to think that if asked to go back WWII style rationing, we'd never cope?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Not that it's a seriously likely thing to happen, more a reflection of how spoilt we are by the 24/7 disposable consumer-goods culture, even in relatively hard economic times. Reading up on the WWII home front experience & all the fantastic ways people (women) then coped with shortages of basics, I can't imagine being asked to present a ration book at Sainsbury in exchange for my one solitary egg for the week. They'd have to barbed-wire the shelves and post armed guards... What would happen to all those fussy kids? Would they just starve to death? And I'm not sure I could knit a sock to save my life.

AIBU to think that, unlike our grannies, too many of us are a bunch of trembly-lipped 'ruined my life by delivering the wrong sort of tomato' wussies that would cave at the first mention of 'make do and mend'? ... or are we just as tough and capable of knuckling down in a crisis?

What would happen to all those fussy kids? Would they just starve to death?

No one is so fussy that they’d starve to death. This is actually my reply to parents trying to work with fussy eaters. Don’t give in, they will eventually feel so hungry they will eat the food on offer.

I think we would if we absolutely had to. Though I'd have to rely on tins for fruit and veg. I can't grow my own fruit and veg so fuck knows how I'd manage with that side of things - maybe bartering? Or rely on my parents, but they live 3 bloody hours away.

As other posters have said, a lot of people who live in poverty manage, barely.

My mum grew up with post-war rationing (when there was less than there had been during the war) and she says she was always hungry. I don't think it's anything to aspire to.

We definitely need to waste a lot less food as a nation.

But I don't think rationing is something to be made a virtue of.

No one is so fussy that they’d starve to death. This is actually my reply to parents trying to work with fussy eaters. Don’t give in, they will eventually feel so hungry they will eat the food on offer.

You clearly don't have an autistic child.

Just realised this is a zombie thread but it's still quite interesting. It's worth reading Sucking Eggs by Patricia Nicols on how we ate in wartime.

ZOMBIE from 2011

Why bump it up now?

The poster who bumped is clearly new to the forum, and it's not like it's a personal matter long resolves.

I've become very spoilt in the past few years. I had a huge pay bump and a big promotion, and whilst I'm still not a very spendy person, I realised this morning that I exercise no effort whatsoever in getting discounts, price comparisons etc.

I will set myself a budget for buying something new, am careful with the heating, etc. But I don't shop around, don't compare tariffs, and don't try to barter a better deal. I can well afford not to. I'm gradually deskiliing in that regard.

@katy1213 I've got a book called The Unwomanly History of War about Russian/Soviet women in WW2 who worked as nurses, partisans, sappers, tank drivers etc. The Siege of Leningrad was mentioned and there were some horror stories. People eating their pets, dead bodies and even their own children, a woman whose backpack was eaten by rats within half an hour because the rats were so hungry they'd eaten anything, a girl who survived by eating frozen cow dung.

Why people romanticise situations like that is beyond me.

During WWII the whole continent and most of the world was suffering, not just Britain. There was no choice, no alternative. A situation in modern day Britain whereby rationing was enforced but other countries were still well off would probably just trigger mass (legal and illegal) emigration.

Ahh, the good old days (2011) when it was all fields round here. I think as just trying to calculate whether I was on MN at the time when I came across one of my posts.

@ragged Do you know how to do all those things and would you suggest a way for me to do it that wouldn't leave me in terrible pain? Some of us can't make our own everything because we're disabled. We're not physically capable.

If you took a bunch of people from the 1950s and stuck them in the 1900s it would be the same. We develop newer technologies and have different lifestyles so of course we would struggle if thrust into an alien environment. It's like scoffing about kids that can't use a rotary phone like somehow it is the arbiter of intelligence. I can't use a loom or a scythe but it hardly suggests anything odd about me.

I can cook and bake but I can't knit or sew. I'm hopeless with any kind of textile work. Doesn't make me an inferior human being. I also don't eat meat so I have no need to slaughter chickens or rabbits, which I can't eat anyway as they're not kosher (and yes, Jews did keep kosher in WW2, they even managed in the death camps).

Honestly, I reckon that once I got into the swing of it I’d be ok in terms of budgeting, meal planning, stretching ingredients etc over and above what I already do.

