) eggs the most challenging. When you think that the 1940′s housewife had to cook most things from scratch, an egg per person doesn’t go far.
I can now see why recipes like eggless sponge were invented!
Many women in the 1940′s had chickens. The egg ration didn’t effect them. They sold eggs for a meager amount of spending money, and used the (very pretty) fabric sacks for dresses and quilts. I have several antique quilts of my grandmothers with feed sack material in them.
Thats not right most women in the city did not have chickens and if you did have chickens you had to hand in your egg ration coupon back or you could not buy chicken food and they preserved their eggsin a solution to “keep” them eggs were important and not everybody got enough
Just realised that not only do I share my birthday with you (a year younger) but also food rationing. It had not penetrated my brain before that it coincided. How spooky is that.
And I tell you what is even spookier….
Guess when rationing in the UK was implemented
8th January 1940
Do-do-do-do hehehe
Yes that was what I thought. At least I now know what to counter when people think they are clever to get the Elvis Presley birthday link.
Over here in th uk one of our tv channels has had a series of wartime kitchen and garden programmes and tonight one on rationing. I guess it’s 70th has not gone unnoticed.
Yes I heard about that- wish I could see it!!! That’s one of the things I miss from the UK- those fabby retro cooking/living TV shows. !!
I wonder what the rations would have been for a vegan like me. I know that if you were vegetarian you could get extra cheese if you gave up your meat rations but I think I would have presented a problem. (my mum would say nothing new there) I make some mean carrot cakes that no one believes are egg free, and I use several other egg free cake recipes including a wartime based chocolate one, so I know it is possible to make yummy cakes.
Yes the dairy proves a problem- did they have an alternative to milk like soy milk then? What about cheese?
I think you would have got by OK as a vegetarian but a vegan would have proved very difficult indeed- certainly to remain healthy with no alternatives to cheese and milk available?
Well, if you stop thinking in terms of direct analogues to milk and cheese, and think instead of the functions they serve in cooking, taste, and nutrition, it becomes clear just how much of our diets are down to habit of thought.
In my first year of going vegan, I decided not to use any dairy analogues, because I didn’t want to become a “junk food vegan” who relied on packaged foods. This was when website were new, and there wasn’t much easy to find info, and yet I adjusted well, simply by experimenting.
Nut milks and “cheeses” were mainstream for centuries – it really wasn’t until really recently that cows were bred for such huge year round milk production, and many people didn’t have fridges, so people generally didn’t use dairy products anywhere near as much as we do now. So nut milks wouldn’t have been unknown, and it’s often just as easy to use water in cooking and baking as milk – I generally use soya milk for my tea, and very little else, even though black tea is really good. There are cheese analogues of varying quality (and some really good recipes, such as those in Stepaniak’s ‘Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook’), but I can’t see any reason to just not do without them – we often go long periods without using “cheez”.
Nutritionally, vit C and protein are cited as the big selling points for dairy products; green leafy veg, potatoes, rose hips and fruit have plenty of the former, and if you’re getting enough food, you’re getting enough protein, though peas and beans are real protein powerhouses (pound for pound, lentils are higher in protein than beef, for example). Nuts are very high in protein, and they provide good, healthy essential fatty acids of the kind people just aren’t getting enough of these days.
Cooked peas and beans are great for baking with, too. You can make excellent cakes and breads with cooked mushy lentils, chickpeas, split peas, navy beans, etc., that people will wolf down (and then be shocked when they discover there’s no dairy, no eggs, and plenty of lentils/peas/beans!!).
So being a vegan wouldn’t be hard, provided you had access to at least 5 portions of fresh/dried fruit, green/root veg per day; 3-4 portions cooked grains or bread (preferably wholegrain); 2-3 portions of pulses (1/2 cup = 1 portion), nuts or seeds (2 tbsp = 1 portion) per day; and a little marge and oil per day.
I’m intrigued by all the rationing points – how much would flour cost? Nuts? Oatmeal for baking and porridge? Your blog has fired my imagination!
