We produce enough food to feed the world – but one in eight people don’t have enough to eat.

CAFOD is raising money and awareness about global hunger this year. We’ll be campaigning to make world leaders take action on this issue, and raising money, to help make sure children and families get their share of the world's abundance.

As an act of solidarity this Lent (13th Feb - 30th March), I’m getting sponsored to live on 1943 food rations. By 1943, most food was rationed in the UK and almost no imports were getting in.

While it was nothing like a starvation diet, it certainly meant having to think and plan what you were going to eat, and rationing was probably the only time in living memory that food wasn’t in abundant supply in this country. Rations changed a lot during and after the war. I've based my restrictions on 1943, and have had to source the information from various places. I've picked 1943 because it seems generally acknowledged to be the 'height of rationing'.

The full ration sheet:

Rationed foods:

The 1943 weekly ration for an average, non-pregnant adult was:

·         3 pints of milk

·         3/4Ib - 1Ib meat

·         1 egg per month or 1 packet of dried eggs every 2 months

·         3-4 oz cheese

·         4 oz bacon and ham

·         2 oz tea

·         8 oz sugar

·         2 oz butter

·         4 oz cooking fat

Non-rationed foods:

-          Vegetables, limited to local and seasonal, no air freighted foods etc.  mainly:

o   potatoes

o   carrots

o   kale

o   spring greens

o   cauliflower

o   Brussels sprouts

o   Leeks

o   Savoy cabbage

-         Bread (but victory loaves did come in, made with potato flour)

-          Oats

-          Pearl barley

-          Wheat

-          Rye

+ 16 points a month for other rationed foods (usually tinned) subject to availability. Points for some foods are as follows:

British tinned fruit 24 per lb

Cereals 4 per lb

Crackers 2 per lb

Dried Fruit 8 per lb

Dried peas/beans/lentils etc. 4 per lb

Golden syrup/black treacle 4 per lb

Imported tinned fruit 12 per lb

Other tinned fish 16 per lb

Plain biscuits 2 per lb

Rice/Pasta 2 per lb

Sweet biscuits 4 per lb

Tinned beans/peas 4 per lb

Tinned Meat 8 per lb

Tinned Salmon/Tuna 16 per lb

Tinned Tomatoes 6 per lb

What’s in it for CAFOD:

·         I’m asking you to sponsor me!

·         I’ll also be donating what I save on my weekly grocery shop - but that won't be counted in my JustGiving total.

What’s in it for me:

·         I’m hoping this whole experiment will make me much, much more conscious of what I have, what I waste, and what other people don’t have. When you don’t have unlimited access to food, food becomes an issue.