Rationing

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__Here are some important dates to do with rationing__. January 1940 Rationing starts after being postponed in November 1939 July 1940 A complete **BAN** of making and selling iced cakes is introduced - fake wedding cakes made out of cardboard were used in wedding photos June 1941 Clothes are rationed now March 1946 Bread is now rationed Febuary 1947 Potatoes start being rationed July 1954 End of rationing! (Even though it is 9 years after the war finished)

__Rationing in the war__ During the war food was scarce. Some goods weren't even available in the shops such as tea, bananas, grapes and oranges these fruits and the tea would come back after six or seven years when the war had ended. The first items to be rationed were bacon, butter and sugar. Because these foods were going so fast they started to ration their food. A ration book would have tokens in it and you would take a token and give it to the shop keeper, he would have then swapped it for a bit of food. There were different types of ration books, the most common one was a buff coloured ration book that was given to adults and school age children. The other type of ration book was a pale green one, this one was for expectant mothers because it has more tokens in it for them to get a bit more food. Buff coloured ration book __Rationing__ Food was in short supply during the wartime. In Britain only one-third of our food was grown in our country, two-thirds was shipped to us. This proved great difficulty as there was war at sea as well as on the land and in the air. This is where rationing came in. Rationing was where people had to reduce the amount of certain foods that they consumed because some produce was in limited supply.

Below is a weeks worth of rationing for one person.

2pts of milk, 100g of bacon, 550g of Beef, Pork, Veal or mutton, 100g of butter, 100g of margarine, 50g of cheese, 50g of lard, 225g of sugar, 225g of jam, 50g of tea, 1 egg, 75g of sweets.

This list is extremely small compared to what we have now. Vegetables were not rationed as people could grow them, normally they grew them on top of their Anderson shelter. Bread was not rationed until after the War in 1946. Mothers would go to the shops and buy enough food for one or two meals and then go back the next day, because there was not always good storage and it encouraged people to use up their left overs.

__Replacement foods__

Some food because of rationing had to be replaced with other food. Beef, mutton, lamb, veal and pork could be replaced with liver, tripe, poultry, game, rabbits, fish, cheese and eggs. To replace bacon and ham, corned beef could be used as a substitute in cooking. Food shortages caused different foods to be made available, such as strange vegetable sausages called rissoles, tins of pink procesed meat called spam and powdered eggs.


 * __Why was food rationed in WW2?__**

Before the second world war started, about 55 million tons of food was sent to us in a year. When war was declared, the British goverment had to cut the amount of food that was imported to us, because of the German submarines that had started to bomb our supply ships. Therefore the goverment introduced rationing.

Rationing made sure that everyone had an equal amount of food every week. Everyone in Britain recived a ration book. There were no supermarkets, so people might have had to go to several different shops before they had everything that they needed.

When someone had bought some food that they needed. The items were crossed of by the shop keeper.

Food rationing lasted for 14 years in Britian, from 1940 - 1954.

Here is a ration book open on the tokens for tea. __**"dig for victory"**__ After war was declared in September 1939, the british goverment had to cut on the amount of food it brought in from abroad as German submarines started bombing British supply ships. There was a worry that this would lead to shortages of food supplies in the shops and very high prices for what was left, making it very difficult for alot of people to get enough to eat. Rationing of food was introduced in January 1940. Everybody was issued with a ration book. this continued coupons that had to be handed in to the shops every time rationed food was bought.Some food such as potatos ,fruit and fish were not rationed. but bacon,sugar,butter,were most things to be rationed. So the goverment decided to bring in the "dig for victory" campaign, that started in October 1939, it encourged people to get apart of there garden and turn it into a vegteble patch. Everybody was urged to become a gardener, because the more vegetables and fruit the better.


 * This is a gas rationing ticket/card which allowed you to have a certain amount of gas a week.

**Clothes were rationed as well as food. Women's skirts got shorter to save cloth, and men didn't have turnups on their trousers anymore. Because stockings were not easily available, women painted their legs using gravy browning (a bit like ladies use fake tan nowadays) and drew lines that looked like seams. All old clothes were recycled as best as possible, old jumpers could be darned or unpicked and the wool used to knit a jumper or cardigan. This passed the time while in the air-raid shelter, and they could send the finished garment to an evacuated relative. Similarly, dresses could be made into a blouse or skirt for an adult, or maybe a dress or skirt for a child. Holes were darned as soon as they appeared, because "a stitch in time saves nine", which meant that the hole didn't get so big that it couldn't be repaired. Some holes or thread-bare areas could be repaired with a patch, especially elbows and knees.

A World War 2 poster encouraging people to make-do and mend. (Image from http://www.homesweethomefront.co.uk/images/jpeg/hshf_img_makedoandmend.jpg)

Even the Royal Family had ration books!