Britain's Food Supplies in Peace and War

Charles Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032080048
• eBook ISBN: 9781000458121
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This book, first published in 1940, is a systematic analysis of Britain's principal food supplies and the means by which they are distributed to the people. Its calculates the total quantities of food required to feed the whole nation properly, examines pricing structures and the sources of the food stuffs. Both home produced and imported foods are covered in this survey, as are restrictions in the form of the wartime governmental controls.

1 THE NEED FOR A FOOD POLICY

Soon after the war broke out there was a rumour that the Ministry of Information had put a ban on the word ‘malnutrition’. No doubt it was a baseless rumour— but the spread of it shows a readiness to believe that the authorities would gladly discourage discussion of so inconvenient a topic. Such discouragement, however, would be disastrously shortsighted even from a military point of view, for modern wars, in which whole civilian populations no less than armies are engaged, are won by food supply. ‘The food question ultimately decided the issue of this war’, wrote Lloyd George of the war of 1914-18.¹ The Spanish war taught the same lesson. It was food shortage that broke the morale of the Republicans and gave the victory to General Franco.

The war of 1914-18 indeed provided a powerful impetus to the scientific study of nutrition. Governments wanted to know from the experts how much—or rather how little— a man must eat in order to be able to work and fight. Scientific study of diet had been developing in the first few years of the century, but the experts in the subject did not then enjoy sufficient prestige to ensure that their advice would always be taken or that there would not be occasions on which the authorities in their ignorance would issue broadcast directions on feeding which were not only misleading but dangerous.² As late as 1912 the word vitamins was coined to describe the elements in food which had been the subject of close investigation and careful experiment in the preceding years. Proteins, fats and carbohydrates had already been studied, and it had become to some extent recognised that they were essential to a satisfactory diet.

¹ In general the effect of food shortage was felt most directly by the civilian population. Military experts, however, recognise as one of the major causes of the Italian rout at Caporetto the reduction in the cereal ration of the Italian soldier some months earlier. ² For example, the ‘meatless day’ campaign launched in April 1917, by Lord Devonport, then Food Controller, was attacked by scientists on the ground that it would lead to a reduction of the consumption of home produced food at the expense of imported grain. Earlier a memorandum by the Royal Society had criticised the official Food Economy Handbook for such wild statements as, ‘if you are eating meat you are better without bread; starch and meat together double the stomach’s work’. (See J. C. Drummond and Anne Wilbraham, The Englishman’s Food, 1939.)

The strain of war and the restriction of food supplies which war involved were imposed upon a population which was poorly nourished and which showed this physically. The Inspector General of Recruiting in 1903 had given an unpleasant shock to the optimism of Edwardian Britain by drawing attention to ‘the gradual deterioration of the physique of the working classes from which the bulk of the recruits must always be drawn’. When in 1917-18 conscription involved medical examination of ½ million men of military age, the result was summed up as follows :—

Of every nine men of military age in Great Britain on the average three were perfect, fit, and healthy; two were on a definitely inferior plane of health and strength, whether from some disability or some failure of development; three were incapable of undergoing more than a very moderate degree of physical exertion, and could almost (in view of their age) be described with justice as physical wrecks; and the remaining man was a chronic invalid with a precarious hold on life.

Even allowing for the fact that this was not altogether a fair sample since it was made up of those who were not in the army by 1917 and therefore included all those of military age who were in bad health and only a proportion of those in good health, the results of the examination were alarming. The lowered resistance and vitality which resulted from war conditions were shown in the epidemics which spread through Britain and the Continent after the Armistice and proved almost as devastating as warfare itself.

The scientific study of diet which took its origin from the practical attempts of doctors to remedy the deficiency diseases—as they would be called to-day—from which sailors and others whose occupations restricted their food supplies suffered, grew gradually and, given an impetus by the Great War, has provided in the last few years an altogether new background for the discussions of poverty and ill health. Inquiry and discussion have gone along two lines— what should be eaten for health and welfare, and what in fact is eaten.

The first is a specialised question; and experts are now able to return an answer on the broad lines of which they are agreed. Advances in the study of nutrition have established the need for a varied and balanced diet. The need for proteins, fats and energy-giving carbohydrates has been recognised for some time. Recent advances have shown the need for vitamins and minerals in a healthy diet.

A stimulus to the study of diet has been the desire of governments to know the minimum amount on which a family can live. The whole conception of minimum scales of diet has actually very little meaning. Individuals are very different in their requirements; and any minimum scales based on experiment are likely to be too low because they depend on observations covering a comparatively short period during which a man may live on a diet which would be quite inadequate if he tried to subsist upon it permanently. Moreover, knowledge of nutrition is not yet complete (although experts are sufficiently agreed upon the broad outlines for far greater use to be made of what they say). In the present state of medical knowledge it is not safe even to say of any diet that it cannot be improved; the more ‘abundant, mixed and varied’ it can be made the better.¹ On the basis of this nutritional knowledge, however, the British Medical Association drew up a set of minimum diets for men, women and children. They were very bare minima; in the case of a man there was not sufficient food for him to carry on moderately hard work; in the case of a woman the scales were inadequate to maintain health, and of a child insufficient for health and proper development. Particularly small was the ration of milk included in these scales—far below that recommended by the Government Advisory Committee. These diets do not make allowance for the food wasted in preparation even by the most careful manager, and assume that the housewife will always buy in the cheapest market in the case of every item. Thus these scales may be said to represent a bare minimum on which it is possible to exist without very apparent deficiency.¹

¹ A table of the nutrients required for perfect health which may be taken as summarising expert opinion has been drawn up by Stiebeling of the Government Bureau of Home Economics, U.S.A., and is printed in the League of Nations Report The Problem of Nutrition, 1937.

So much for what people should eat. No less important is an account of what they do eat. The completest and clearest general statement on that as far as this country is concerned is to be found in Orr’s Food, Health and Income.¹ He divided the families whose budgets he studied into six income groups according to the income per head; then on the basis of an analysis of the budgets themselves he calculated how much was spent on food and what was bought. The results (p. 73) were as shown in tabl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication Page
• Note
• Preface
• Britain’s Food Supplies
• 1. The Need for a Food Policy
• 2. Bread
• 3. Milk and Milk Products
• 4. Eggs
• 5. Meat
• 6. Bacon
• 7. Sea Fish
• 8. Vegetables and Fruit
• 9. Tea
• 10. Sugar
• 11. British Agriculture and Food Supply
• 12. The Problem of Distribution
• 13. Food Problems in Wartime
• 14. The Improvement of Nutrition
• Index