I dunno. It just wasn't the same/as bad as it is now, but the US was already well on its way on down The Road to UnWellville even in the 40s. Consumption of convenient factory food had really gotten a good foothold in urban populations beginning in the late 19th century; by mid-20th century the food supply had transformed with many, many storebought refined and shelf-stable convenience food products. In WWI many volunteers and draftees had to be turned away from service because of poor physical condition due to malnourishment, possibly from so many refined and depleted foods. As a public health and national security issue, the government sped up the pace of involvement requiring enrichment and fortification of the processed food supply with vitamins and minerals to replace those lost in processing.

My dad, born in 1935, grew up in a Northeastern industrial city on "new" foods. The oldest of 9 kids, he says they consumed a LOT of canned fruit juice, as well as canned fruit & vegetables, because it was easier to heat & serve for his mother (she prepared very basic meals, and I think the growing family eventually had to eat in two shifts for each meal). Potatoes were freshly prepared daily (German and Irish heritage, though I don't think much other fresh produce was served regularly. Desserts were packaged Jello/pudding/cake mixes, etc. Luckily his mother was the daughter of a butcher so they ate good meat on a regular basis. But he and all his siblings, have some degree of malocclusion and except for the two youngest siblings, all have had needed massive amounts of dental work.

My mom, born in 1942, also grew up eating a lot of "new food" from packages. She lived in 8 states while growing up because her father's job building highways required relocating. Her mother, still in very good form at 91 now, grew up poor on a cash-poor tiny farm where they raised all their own food (that probably gave her a good nutritional start in life - they were too poor to buy store food). But after my grandmother graduated from HS (the first in the family), she married and moved away - glad to be rid of the hard farm life and continual work. My grandmother readily adapted to convenience foods to feed her children - canned spaghetti, cold breakfast cereals, margarine, vegetable oils, skimmed milk, cake mixes, store bought bread, etc. Because of the frequent moves, their family later lived in a mobile home (even smaller than today's mobile homes), so the tiny kitchen probably was better suited for preparing convenience foods. My mom has nicely straight teeth with a broad smile, but her molars are full of fillings & crowns.

Such foods probably didn't contribute to excess weight nearly as much as today's packaged foods do, but I don't think they were very wholesome. Urban people in particular probably ate a fair amount of packaged foods in the 40s.

thanks. I really enjoy your writing. LOL

[...] “Food Will Build A New America!” The US National Nutrition Program in 1943 [...]

[...] Everyday, eat this way *Post thoughts to comments [...]

Jennifer:

Heart disease was on the rise and would continue to rise in the coming decades. Transfats (from fake lard and margarines, popularized in the 30's) and smoking take much of the blame.

Infectious diseases such as polio were also a major scourge.

J., I must dispute your answer to Timothy about the US Government's interest in nutrition. There was intense interest worldwide in public health in the early decades of the 20th century, and governments sought to use the burgeoning armentarium of the brand-new field of nutritional chemistry.

The US government mandated: Iron fortification for bread; Niacin fortification of white bread to prevent Pellagra in the Southeast; Iodine in table salt to prevent Iodine-deficiency cretinism in the Middle West; and fluoridization of public water supplies to prevent dental caries. State governments passed pasteurization laws and (under pressure from dairy cooperatives) laws regulating the sale of butter and margarine so that tallow (and, later, hydrogenated vegetable oil) could not be passed off as butter. The Pure Food and Drugs Act initiated the regulation of OTC drugs and supplements and imposed regulations on slaughterhouses and livestock producers. State governments introduced health and safety regulations for restaurants and shellfish and fish sellers. This was also an era in which the government experimented with restricting and prohibiting drugs of abuse, including marijuana, alcohol, and narcotics. The final piece was government-subsidized mass mandatory vaccination of children.

The government not only produced pamphlets like the above; during the Depression they hired college-educated social workers to distribute milk to mothers of needy children and built hospitals in underserved areas. Sanitation and nutrition were seen as critical in the war against endemic disease and poverty.

[...] Everyday, Eat This Way Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Buzz it up Share on Linkedin share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tweet about it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Bookmark in Browser This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 at 4:47 am. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [...]