One comment regarding dairy milk usage over time. Remember cows or goats in the main have all ways been used for milk and as you point out we did not have the fridge so the milk was preserved in different ways. The milk was not just seen as a liquid product only used to drink or put in tea or make rice pudding with. It was a food stuff like all others and used to get the most out of it. Cheese making was the method of preservation and once made and stored correctly will out last a season. In fact many cheeses are not good until they had aged. Another point with this experiment is that it is not about what the lady IS eating or how much and how often but about what she is NOT eating with regard to modern food habits or junk food is more important in this plan. Question? what food stuffs or processed items do we have today that did not exist in the 1940s?
[...] Weekly ration for 1 adult Bacon & Ham 4 oz Meat to the value of 1 shilling and sixpence (around about 1/2 lb minced beef) Butter 2 oz Cheese 2 oz Margarine 4 oz Cooking fat 4 oz Milk 3 pints Sugar 8 oz Preserves 1 lb every 2 months Tea 2 oz Eggs 1 fresh egg per week Sweets/Candy 12 oz every 4 weeks [...]
[...] Weekly ration for 1 adult Bacon & Ham 4 oz Meat to the value of 1 shilling and sixpence (around about 1/2 lb minced beef) Butter 2 oz Cheese 2 oz Margarine 4 oz Cooking fat 4 oz Milk 3 pints Sugar 8 oz Preserves 1 lb every 2 months Tea 2 oz Eggs 1 fresh egg per week Sweets/Candy 12 oz every 4 weeks [...]
[...] Weekly ration for 1 adult Bacon & Ham 4 oz Meat to the value of 1 shilling and sixpence (around about 1/2 lb minced beef) Butter 2 oz Cheese 2 oz Margarine 4 oz Cooking fat 4 oz Milk 3 pints Sugar 8 oz Preserves 1 lb every 2 months Tea 2 oz Eggs 1 fresh egg per week Sweets/Candy 12 oz every 4 weeks [...]
Hi
Ive just been looking at your recipe for wartime bread, the little blocks of yeast are avaliable at Morrisons Stores in the UK. Hope this helps. This site is just what i have been looking for.
hi.an 85yearold widowed wiganner living in cornwall remembering wartime in the landarmy in cumbria..and your site bringing memories of food during those years…going to the coop for rations in 1940..when i look at your recipes and memories of dried eggs..oh it certainly takes my mind back.to mother buying a hamshank for a few pence and dried peas soaking overnight .plenty of onions swede potatoes carrots to make pea and ham soup …oh so many more memories..yes they were the good old days with good and sad memories….
have just made pea and ham soup the wartime way …by gum its delicious…..weight loss here i come ..the only true diet wartime diet….karena 5
Irene my mother used to make pea and ham soup we lived on it mainly in winter here in Australia and I still make that same soup and my family lives on it in winter very cheap a boiler [very very large pot] feeds us dinner for 4 people for about 5 days
Hi Irene- lovely to hear about you and the ham soup!! That is one thing I have not tried making yet!
Mmm maybe you have a recipe for Pea & Ham soup you could share- I’d love to make it!
Thanks for leaving a comment on here and I do hope you didn’t have too many sad memories during WWII…. just can’t begin to imagine what it was like
C xxxx
Yes Irene please if you have a recipe for Pea & Ham soup could you share. Or any other recipes!
Loving the blog Carolyn! And remember you don’t fail until you stop trying….
Oh and Thank you so much for the 1940′s UK radio link, I am so enjoying the music and the old radio programs. Dick Tracy was on lastnight with the Black Pearl of Osiris.
Nancy
Congratulations on your previous success and I wish you more in the future.
I have been considering doing this with my family for some time and upon doing research tonight came across your blog.
Only question I have (which I have not been able to locate elsewhere) is in relation to the 16 points that were rationed. How do you know what that equates to with items? Is there a listing somewhere for an example?
Kind regards
Kirsty
Kirsty,
Re: The 16 points. The guys from the “On the Ration” website have a list of items relating to the points. Check out their website and you will find the list.
Hi Carolyn
Here’s a link from the “Wartime Housewife’s website – for pea and ham soup. http://wartimehousewife.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/pea-and-ham-soup-or-the-london-particular/
Loved stopping by ….
