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The American Diet Between 1880 and 1930 American diet underwent the most considerable changes. Levenstein claims that it is easy to explain changes in diet and food habits by different material conditions of life and increased availability (or unavailability) of certain foodstuffs (p. Viii). However, there is much more involved: the physiology of taste, religion, class, status, social and political aspects. According to historian Harvey Levenstein in his book Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet these changes occurred because of many various factors, such as technological advances, sociological factors, the changes in transportation system, invention of new methods to preserve food, the changes in food industry (and, namely, the birth of new processed food industry, and, finally, the greatly expanded food supply in result of the settling of the American West (Levenstein, 29).
Lets examine the dinner table of different classes in 1880. According to Harvey Levenstein, the dinner table of the upper class could comprise of the following: soup, raw oysters, lamb, beef fillet, chicken wings with green peas, lamb chops with cranberry jelly, beans, artichokes, sorbet, duck, quail, different kinds of ice cream, confections and coffee. The dinner table of an average representative of the middle class included raw oysters, baked fish, cheese souffle, roast chicken, mashed potatoes, green peas, celery, oyster patties, salads, sherbet, puddings, sponge cake, fruit, and coffee. What concerns people belonged to the working class, their average dinner table comprised of different kinds of salted meats, fresh meats, potatoes, cabbage, bread, cakes and pies. Poor class (the tenant farmers) ate bacon, corn pone, molasses, seasonal greens, fruit and berries, and wild game. Harvey Levenstein's illustration of the average dinner table allows us coming to conclusion that the upper class preferred a variety of meats.
The people were often overweight because they ate too heavy and fatty products. There was a fashion to be fleshy. The working class and poor class people were often slim and malnourished because they didnt have much food rich in calories. People who lived in the North part of the continent had an opportunity to raise their own food.
Those who lived in the South depended on monopolies of their employers. Butter, milk, eggs and diary products on a regular basis were very expensive. White sugar and white flour were also very expensive because the process of their refining was very costly. The Middle west produced dairy products and wheat and were selling these products to the Eastern part of America. Great demand and necessity to ship large quantities of food resulted in enhancement of new technology. This technology had to invent the method to preserve food.
Besides, people were interested in quality of food and became concerned about healthy products. In 1880 s the discovery of bacteria contributed to inventing new technologies and linked two concept: the food and good health. Food corporations like Posts Grape-Nuts, Toasties, Kellogg's Corn Flakes and others started to appear. Such brands like Van Camp, Heinz, Campbell and Nabisco became familiar to the average American and were positioned as healthy food products. In 1870 America discovered the process of canning under pressure and put it on a large-scale basis.
Canned foods won the market. Approximately in 1990, a giant food corporation known for its brand Domino, the American Sugar Refining Company launched a campaign aimed to calumniate brown sugar. The Americans were convinced that refined products are healthier than natural and non-processed. The poorest classes refused from their home-made sugar-like extracts and molasses. The middle class gave up their consumption of brown sugar and molasses. Harvey Levenstein claims that between 1880 and 1915, the per capita consumption of refined sugar doubled.
In 1911 the process of refinement became more and more popular. For example, strong-smelling lard was replaced by the first trans fat Crisco. This fat was primarily created to replace lard in soap and candles. However, with the advancement of new technologies, candles were substituted by electricity and the newly invented product demanded a new market. In result of Crisco campaign, lard and butter were considered unhealthy and old-fashioned. The process of pasteurization of milk was already invented.
However, it was not very popular and in 1915 the pasteurization became mandatory. The government issued this law in order to reduce high infant mortality and unsanitary city milk and dairy outlets. Simultaneously the artificial feeding products were popularized among the American population. Although the opponents of pasteurization claimed that high infant mortality resulted from artificial feeding, the government still insisted on the law. However, as Harvey Levenstein claims, the decline of family income was more conductive to high mortality rate. By the 1930, the era of pasteurized, canned, refined products, fast-food and soft drinks began.
Many restaurants had to close because policies of prohibition influenced the American diet. Instead, there were many small coffee-shops, diners, self-service cafeterias, and luncheonettes selling sandwiches, cold dishes, salads, canned food and soft drinks. Although such change in diet provoked the rise of calorie-consciousness, the nation began eating food rich in useless calories. Harvey Levenstein claims that in 1930 people ate 50 % of meat they were eating in 1925. At the same time average quantity of weekly consumption of fruit, vegetables, nuts, cereals reduced. Americans started to eat canned food and refined products.
In 1880 Americans ate less processed food consisted mainly of meat, vegetables, unrefined sugars and healthy diary products. In 1930 people ate processed food and many kinds of canned products with less quantity of meat, vegetables, fruit and cereals. Americans started to consume more refined sugar, pasteurized milk, trans fat instead of butter, and processed porridge's and cereals instead of traditional breakfasts consisted of meat and eggs. References Levenstein, Harvey A. Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).
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