is clear that nutrition labeling, food served in public schools and
institutions, as well as what was considered healthy by the general
populace was directly infl uenced by decisions made politically. The war, and specifi cally rationing, had other immediate impacts.
The government wanted to send meat, fats, sugar, and canned
vegetables to the front, and in this war, they were rationed back at
home. There was also a growing realization that milling techniques
destroy nutrients in the white bread everyone was eating, so not to
become weak and unable to fi ght in the war and on the home front,
the government required that all bread be enriched with thiamine,
niacin, ribofl avin, iron and calcium—as it still is today.
The other important technology that was developed during the war
was dehydration, which meant that you could ship dried foods that
were up to 99 percent lighter, so they sent to the front powdered
milk, dried eggs and mashed potato fl akes, instant coffee, and dried
vegetables that could be part of instant soup mixes. Of course, all of
this caught on like wildfi re back home after the war, and products
like these caused the culinary skills of most housewives to become
almost nonexistent.
Another thing that was developed in World War II was polyvinyl
chloride and plastics, which would not only revolutionize domestic
interior space with all sorts of cheap plastic goods, but also led to
plastic packaging for food, Tupperware containers, and Saran wrap.
Aluminum foil was also invented. In the post-war prosperity, food
technologists capitalized on young Americans’ latest addiction by
creating TV dinners, which are perhaps the single saddest thing
about the decay of our culture and the sociability of the meal as a
ritual that cements families together.
This phenomenon is, of course, linked to a dramatic rise in eating
out, which is itself contingent on the fact that practically everyone
now owns a car. They can drive anywhere they like to buy food
or eat at a restaurant. Most of these new restaurants were chains—
places that were familiar, whose name you knew—so that you