Trends in food consumption

In the early postwar years there was a manifest desire to return to prewar patterns of food consumption and, indeed, the use of some foods recovered quickly from wartime constraints. Table 9.1 shows the trends in food consumption per head per week recorded by the National Food Survey, based on household consumption and excluding food and drink eaten outside the home. As soon as restrictions were lifted, milk consumption rose to about 2.7 to 2.9 litres per head per week in the early 1950s. Similarly, cheese consumption recovered from below 60g per head per week in 1948 to around 80g per head per week by 1954. The use of eggs doubled to over four eggs per head per week by the mid-1950s and fruit consumption showed a similar increase from around 300g per head per week in 1946 to 600g ten years later. Biscuits, breakfast cereals, sugar and preserves began to re-enter the diet in larger amounts. Butter, so scarce during the war when rationed to about 2oz. per head per week (56g), was much in demand, with consumption rising to 127g by 1955 and reaching a peak of 175g per head per week in 1967. Lastly, purchases of meat and meat products recovered during the early 1950s and reached 955g per head per week by 1954. On the other hand, consumption of the wartime staples – bread and potatoes – fell from their peak levels in the late 1940s. Bread consumption, which had risen to 1.87kg per head per week in 1948, fell back to just under 1.6kg per head per week in 1954. Similarly, potato consumption fell from 2kg per head per week in 1946 to 1.76kg in 1954. For both foods this was merely the first phase of a downward trend that continued after the end of restrictions, until by the end of the twentieth century weekly bread consumption was less than 0.72kg per head and potato consumption down to 0.67kg in 1999. The shortage of sugar had also been a major problem during the Second World War, particularly when much emphasis was placed upon its importance as a source of energy in the diet.