Foods on the Points System

During the war years the points values of foods changed on an almost weekly basis and over the course of the years the points per person varied from 16 - 24.  I have decided to take 20 as my points allowance each month.

Points may be spent over the course of the month, they don't have to be spent all at once, but no points may be carried forward, if you don't use them you lose them.  This was how it was for housewives during the war years and this is how it will remain for me.

These are the amounts that I am working from, these were the points at one stage during 1942 in a couple of my books.  

Finding out and deciding upon the points of various foodstuffs is possibly the hardest thing to do when you are researching the Home Front during the second world war, and replicating it in a fair way has to be decided upon and stuck to unless you are doing the challenge on a year by year basis following the war years ... for simplicities sake and so that I can get used to it more easily, I am sticking in a time warp of 1942.

Below - weighing out the first months points shopping.

1lb Rice

1lb Red Lentils

I need a bigger jar!!

A total of 1lb Pasta 

Yes this was available during the war years but usually in the form of Macaroni.  I will be using up my rather large stash of all different shapes, colours and forms of pasta.

4oz Dried Fruit

Too many points for me as a single person to be able to afford a whole pound.  But luckily grocers back in the 1940s regularly sold things by the ounce as well as the pound.

1lb Porridge Oats

The research I have done has led me to believe that while Porridge Oats were usually on the points system, Oatmeal was available off any sort of ration if and when it was available.  

In various parts of the UK and the US, oatmeal, porridge oats, steel cut oats etc etc are a minefield of different names.  I am calling (as we have always called it) my porridge oats oats and my little gritty used for biscuits and crackers oatmeal oatmeal.

As a point of reference my first months shopping on Points looks like this.