Last Wednesday, I got to see Jane Ziegelman give a talk about food during the great depression. One aspect I really enjoyed was seeing how involved Cornell University, and Flora Rose, were with solving the hunger problem! I also thought it was really interesting to consider how the hunger problem was dealt with. Using the government rations, recipes had to be formulated which made use of very little. The idea of the ideal diet during the great depression was that which had the most nutrition for the least amount of money.
This made me consider our food consumption today. Today, many of us take food for granted. As a result, we tend to also eat for pleasure, not just sustenance. This can lead to unhealthy eating, which is compounded by industrial innovations which have led to the rise of what is essentially “fake food”. We consume a lot of food which does not serve an important nutritional purpose and in many cases is actually harmful. The diet during the great depression focused strictly on what our bodies needed to survive. In light of this, perhaps we can learn something from the minimalist diet of those during the great depression!
I agree that perhaps we should take note of how people ate during the Great Depression! Considering the practices that Americans used during the Great Depression definitely gives us a new lens through which we can view our dieting practices today. I like how you pointed out that our overconsumption of food can actually be harmful. The energy and resources necessary to fuel to the American lifestyle and diet today are really having a global impact. Perhaps if adopted a diet that focused on fuel rather than pleasure as those in the Depression era did, America’s contributions to the global food crisis would not be so severe.