Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Between 1850 and 1950, experts and entrepreneurs in Britain and the United States forged new connections between the nutrition sciences and the commercial realm through their enthusiasm for new edible consumables. The resulting food products promised wondrous solutions for what seemed to be both individual and social ills. By examining creations such as Gail Borden's meat biscuit, Benger's Food, Kellogg's health foods, and Fleischmann's yeast, Wonder Foods shows how new products dazzled with visions of modernity, efficiency, and scientific progress even as they perpetuated exclusionary views about who deserved to eat, thrive, and live. Drawing on extensive archival research, historian Lisa Haushofer reveals that the story of modern food and nutrition was not about innocuous technological advances or superior scientific insights, but rather about the powerful logic of exploitation and economization that undergirded colonial and industrial food projects. In the process, these wonder foods shaped both modern food regimes and how we think about food.
Price: $29.95
Pages: 288
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Series: California Studies in Food and Culture
Publication Date:
27 December 2022
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780520390393
Format: Paperback
"Wonder Foods is well-written, clearly organized, and generously cited with reputable sources—an exemplary food history from the perspective of the history of science and medicine."
"Lisa Haushofer’s Wonder Foods…urges us, through a historical lens, to reflect on the profound societal, economic, and environmental influences that our food production and consumption has had on the world, and more importantly, to be distinctly aware of who those choices affect, both historically and today."
"Wonder Foods is well-written, clearly organized, and generously cited with reputable sources—an exemplary food history from the perspective of the history of science and medicine."
"A valuable addition to the history of medicinal foods and nutritional imperialism, Wonder Foods is deeply researched and spares no detail in filling in the extraordinary stories of these wares."
"Haushofer’s work is a timely interrogation of food solutionism that prompts readers to reflect critically on whose expertise is privileged and whose interests are served by the latest nutritional panacea. It offers a thought-provoking historical perspective on present-day enthusiasm for nutritional hacks and fortified foods marketed as technological solutions to complex public health issues. . . . A must-read."
"A brilliant contribution to food history."
“An important study of the entanglements of nutritional science, . . . and modern consumer culture. . . . A historical constellation in which physiological expertise, industrial processing, imperial extraction, and commercial exploitation intertwined closely.”
Lisa Haushofer is a physician and historian of science, medicine, and food. She is currently Senior Research Associate in the History of Medicine Department at the University of Zurich.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Balloons over Indianapolis
1 • “Focussed Flesh”
2 • The Raw and the Civilized
3 • Digestive Economies
4 • A Physiology of Consumption 1
5 • The Brewer, the Baker, and the Health Food Maker
Conclusion: Transparent Man on Man-Made Land
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Balloons over Indianapolis
1 • “Focussed Flesh”
2 • The Raw and the Civilized
3 • Digestive Economies
4 • A Physiology of Consumption 1
5 • The Brewer, the Baker, and the Health Food Maker
Conclusion: Transparent Man on Man-Made Land
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index