One pound of potatoes.
The Ministry of Food advice recommended that everyone ate 1lb of potatoes a day, or 1/2lb of potatoes and 4oz cabbage. If people did this it had been worked out by the experts that they would have the adult daily requirement of vitamin C, meaning that the lack of citrus fruits would not cause too much of a problem.
Your cabbage could also be eaten with 1/2lb of carrots to provide enough vitamin A. Four ounces of the National loaf along with 4oz of oats would give you your daily requirement of vitamin B. So with all this in mind I am starting to see why at the end of the war years the people of Britain were by and large the healthiest they had ever been.
With the manual work so many of them did in factories, on the land and the housewives at home doing all the chores with less mechanical aids than we have these days, everyone would have been fitter, and yes no doubt pushed to the extremes of their endurance at times, but overall fitter and healthier. That is if the person providing the food was a good manager, and there were lots of cases where the homemaker wasn't at first.
The Ministry of Food issued a lot of leaflets, booklets, information films that you could watch at the cinema, radio broadcasts with tips and advice, and even physical lessons in village halls and church halls given by people such as Marguerite Patten, who was the absolute queen of the war years if you ask me, to try and ensure that everyone could learn all the new tips and recipes.
What a whopper!!
More than a day's recommended portion in one potato.
And remember potatoes, carrots and cabbage were never rationed. As long as you had the money and your greengrocer had his supplies, you could buy as much as your family needed.
Sue xx
Perhaps the NHS would not be stretched to breaking point if we had a few more Miss Lightfoot's . . .
ReplyDeleteYou are right that being more active was also a big contributing factor to the improvement in health at that time.
Have you tried a making a wartime version of Colcannon? I know it's 'just' Irish Bubble & Squeak but it is lovely.
Funnily enough we were talking about the 'average' diet and the health problems it's causing at the moment ... both for humans and dogs. Sadly three dogs in the family have had to be put to sleep in the last few months due to cancer, and one more is getting over an operation to have two cancerous tumours removed. Looking at the pet food aisle in the supermarket is astonishing, they have almost as much junk food and snacks as humans do. :-(
DeletePS: Colcannon - obviously a vegan version.
ReplyDeleteI've just found a recipe for this that uses exactly 1/2lb of potatoes and 4oz cabbage ... if you halve the quantities and make it for one person. Guess what I'm making for my tea tonight. :-)
DeleteI was going to suggest potato and carrot rosti and also bubble and squeak as tasty lunches. Catriona
ReplyDeleteYes there are so many lovely combinations of these three non-rationed vegetables aren't there. It's going to keep me busy trying some of them out each week. :-)
DeleteHa, ha, what did I tell you? About three medium potatoes to a pound! :D Your Ministry of Food certainly did a lot of research to figure out exactly how much of what one needed to eat to get the full day's requirements of vitamins, etc., didn't they? Lots of fresh vegetables, very little added fats, and reduced amounts of sugar would have been very healthy, too.
ReplyDeleteI know ... hence my answer to your comment yesterday. :-)
DeleteThey went into all the nitty gritty of everything in the year before the war and had everything ready to help people just when it was needed. I don't think the government departments that we have these days would think that far ahead would they!!
When I weighed the pound of potatoes I tried to make them the same size so I would class yours as two large and a small and mine as three medium of which I would eat one as a meal for one. But when it comes to something and chips I use a large potato each. You always seem to be able to eat more potato when it's chips I think. I use an air fryer so it only uses a teaspoon of oil and what I like is no frying smells either. I like bubble and squeak too.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I could eat all three of those potatoes as chips ... as long as I had some mayo to dunk them in. :-)
DeleteChips with lots of salt and mayo or lovely buttery mash, so easy to over consume.
Miss Lightfoot was a bit of a wonderwoman, working in a factory all day and still having the time and energy to be creative with her spuds and carrots. The poor woman didn't have the time to be ill or "nervy"!
ReplyDeleteI've just stumbled across a recipe for carrot cake porridge with grated carrot stirred into the oats and plant-based milk mixture. I quite fancy that! xxx
She really was, unfortunately I'm not. ;-)
DeleteOoh, carrot cake porridge, that sounds interesting!!
I could happily eat a jacket potato for lunch every day with a bit of salad and a grated carrot and I weighed my usual size spud to find it was just a tad under 8oz. I also like grated cheese and grated carrot mixed with low fat salad cream on a sandwich. Colcannon sounds lovely, perhaps something to try next!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't eat one every day, but alternate days would be great. :-)
DeleteOoh yes, that sounds like a lovely sandwich filling, I might have that for lunch today.