Summary: Film advocating the advantages of cheese over meat, bearing in mind the fact that food was rationed at the time of production.
Description: The film begins with a family eating a Sunday dinner of roast chicken. It then indicates that cheese has more nourishment than meat. A group of cyclists who have ridden sixty miles, have had nothing to eat since breakfast and will cycle home again that night, are shown in a country public house. All the nourishment they need can be found in bread and cheese. Charlie Cooper, a farm worker, eats cheese. George Bernard Shaw eats no meat but has always eaten cheese. With meat rationed, cheese is a blessing; it has twice as much nourishment as meat, is cheaper than the cheapest cuts, and there is plenty of it. There are many ways of cooking with cheese, such as: plain grilled cheese (said to be popular in the north!); cauliflower cheese; cheese, rice and tomatoes (cheese kedgeree), and onions baked with cheese in the oven. The final sequence shows a school in the East End where the children are divided into two groups. One group had meals of meat and two vegetables, another had cheese, milk, butter, green salad and wholemeal bread. At the end of a year the two groups were compared and the cheese-eating group had grown more and gained more weight.
Production Details: Ministry of Food (Production sponsor)
Gas Industry (Production sponsor)
Realist (Production company)
Grierson, Ruby I (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: Shaw, George Bernard (person)
Keywords: propaganda, British - practical: eat more cheese (object name)
society, British - sustenance: cheese (object name)
East London, England, UK (geography)
Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W
Sound format: Sound
Soundtrack language: English
Title language: English
Subtitle language: None
Technical Details: Format: 35mm
Number of items/reels/tapes: 1
Footage: 509 ft; Running time: 5 mins
