Figure 1.--Dr. Carot was a Brurush war-time caroon character Here three British tots are enjoying carrots on a stick. We are not sure just when this photograph was taken, but we suspect that they had adjusted to candy not being on offer. The yiounger child might not even bde aware of what cabndy was. If cabdy was availabke, we doubt that the Dr. Carot campaign would have had any real impact.

Teachers could help promote Government advertising campaigns like Potato Pete and Dr. Carrot--both major campaign. Potato Pete was a much-used cartoon character the Government used to promote potato consumption, a food stuff that could be grown domestically. Pete appeared in leaflets, the radio, the cinema. There was even a cookbook. This was aimed more at mums, but kids liked cartoon characters. Potato consumtion helped reduce the cionsumption of wheat products and wheat was largely imported. Carrots could also be grown domestically. Dr. Carrot was billed as 'the children's best friend'. Some boys were imopressed when a RAF pilot was famously credited with shooting down Luftwaffe night bombers because he ate carrots. The Germans were not fooled, but the kids were. We are not all that sure how much that helped, but surely it did not hurt. We suspect that older kids who knew what candy was were not all thast impressed. Given that war and rationing were in effect for a decade, the younger children were not fully aware of what they were missing. The kids and adults did not have a lot of options. Ice cream and sweets were virtually unavailable and very rare treats for British kids during the War and even after the War. Sugar was strictly rationed. This was because sugar was for the most part imported from Brazil and the Caribbean. At shipping was at first desperately needed to counter the NAZI threat. The whole purpose of the U-boat offensive was to starve Britain and force it out of the War. Thus the British cut back on non-essential imports. And one of those was sugar. Even after the U-boat threat was defeated, shipping was the single most serious constraint to the Allied war effort. The British never went hungry, but their diet became rather boring. And a major reason for this was the lack of sugar. Sugar provides calories, but little in terms of nutritional value. For 6 years of the War, the kids were out of luck for what was very important to any kid--their sweet tooth. Unfortunately for British kiddies, sweets didn't finally go off ration until well after the War (1949). When this finally happened, there was of course long queues outside candy stores as kids rushed with their pennies to buy candy. Ironically, German kids got access to candy before British kids and way after French and Italian kids. The reason was the Labour Party's rush to turn Britain into a Socialist utopia. We see images of British kids chowing down on carrots and other foods instead of sweets. Younger children had not real idea of just what candy was, but very quickly learned.

Created: 6:06 PM 4/27/2023
Last updated: 6:06 PM 4/27/2023