RATIONING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 19, 23 January 1943, Page 6

RATIONING

BRITISH SYSTEM

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

When did rationing come into force in Britain? Bacon, sugar, and butter were rationed in January, 1940, three months after the war broke out? At intervals over the next two years meat (March, 1940), tea and margarine (July. 1940), jam and marmalade (March, 1941). cheese (May, 1941), canned and dried goods (December. 1941) were put on ration. With few exceptions, Britain's food supplies, now almost all rationed, have remained static during the past year. How many types of rationing are there? Five. Ordinary ' rationing, points rationing, personal points rationing, soap rationing, and distribution schemes What foods are included in each? (a) Ordinary rationing: Meat, fats, bapon, tea, cheese, sugar, preserves. (b) Points rationing: Canned meat. fish, fruit, vegetables, rice, sago, tapioca, condensed milk, cereal breakfast foods, dried peas, beans, lentils, dried fruits, syrup, treacle, biscuits, (c) Personal points rationing: Chocolate and sugar confectionery, (d) Soap rationing: All household and toilet soaps (this scheme is operated by the British Ministry of Food since it involves control of fats), (c) Distribution schemes: These include commodities over which rigid control cannot be exercised such as milk, eggs, dried eggs, oranges. How much are weekly allowances? Meat, approximately one pound: butter, two ounces; margarine and cooking fats, six ounces; bacon, four ounces; sugar, eight ounces: cheese, eight ounces; tea, two ounces; preserves, one pound a month. Sweets and chocolates, three ounces. Foods rationed on points system vary m value. Each individual is allowed 20 points a month with which to purchase a selection of points food. Points values vary according to the quantity of stocks available. Typical values are j dates, twelve points a pound; sweet biscuits, four points a pound; syrup, eight points a pound; luncheon meats and fish, from 16 to 32 points a pound. Allowance foods rationed under distribution schemes vary. The ordinary consumer according to the season has one packet of dried eggs (equivalent to 12 shell eggs) every eight weeks. Milk allowance in midwinter is two pints a ] head a week; oranges are reserved for children under six. j What exceptions to these allowances are made? Expectant mothers are alloted one pint of milk daily and four times as many eggs as the ordinary consumer. Children under 12 months receive 14 pints of milk per week and between one and five seven pints. All under five receive four times the normal egg ration though half the adult ! meat ration Invalids suffering trom certain specified complaints can obtain, on a doctor's certificate, additional milk and eggs. Vegetarians surrender their meat and bacon coupons and obtain instead an extra eight ounces of cheese. Which foods are unobtainable in Britain today? Lemons, grapefruit, pineapples, oanahas. end all other imported fruits with the exception of oranges have disappeared. Cream and ice cream are banned; so is white bread Iced cakes, cream cakes, milk chocolates are among many non-essen-tial and semi-luxury foods no longer available How is the British rationing savingthe United Nations shipping space? All British food restrictions are considered in the light of ship saving. The substitution of the national wheatmeal bread for white bread saves between 600,000 and 700,000 tons of shipping a year. Twenty-five per cent, of the space formerly allocated to meat-im-ports is saved by boning and dehydration 80,000 tons of dried eggs are imported instead of 2,100.000 tons of feeding stuffs required to . produce the equivalent number of shell eggs. What steps are being taken to safeguard Britain's health under wartime diet? Rationing assures that every individual gets a sufficient quantity of plain wholesome food. Nutritive levels are maintained by adding vitamins A and D and by increasing the extraction rate to provide wheatmeal flour with high vitamin Bl content.