Kind regards, Bev
Thank you for all your messages and useful links!!!! Yay!! I do appreciate them!
Good luck with your diet.
Have you come across this 1940s music site?
http://www.1940sukradio.co.uk/
Quite an interesting place to visit and listen to.
Ebay in Britain has a baker selling fresh yeast. Perhaps in your part of the world someone is selling it. It does make a difference when baking bread. Even the smell as the flour is proving is appetising.
Good luck again and all the best
Dave
I certainly have and I listen to it regularly… infact they kindly asked me to do a radio spot which I am still very keen to do once i have sorted out a few things in my life…
I’d love to do some 1940s experiment recipes on there as well as pick my favourite music and nostalgic radio clips if they’d still have me…LOL!
Thanks so much Dave for your comment and tip about fresh yeast xxx
I just found your site and its so interesting! I will be checking back regularly for sure. Thanks for all of the information and sharing your journey
You’re welcome and thanks!
What a great blog!I love the HUGE pasties! Would you know what the ration list was like for vegetarians please – my son is doing WW2 at school this year and I think it would be good to stick to rations for a week but he doesn’t eat meat.
Vegetarians in 1940?
I should coco
Cabbage and potatoes with an onion
there were vegetarians in the 40′s
and what about people who didn’t eat bacon for religious reasons?
I don’t know what bacon’s got to do with anything I didn’t mention it.
Most people who could get to a field tended to get a few bunny rabbits for the pot.
Most vegetarians were middle class ‘toffs’ like George Bernard Shaw who had very strange ideas about everything.
If vegetarians have any principles they should be vegans. In which case no butter, cheese, milk, eggs, fish or anything else to do with animals.
As I say, potatoes, cabbage and onions.
Mediaeval English people tended to eat parsnips and beans. The meat went to the Normans up at the castle.
So add parsnips and beans to the diet. Very wholesome. Bon appetit.
bacon was listed as one of the rationed foods, that’s what it has to do about it – you are very hostile about vegetarians Dave
Sorry, don’t mean to be hostile.
One man’s meat is another man’s parsnip as they say.
My memories of rationing are of very basic meals, not vegetarian and not for the faint hearted as they consisted mainly of the bits other people throw away.
Salads were a piece of lettuce, a tomato, a couple of radishes, a scallion or two, perhaps a boiled egg and a couple of potatoes. Washed down with salad cream.
Perhaps soup would be a good ‘starter’ so to speak.
Chop a potato into small bits along with an onion, fry in butter or equivalent then add water with salt and pepper. Add some milk when it’s done and to thicken perhaps a bit of flour.
If you eat cheese you could make dumplings by grating some cheddar cheese, mixing with flour and water then dropping lumps of the mix into the boiling soup, put the lid on and simmer.
I stumbled across this sight totally by accident and I’m quite fascinated. I still have my Mums Ration book and never thought of using it as a diet aide.
I too am now overweight (my son was 4.6kg and illness has meant meds that have STACKED on the weight. I too have a passion for the style of the forties but find my weight means the fashions are off limits.
Best wishes to u. I wish u every success
Manja
Cheese dumplings! Great idea Dave, thank you!
We have started our weeks experiment – my 8 year old is doing WW2 at school and I think this is a great way to learn, yesterday we weighed out our rations for the week http://www.whataworld.co.uk/?p=196. I’ve used your ration amounts and the same for him (even though I know it should be half as he is a child) but I can’t be that mean! I’ve started menu planning, which is essential with a limited amount of fat but the sugar quantity looks huge to me!
By the way, there’s been an interesting programme on radio 4 each morning for the past week.
It may be on the website to ‘Listen Again’ if anyone is interested.
The programme was about wartime London and mainly about how hotels were exempt from rationing. So all the toffs went to the Savoy and elsewhere and carried on as normal.
So if you ever fancy a break from your rationing regime you could pop along to the local hotel and still be following the spirit of wartime Britain.
oh fab, thanks Dave, I found it, it’s called ‘The West End Front’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01749ry#synopsis I’ll listen now
Here’s the link to the programme I mentioned above.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01749ry
In case the BBC moves the link you could always try searching for radio 4 schedules and trace it from there.
