Modern food, moral food : self-control, science, and the rise of modern American eating in the early twentieth century /
Helen Zoe Veit.
- Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, (c)2013.
- 1 online resource (xiii, 300 pages) : illustrations
Includes bibliographies and index.
Victory over ourselves: American food in the era of the Great War -- National willpower: American asceticism and self-government -- Eating cats and dogs to feed the world: The progressive quest for rational food -- Food will win the world: Food aid and American power -- A school for wives: Home economics and the modern housewife -- A corn-fed nation: Race, diet, and the eugenics of nutrition -- Americanizing the American diet: Immigrant cuisines and not-so-foreign foods -- The triumph of the will: The progressive body and the thin ideal -- Epilogue: Moral food and modern food.
"American eating changed dramatically in the early twentieth century. As food production became more industrialized, nutritionists, home economists, and so-called racial scientists were all pointing Americans toward a newly scientific approach to diet. Food faddists were rewriting the most basic rules surrounding eating, while reformers were working to reshape the diets of immigrants and the poor. And by the time of World War I, the country's first international aid program was bringing moral advice about food conservation into kitchens around the country. In this book the author argues that the twentieth-century food revolution was fueled by a powerful conviction that Americans had a moral obligation to use self-discipline and reason, rather than taste and tradition, in choosing what to eat. She weaves together cultural history and the history of science to bring readers into the strange and complex world of the American Progressive Era. The era's emphasis on science and self-control left a profound mark on American eating, one that remains today in everything from the ubiquity of science-based dietary advice to the tenacious idealization of thinness"--Provided by publisher
9781469612751 9781469607719
Diet--History--United States--20th century. Food habits--History--United States--20th century. Food habits--Psychological aspects.--United States Body image--History--United States--20th century. Nutrition--Requirements. Diet--history Social Conditions--history Nutritional Requirements History, 20th Century Feeding Behavior--psychology Food--history