Science History Institute

In the 1700s and 1800s, scientists in Europe and the United States were using new laboratory practices to understand food. The goal was to understand how to efficiently feed large numbers of armed forces and growing populations of people living in cities and working in new factories. The title page of this 1821 British book captures the scientific spirit of the time. Using the highlight tool, choose a color (by clicking on the white square) and underline the words on this page that seem like they come out of the laboratory. Using a different color, underline the words that sound like they belong in the kitchen. Why do you associate some words with science, and others with cooking? How do you define "science"? How do you define "cooking"? Does your thinking about these categories change when you relate them to one another? 

Title page of "Culinary Chemistry: Exhibiting the Scientific Principles of Cookery, With Concise Instructions for Preparing Good and Wholesome Pickles, Vinegar, Conserves, Fruit Jellies, Marmalades, and Various Other Alimentary Substances Employed in Domestic Economy, With Observations on the Chemical Constitution and Nutritive Qualities of Different Kinds of Food."

Front page of Culinary Chemistry (1821)

Culinary Chemistry: Exhibiting the Scientific Principles of Cookery, with Concise Instructions for Preparing Good and Wholesome...Food...

A New Scientific Approach to Food 

What are the different kinds of concerns that shaped U.S. policies about nutrition, for example, school lunch programs? Who got to make decisions in this history? Who would you like to learn more about? We will work on these questions in this annotation activity. 

Read through the list of people who attended the 1971 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health in Appendix F (linked below as additional resources). What groups of stakeholders stand out on this list? Are there any surprises? What people or organizations would you like to learn more about? Write down your groups, surprises, and questions to this cover image using the text tool below. You can use different color highlights to indicate your groupings.

Identifying a Cast of Characters

In Super Sandwich, players buy foods with different nutritional values. The goal is to buy enough foods to provide the Recommend Dietary Allowance (RDA) of protein; calcium; iron; and vitamins A, B, and C, as set by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1973. The first player to hit those RDAs, without going over the recommended daily calories, wins. As you explore the game's actions and rules, what do you think they tell you about the ways in which "health advice" was communicated to the public, especially to younger people, at this time? What is important about food and activity, according to this game? Are there ways you think about food and activity that aren't represented by this game? 

Super Sandwich

“Results of an Experiment to Determine If Corn Can Use Ammonia Nitrogen,” July 26, 1927. Travis P. Hignett Collection of Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory Photographs, Box 2. Science History Institute. Philadelphia. https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/pg15bd92c.

Vitamins, Pesticides, and Fertilizers

This slideshow is about childhood nutritional concerns. Pages from the 1916 USDA Farmers' Bulletin explored in this activity show how children came to be defined nutritionally—therefore, biologically—as a special category of human beings.

Food for Young Children

An observer and operator outside a human calorimeter, ca. 1910 (Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library) 

Thinking About Food

Who has made decisions about the way people eat in the United States? Do they reflect different levels of economic or governmental power? Who would you like to know more about?

School Lunches

By 1943, nutrition scientists were talking about seven food groups. This poster was produced by the War Food Administration at the height of U.S. involvement in World War II. Its purpose? To make U.S. civilians, soldiers, and future soldiers strong by helping them mix and match foods to meet nutritional guidelines. For this annotation activity, think about the War Food Administration tried to communicate cutting-edge research to the U.S. public. Using the paint tool, circle the words or images that make an argument for why the country's residents should eat in a particular way. What research, do you think, might have given government officials these ideas? Who do you think the War Food Administration was targeting with this poster, and why? (Courtesy of UNT Libraries Government Documents Department, 

The Basic 7

. "Mrs. Brown," the narrator says here, "learns how to prepare meals from reading, and from television, and the radio. There is a great deal to learn." 

As you watch this short film, focus on the media being used to communicate federal nutritional standards to U.S. citizens. Why bother making a film if people like Mrs. Brown already had the Basic 7 diagram (literally) in their hands? What additional messages is this film trying to get across? For example, why do you think the clock is shown so often?

Foundation Foods

In 1980, the U.S. government issued its first Dietary Guidelines for Americans. They reflected growing concern over the 1970s not only of people having enough food to eat, but about people having too much of the "wrong" foods to eat, like fats, sugars, and salts. Across this resource kit, we've examined similar ways in which scientists and the government communicated recommendations for how U.S. residents should eat.  

Food packaging is another way in which messages about food are communicated to eaters. In this reflection, we'll bring together everything we've learned about food science, nutritional policy, feeding kids, and communicating with the public.  Your job: find a food package somewhere in your place of learning and analyze it. Places to look include your lunchbox, a friend's lunchbox, a vending machine, your cupboards, your classroom snack stash, and/or the school cafeteria. Once you've found a package to analyze, do your best to answer the questions on the handout below. 

Food Packaging Project 

How have food policy decisions been made throughout U.S. history? When has the federal government taken responsibility for nutritional health and why? How has nutrition science benefitted from such interest, and what have scientists contributed to the public understanding of food and health in return? This resource kit explores these questions, offers a unique perspective on twentieth-century U.S. history, and introduces audiences to the history of science.

Resource Kits

Object Library

Museums

The Science and Politics of Food

A New Scientific Approach to Food

Guiding Question