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The Food Chain

Factual: Food & Drink

Examining what it takes to put food on your plate

The Food Chain examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on your plate.

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The Food Chain: Why I chose to live on rations

Magazines & Reviews

Why I chose to live on rations

23/12/2021 GMT

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Why I chose to live on rations

What powdered eggs and tinned ham can teach us about our modern food system

What powdered eggs and tinned ham can teach us about our modern food system.

World War Two rationing imposed severe restrictions on food, so why would anyone voluntarily go back to it? 

Ruth Alexander meets three women who chose to adopt the diet endured in 1940s and 1950s Britain, one of them for an entire year. 

We hear how such scarcity inspired creativity, a reverence for the ingenuity of wartime cooks, and an enduring change of perspective on the responsibility of the 21st century food consumer.  

If you would like to get in touch with the show please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk.

Producer: Simon Tulett

Contributors:  

Karen Burns-Booth, food writer - www.lavenderandlovage.com/category/recipes/general-recipes/wartime-recipes
Claud Fullwood, author of The Rations Challenge: Forty Days of Feasting in a Wartime Kitchen 
Carolyn Ekins, blogger - https://the1940sexperiment.com

(Picture: Basket of food rations on display at the Imperial War Museum, London, in 2011. Credit: Paul Kerley/BBC)

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