What would concern me enormously is the number of people with ASD and restricted diets now for whom pepacked foods form a large part of their diets (and I say that as someone who has one of those children btw - no judgement here, it’s damned hard)

Sewing and such would be trickier, but I’d get there. Because there wouldn’t be much choice really would there?

I suspect we'd do better, because we are more educated about nutrition, have more knowledge of optimum growing and farming methods, have slow cookers etc. Plus, knitting and crochet have had a major resurgence in recent years.

I save butter wrappers.
We would cope. Lots of things were not rationed. People bred rabbits for meat.

No one is so fussy that they’d starve to death. This is actually my reply to parents trying to work with fussy eaters. Don’t give in, they will eventually feel so hungry they will eat the food on offer.

Do you want to come and tell that to my son who - when self-restricting down to about 6-8 acceptable foods as a toddler from the enormously wide variety he used to eat - lost nearly 2lbs in weight in a fortnight when we followed that bullshit advice? We watched him literally starve himself. He’s still ‘fussy’ now. Except he’s not fussy at all. Go and look up ARFID. Go and talk to parents of children with autism. And then come back and tell me what complete and utter bullshit you’re talking. Actually don’t. Because I’m pretty sure you’re another one of ‘those’ people who thinks you know it all. Guess what. You don’t.

Parents with autistic kids would share tips about how to get their child to eat what is available. I know this happened during the war.
The Government would introduce mass cooking lessons on the TV. Because even people who can cook don't always know how to cook with very limited ingredients.
Vegans would complain.

No one is so fussy that they’d starve to death. This is actually my reply to parents trying to work with fussy eaters. Don’t give in, they will eventually feel so hungry they will eat the food on offer

You clearly don't have an autistic child

Or one who develops anorexia

I posted this on the original thread, it's long but bears repeating. The OP talks about whether we'd find the sense of resilience again, I think we would but it's also resignation. The war was hard.

"Widening the perspective slightly, it wasn't just that certain food stuffs were rationed, it was that every resource the country had was directed to war work, and that the shipping lanes were blockaded. There was nothing spare - no cardboard for packaging, no wood for furniture, no fabric for clothes, no metal for pots and pans and cutlery and utensils. And that knocked on through industry, so very little other than national loaf, national furniture, the national clothes patterns for example, were produced. No face creams, no cosmetics, no shampoo, etc.

It was the sheer unremitting drudgery of life for most women with children that slowly ground them down. When your clothes washing takes up maybe a full eight hour day (by hand) that you also have to fit in round a twelve hour day in the factory, or on the community allotment, or in the WVS canteen. When you have to queue for two hours a day (no fridges remember) to get food, which may or may not still be available when you get to the head of the queue. Lots of food stuffs weren't rationed but weren't available anyway because we couldn't produce or import them - fish for example was a very rare treat when most of our seaboard coast was mined. And on top of that was the points system for most other goods - not rationed but you only had a certain number of points - that was introduced to stop the wealthy buying up everything else on sight. When you've got no coke, coal or anthracite to fire your boiler and range (no fancy electric systems), having to get it alight and keep it alight. No vacuum cleaner, just a dustpan and brush or a carpet sweeper if you were lucky.

All these things took time, and filled a womans day in a way we rarely think of today. It took hours every day just to wash up, wash clothes, prepare food, keep the house clean, all by hand. To work out how many points, coupons and rations you'd got left and where best to allocate them.

I'm sure most of us could manage on the relevant food rations for a month, two months etc. But to live our lives entirely the way our mothers and grandmothers had to? Not just for a few months but for 5, 10, 15 years? It was well in to the 1950's before many families had anything spare. That I'm less sure we'd all cope with."

Anorexia is a mental health problem. Not to do with access to certain foods.

Haven't there been cases of picky eaters starving to death?

@ImFreeToDoWhatIWant If we had to live like that we would all struggle. I have many years ago washed every week just my clothes and sheets by hand and that was hard enough.
But we would cope, because we would have no choice.

Anorexia is caused by negative energy deficit in those who have the genetic make up for it. It's a neuro-metabolic illness and absolutely can come from what seems like picky eating/poor appetite