Dave, that programme was really interesting, thank you. I’ve just read a ook by Stella Gibbons (who wrote Cold Comfort Farm) called Westworld where a rich person loses a ration book and isn’t too bothered by it, that makes sense now I heard the programme.
Carolyn- are you sure it is 8oz of sugar a week – it seems like loads. We’ve been on rations for 5 days now and have heaps of sugar left, most of it in fact
Hello Lisa
Here’s a school site you may find interesting regarding rationing.
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/Homework/war/rationing2.html
By the way, have you tried stovies?
It’s a Scottish ‘delicacy’ made from onions and potatoes and is very filling.
The basic recipe is to fry chopped onions and potatoes together until they go yellowish, top up with water, salt, pepper etc and simmer till everything goes tender and the liquid has gone.
It’s a bit like mashed potato and onions really but quite tasty.
Add more water and perhaps some milk and you’ve got a nice onion and potato soup.
that is such a great site – the BBC one is good too – http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/subjects/history/ww2clips/sounds/air_raid_siren it is where I got the siren, bombing and all clear sounds for our air raids
We have a shelter under the table.
Stovies sound fab, thank you again! We ate out today so we have loads of food left despite a large brunch earlier in the day. Only 2 days to go and we will have done a whole week. I’ts been great for my son, it’s lovely to hear him say with feeling that he is lucky and that he is grateful for the things he has. We haven’t been hungry but we have had limits in our food – toast today had a tiny cube of butter ration to go with it instead of a generous smear.
Air raid sirens and a bomb shelter under the table?
What do the neighbours say?
I hope you’ve got the blackout up at the windows and have tape criss crossed on them as well.
Personally I’ve gone on the Winston Churchill diet. Bottle of spirits a day, big cigars and a haunch of venison rotating over the fire. (Sorry for the meat bit)
I think my mother thought the war was still on during the fifties. Me and my brother had a blackout up at the bedroom window every night for years to make us go to sleep. It was like living in a coal mine.
Don’t forget, walls have ears and careless talk costs lives.
The neighbours are cool, they swapped 2 eggs for my sweet ration
We haven’t blacked out the windows or taped up the glass, though round here we have horizontal fireworks all winter so it would probably be a good idea 
I’ve been putting war propeganda into my son’s packed lunch at school – mostly about Dr Carrot but it still isn’t making him eat them. I’m amazed at the amount of people who have said ‘no wine for a week!’ it’s not actually that big a deal but with a lingering cold a bottle of spirits sounds like a very good idea indeed.
Quote “If vegetarians have any principles they should be vegans. In which case no butter, cheese, milk, eggs, fish or anything else to do with animals.”
So, are you a vegan? If not, what makes you think you have the right to tell other people what to do?
I am not telling anyone what to do- I am carrying out my own social experiment for me and YES I currently follow a vegan diet and that is my own choice. I can decide when to follow it and when not to same as you make choices with your own diet… thanks
Are you a troll Coby? She’s not telling people what to do, just suggesting….It’s a ruddy wartime menu. Not much meat was available. Trust me, if the folks back then could get their hands on some animal protein, they grabbed it up. If you don’t like what you see in this blog/site, why are you even reading it? Is your ickle life that …ickle?? Sod off and go bother someone who gives a tinker’s damn.
I have a few questions. I’ve read somewhere on-line that the dry eggs rations would give a person 3 extra egg servings a week. Does that sound about right? Also would you know the amount of extra serving the dry milk rations would give or the weight of the milk package?
I’m going to try this diet more for weight loss but I do find the history of the home front fascinating. I’m amazed that you did this diet for so long. Most of the sites I’ve seen people tried it for a week or so. I love your site and bless you for adding American measurements to the recipes.
Do you know what sort of nuts and seeds would have been available in the 1940′s? Its apparently the hardest question to google. lmao
I’m not 100% sure is the truthful answer to that… imported nuts such as almonds and walnuts etc were available in limited quantities but were quite expensive..my guess would be that when these were acquired they were probably saved up and used for special celebratory occasions like birthdays and christmas to make extra special food..
