War Time Diet (was: Not doing too well)

February 9, 2012

On 2/8/2012 12:29 PM, The Dragon wrote:

I had the

realisation that I did best on the Wartime Diet (d'oh!)

I had to go look this up to see if it was what I thought it was.

Yep, people over in England have a new diet plan to replace last

year's fad of extreme low-carb Dukkan. It's called the War

Ration Diet, and in it a person eats like it's still WWII

and using ration books to purchase only certain foods. It looks

like the brain-child of celebrity chef and fat-person hater

Oliver after a casual remark he once made about how people

wouldn't be so fat if they had to use ration books to eat. (sigh)

I found a whole blog devoted to it, complete with details and even

WWII England style recipes:

1940's Experiment

The 100 recipes link is partially hidden behind the search field:

But these recipes don't seem particularly healthy to me - loads of

baked goods, loads of simple starches with white flour, powdered

eggs, even a few SPAM recipes. It's all very frugal but not so

healthy. Portions are tiny, as would be expected during war time.

That one can of SPAM would be stretched out to 4 or 5 meals with

potatoes and other veggies. I guess people filled their tummies

with whatever cheap local veggies they could find.

But that's the secret to weight loss, isn't it? Not *what* foods

but the *portion size* of what we eat. It can be the healthiest

food in the world but if we eat too much we're not going to lose

weight. Ditto if we eat the unhealthiest, or anything in-between.

But during war times people weren't trying

to lose weight but to maintain or gain it. "Healthy" took a back

seat to caloric density as a matter of survival. Starvation was a

bigger problem than obesity, especially in children. They used a

lot of cheese and lard and fried their foods to ADD calories for

that purpose. The portions may have been small but calorically

probably averaged more than a typical meal on the SAD - Standard

American Diet.

Sue in NJ

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