Women of WWII

The second world war was a pivotal moment for the American diet, as it was the catalyst that saw our food
habits even change more drastically than before. With millions of men leaving for war, women were called upon
to work in war industry factories in order to keep the war supplied.
The result of these changes was twofold:
1. Women had less time to prepare dinner at home as they were now expected to work in war factories
2. Women were earning more disposable income than they ever had before which they could use to pay
corporations to cook for them. [10]
This effect was small at the beginning, but over the next twenty years corporations would redefine what cooking
meant to millions of American women. For example, food producers learned that women wanted to feel
involved in home cooking, which is why pre-made cake mixes didnt sell well. They eventually found that
requiring women to add an egg to the cake mix (rather than having everything pre-made for them) gave women
enough of a feeling of being involved in the kitchen to feel good about purchasing the product.

Men of WWII
WWII resulted in food rations within America and caused a drop in sugar consumption of nearly 30 pounds per
person per year. [11] Even though men were at war, they still returned with a taste developed for processed and
sugary foods. The war spurred food innovation with the development of canned, dehydrated, powered, and
candy coated foods, all created to limit spoilage.
M&Ms, for example, were developed in 1941 and, upon the beginning of the U.S. involvement in the war, they
were reserved by the government entirely for war purposes. [12] Coca Cola wasnt reserved by the government,
but the companys then president Robert Woodruff made a strategic distribution decision when he declared that
every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola for five cents, wherever he is, and whatever it costs the
company. [13]
Despite the rationing during the war, millions of men still managed to return from the war with a new taste for
processed foods and sugary candies and drinks that would influence the spending and consumption habits of
America for years to come.
WWII takeaway: On the home front, women began to cook less and spent their newfound earnings on processed
foods. On the war front, men developed a taste for processed foods of all sorts, especially sweetened candies
and drinks. The consumption behaviours of both sexes changed drastically during this impactful period in
history.

Post WWII Munitions Factories, Chemicals and Agriculture

After the war, industry had to convert their factories that were previously used for producing munitions, bombs,
and chemicals into plants that could produce everyday goods now that the market for war goods had ground to a
halt. Of particular importance during this time was their realization that nitrogen, previously used for TNT,
could be repurposed into ammonia and act as a potent synthetic fertilizer for the agricultural industry. This
discovery kickstarted the multi-billion dollar synthetic fertilizer and agricultural chemical industry that
increased by a factor of ten between 1950 and 1998. [14]
The introduction of these fertilizers and pesticides into our food supply revolutionized farming, with crop yields
skyrocketing and farmers pushing to grow more and more. Monoculture, the practice of cultivating a single
crop in a given area, began to gain popularity that culminated with the explosion of the corn industry,
championed by President Nixon in 1971. Unfortunately, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are associated with a
whole host of negative health issues including soil degradation, water and air pollution, and, because these
substances inevitably end up in our food and water supplies, cases of human poisoning. [15]

Post WWII Processed Foods and Women

Just as the chemical industry sought to find a new market for their products after the war, the processed food
industry saw the end of the war as a means to bring their processed foods (developed for soldiers) mainstream.
Foods that were canned, freeze dried, dehydrated, and powdered, originally developed to feed the troops, now
found themselves in the aisles of grocery stores around the country. Despite increased levels of disposable
income and the increasing trend of women spending less time in the kitchen, it still took marketing departments
years to effectively reach the female market. In the end, however, their efforts paid off. Female cooking time has
declined approximately 40% since 1965 and home cooked meals have been replaced with processed foods
containing chemicals, preservatives and, above all, sugar and sugar-like substances.