Hi everyone. I will be updating this page very soon to reflect my new daily eating habits (now being vegan) so if anyone is eating a plant based diet too they can see how I’m getting my nutrition..
Also I intend to make contact with the Vegan Society and hopefully be able to ask questions and receive answers with regards to how vegans ate during the 1940s…I know vegetarians were given an extra cheese ration instead of meat but what concessions for the vegan?
I think this would have been addressed as the Vegan Society was formed during WWII
C xxx
Hi Carolyn! I’m thrilled to hear that you’ve become vegan. I’ve just stumbled upon this page, and was concerned as to how I could adapt this diet to my vegan lifestyle. It will be a pleasure to see what you come up with and I’d love to follow along. Best of luck to you!
hi carolyn, what do you do for exercise? your weight loss to date is really awsome… im going to try to follow your example…
Hi
All I do at the moment is walk… walk outside on a nice day and enjoy the fresh air and the smell of the hedgerow, look at the sky, the trees, smile at people 
But I also walk at the sports track when the weather is bad and that is kind of good because I can time myself and know how far I am walking etc. All in all I try and walk 30 minutes of brisk walking 4 or 5 days per week.
Am going to start a little weight training at home with weights to start trying to tone up a little soon but am in no rush.
Just the sheer pleasure of being able to walk comfortably provides all the motivation I need as seriously, it was a painful struggle to even walk a couple circuits of the track (400 m) when I first started walking and was 50 lb heavier..
Personally, I think the key is to do a little of something you enjoy and ensure it becomes a habit- they say even 15 minutes a day walking makes a lot of difference
C xxxx
Hi Carolyn,
I found your website a while ago and have loved reading your experiences thus far – you’ve inspired me and I actually think I’m going to give it a go! Going to sit down and figure out my portions/write a meal plan for the next week and see how I get on anyway. I’m mildly (ha) obsessed with all things 1940′s anyway, so this can just fuel the fire.
Did you ever watch that “1940′s House” programme that was on years ago? It was on in the UK but I think PBS syndicated it for the states (is there a Canadian equivalent?) Anyway there are a few good extracts from it lurking around on YouTube…really interesting and enlightening insight into life on the Home Front during the war…
Rachel,
I was thinking the same thing! I caught that series on PBS in So. Cal. it was really great. PBS had a number of shows like that, the Pioneer House, the Pilgrims Life, etc. All very interesting to watch us “soft” folk today try and live like our ancestors.
Just found your web site – it is fantastic – I was not born untill after the war but my parents and grandparents told me lots about it – especially the rationing – my grandmother used to show and do recipes with me and so I have grown up to do them as well – I prefer older recipes than newer ones – I have done eggless cakes and suet pastry with mashed potato – thank you for your web site – I will be visiting quite a lot for any new up dates
Get out! You live in Nova Scotia? What a beautiful place! Can’t wait to start the diet, although I do regret you are Vegan
as I like to eat things that had a face.
Will look for those cookbooks you mentioned. This is great, thanks for sharing.
Hi I’m vegan but only recently and I’ve cooked many recipes using meat and cheese and still do for my kids xxxxxxx I am re-creating authentic wartime recipes and some of those do contain meat. I just don’t eat the ones that contain meat or dairy anymore is all… or I make them up with alternatives for myself xxxx
I remember my mom’s stories about rationing. I have to say members of my mothers family never went without, as is evident from photographs. Quite the contrary, they were all very “well rounded”. I think they ate very well.
I am about to undertake the same type of experience for at least a month just to get a…taste (pun not actually intended) for what the civilians had to go through during the Second World War. Please feel free to email me any further tips you have to help me along at lnccplclark@gmail.com
Thanks.
The Supersizers Go…WWII is another peek into what people went through with rationing. That is where I first got inspired to try this diet. They take a cheeky approach but still very informative. I remember seeing the PBS program years ago but they showed the all around struggles the British faced during the war. I’m just starting this diet and having trouble finding some of the things, apart from veggies, in order to be as acurate as possible so substitutions are necessary.