ABSTRACT
Food rationing has expanded steadily since the outbreak of the Second World War, thereby significantly changing the food habits in Switzerland. “Does the national diet, in amount and composition, still meet bodily requirements despite these forced changes?” 1 This question, raised by the Federal Commission for Wartime Nutrition (FCWN) on February 9, 1943, will be examined in this article. The general assumption is, that the features of European wartime food supplies and the different rationing models had a strong political, ideological and psychological impact on society and were advanced by nutritional science which was of decisive importance in the political decision making. As changes in food habits have to be analyzed in the broader framework of cooking skills and practices during the war years, the article tries to connect everyday-life with “big politics”. In the long term, there can be observed a tendency toward a “social leveling”, 2 which was accelerated by the interaction of food shortages, rationing system and increased agricultural production. In this perspective, the war has to be interpreted as a catalyst for social and cultural changes in the afterwar period.
