What I Eat in a Day Living on WW2 Rations

Yesterday I did a video on everything I ate in a day living on WW2 rations.

I’ve been living on WW2 rations since January 8th, 2023 and am over 9 months into the experiment in the hope that I can normalise my eating habits (stop overeating and bingeing), become healthier, lose weight (I’m over 65 lbs down) and gain a deeper insight into how families ate during the war in the 1940s.

The video contains my thoughts and of course preparing my meals for the day but here is a list of what I ate:

Breakfast

Pinhead (Steel Cut) oats, a dash of milk, a little dried fruit and a spoonful of golden syrup (400 calories)

Lunch

Fried vegetables (cabbage, celery, onion and mushroom) on toast (400 calories)

Dinner

Irish Potato cakes cooked in fat with steamed cabbage (450 calories)

Dessert

Brown Betty (350 calories)

Extras

Milk (100 calories) 4 mugs of tea (2 teabags used twice)

TOTAL CALORIES = 1700

Protein wise it was a low protein day (about 50-60g) but on days I eat lentils and beans my average is 80-90g. My blood work during the summer showed optimal protein levels.

Hope this helps, C xxxxx

8 thoughts on “What I Eat in a Day Living on WW2 Rations


  1. I had to laugh Carolyn, cabbage at our farmers market is really cheap right now and a big harvest, so we’ve been eating a lot of it too! Luckily, we both love it. Last night, I boiled up the bones from a roast chicken we had for Sunday dinner and made a broth. I tucked in more cabbage, some carrots, onion, and some leftover broccoli from another night. It was fabulous!
    BTW, you already look younger than your profile picture! Keep up the good work.


    • Nothing wrong with cabbage – I use it regularly in cooking, be it white, green or red.

      I think there’s lots of my generation who were all but put off the humble cabbage as kids, with memories of the limp watery stuff served up at school, or at home where Mum would boil it to within an inch of it’s life!

      A quick tip for the none-too-keen kids of today, is to secretly use 50/50 white cabbage/onion where you would have used all onion in a recipe, and the ‘little darlings’ won’t even realise it’s in there. 😉


    • hahaha! Got to love cabbage! It’s such a nutritious food and as you say can be quite cheap to purchase! I especially like dark greens such as Spring cabbage! Your meal sounds delicious! C xxx

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