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Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to a video on inrange TV. As you may see from the background here,
we are starting a week of something a little bit different
We are going to take a look at British rationing during World War two. Not soldier's rations, but rations on the home front.
What every civilian folks would it be eating day to day. Now, this came up because I discovered a really interesting fact
while I was just poking around.
Namely the British population actually got healthier and their caloric incre... intake increased over the course of World War two.
Despite or rather because of the British rationing program.
One might expect that during a global
Conflagration of war that, you know, especially for an island nation that imported most of its food,
you'd think that would probably be pretty tough to live through and they probably had some serious nutritional issues.
Well in fact the exact opposite is true.
Health went up, British life expectancy, excluding people who were actually killed by boimbing,
life expectancy went up, infant mortality went down.
This is not what you would expect of a rationing program. So, we are going to spend a week eating
based on the British civilian rations and
see what happens. See how it is a lot of the the media about this sort of subject
Focuses a lot on some of the really
horrible sounding
Innovative cooking that resulted from rations things like mock duck and mock (?) and... eaughhh
the question we want to look at is
What could you actually do if you're trying to be very well and eat a good and interesting and tasty diet based on this ration?
So I'm actually starting out here today with a bowl of potato leek soup
I'll admit I really like leeks
It's good and thanks to a healthy dose of potatoes quite filling
So when were to started Britain imported something like 70% of its food not a big deal
This was of course an island nation with a large empire
They were bringing in things like meat from as far away as New Zealand
when the war starts however, that becomes a problem because of course the Germans have a substantial
submarine u-boat fleet and they're going to use it to blockade Britain and cut off its shipping, so
British have to start looking at how to make do
The rationing program was introduced in January of 1940 it actually existed before it was set up and run during World War one
Introduced in 1917 then, but the world war 1 rationing was kind of ad hoc and really kind of a dismal failure
The rations weren't always able to be supplied
prices more than doubled over the course of the war in Britain for foodstuffs during World War one
the program was a failure and the British government took a look at that and decided they weren't going to get caught by that again
and if they had, if there was another war that came, which there was, they were going to do the rationing right the second time
So the rationing program began in January of 1940 covering bacon, sugar, and butter and
by 1942 it would encompass pretty much everything you really wanted to get.
However, it was specifically limited to things whose supply could be guaranteed.
Essential foodstuffs.
So for example, onions we're never rationed.
But they were extremely hard to get and became extremely rare. Britain before the war had imported
almost all of its onions from maybe as close as France maybe as far away as
Bermuda. Umm, so
Onions were considered not essential, and because their supply couldn't be guaranteed the government didn't issue a ration for them.
There was this basically unwritten contract between the Ministry of food and the British population that the government would guarantee
The supply that it allocated as a ration we would always be able to get it. There would be no need to
Queue up or hoard or stockpile because that amount of that foodstuff would always be there for you to get.
In exchange, the British population
wouldn't try to break the system by creating an intricate black market.
And remarkably for the most part this whole plan actually worked through the war
So the government went to fairly great lengths to ensure supplies of
various foodstuffs
There are some interesting anecdotes about, well, basically about global, the minister of food
Tinkering with global supply and demand for various
Commodities like sugar and wheat in order to ensure the British government was able to get a good price on them
Because one of the things that may not be obvious is the British government itself purchased a lot of this food
Brought it into Britain and then sold it to wholesalers so the government was not just
Controlling what you could buy at retail and and controlling the prices on it,
They were also having a large impact on the supply because well
They had to ensure that this kind, that this amount of food would actually come into the country to provide and provide enough to feed everybody during the war.
So the practical matter the way this worked was every individual in Britain including children had to register with the government
And they were issued a ration booklet. This booklet contained little coupons
they were called
For each of the items that was being rationed now once you had your ration book you would have to go to
Your actual retailer and register with them because you are only allowed to use your ration book at one specific
Retailer for each item involved so typically you would have a green grocer and a butcher
It's interesting to remember that the vast majority of British households at this point did not have refrigerators, so
Housewives were mostly getting their groceries on the day that they were going to be cooking
Now the reason that they restricted where you could pick up where you could redeem your ration coupons
was to economize and simplify
distribution of food. There was no need to waste gasoline shipping things long distances
And they wanted to basically, if a grocer knew how many people were registered there, you knew what the ration was
That would dictate exactly how much of any given food he got as a supply
Knowing that that's exactly what he would be selling and then it would be procured from the nearest possible producer
So you're not shipping things farther than they need to go
really a government enforced version of buying local
At the end of 1941 this was, a second scheme was introduced called points system, so
With your basic rations per 1940, you got a coupon and it was a weekly coupon
And if you didn't use it you lost it so typically if you didn't want something for some reason you would buy it anyway
And then you were trade it with your neighbours
for something else that you did want
These coupons didn't entitle you to free food, you still had to pay whatever the market price was now the government did
Institute a fairly serious system of price controls for a lot of these
Commodities and of course because they had a hand in the supply they were able to in some ways dictate
Whole and then retail prices. At any rate, if you didn't use it you lost it. Point system was a little bit different
In that you were allocated a specific number of points per month
And you could use them to buy anything that was rationed on importance basis
So if you wanted a tin of spam you could get one tin of spam for 16 points typically
And that would be basically your entire months allotment for one tin of spam, or if you wanted to
Use it elsewhere you could get something like eight pounds of dried split peas for your 16 points
You could split this up, some points on this, some points on that
And that allowed a lot of variety in what people were purchasing
It also allowed the British government another very handy way to tinker with
Supply and demand if something came into large supply
They would reduce the number of points that it cost in rations and thus encourage people to buy it
If something was in very short supply. They would increase the number of points to encourage people to look elsewhere in fact the the
Acceptance of spam on the British market was driven in large part by the British government
initially reducing the number of points to encourage people to actually try this weird canned
stuff
As a result it became quite popular
Another thing people often don't realize is this rationing program didn't end with the end of the war
In fact some of the rations would remain in force in Britain all the way until
1954 when the last one was finally ended so this was a program not just of
Wartime economy but also economy in the rebuilding of the world after world war ii
Overall, as I've mentioned, this rationing program was a tremendous success, by basically every measurable standard
Prices in Britain for food only went up about 20 percent through the course of the war which is a fantastically low amount
Health improved, the minister of food for the first half of the war, named lord Wolton,
And we'll talk about him in detail in a later video on this stuff. He viewed his post as minister of food as not just
He viewed it as not just being responsible for keeping the nation fed during the war
But actually taking on really a social responsibility to improve the health and well-being of the British populace
He looked at this and said well. I have all of this control of the British diet, what can I do to improve the society?
While we are at war so we will talk more in later videos about exactly what he did and his
Motivations and whether it worked or not, but for the time being I think we've gone long enough for today
I am going to go ahead and finish my bowl of wonderful potato leek soup
National loaf and margarine we'll be talking about those later on as well
And hopefully you will come back for the rest of the week and join me to explore British rationing during World War 2, thanks for watching