Down the Rabbit Hole

Once I get my teeth into something I tend to really commit to it. While I’ve been enjoying committing to Carolyn her blog made me curious about what the Canadian experience would have been.

Previously, I had tried to find books and information in the library about the Canada in World War II with limited success. Most materials dealt with incoming refugees or the experience of soldiers returning to home. None really focused on, what I can only assume they considered, the boring life at home.

Now that I’m really interested though I discovered a wealth of information at Wartime Canada. It really is eye opening how different rationing is with oceans between the UK and Canada.

So far my favourite piece of literature from the site is a pamphlet geared towards the Soldier’s family to help the household manager be successful. It’s a short read with 2 really intriguing bits of information: suggested weekly amounts of staple foods and the ideal distribution of the monthly income.

	Pamphlet	SWS
Rent	25%	7%*
Food	35%	11%
Clothing	15%	3%
Operating	15%	33%
Savings	10%	46%

*My housing cost is my contribution to keep our roof as ML pays the bulk of this. My list of all expenses gave me a great basis to figure out how I matched up against the suggested spending. As the SWS spending represents my budget for 2 adults and a Bunny and I suspect the Pamphlet includes children in its spending I think we’re doing well.

One thing that became clear was that Canadians weren’t as restricted as their UK counterparts in a lot of ways.

 

	UK Ration	Canadian Weekly List
Butter	2 oz	.75 lbs
Cheese	2 oz	.25 lbs
Milk	3 pints	4 pints
Eggs	1	3
Meat	.5 lb	1.5 lbs
Bacon & Ham	4 oz
Margarine	4 oz
Cooking fat	4 oz
Sugar	8 oz
Tea	2 oz
Sweets	12 oz every 4 weeks
Potatoes		4 lbs
Fresh Vegetables		5 lbs
Dried Vegetables		.25 lbs
Fresh Fruit		2 lbs
Dried Fruit		.5 lbs
Bread		2 loaves
Flour and cereals		1 lb

I was surprised by the weights of the fruit and vegetables but it also made me realize that I skim much closer to the 5 of the recommended 5-10 servings of fruit and veg per day. So far, with the exception of bread and cheese, I’ve been significantly under the rationed amounts. While my caloric intake has been fine I think it’s time to up those vegetable numbers. That’s going to be my aim when I do my groceries this week.

Canadian Cookbooks that may be useful in my new journey include:

Housoldiers

How to eat well pt 1; Pt 2 (which is vegetarian so I’m very excited about), and Pt 3 (all about dessert)

Lunch Box for lunch ideas

100 hundred portion recipes which was made for the young people who found themselves in this strange new world without sufficient tools.

Gardening: Wartime Garden and Hometime Garden