To cultivate a better understanding of American Nutrition I am going start out by giving a brief history of our diet beginning in the 19th century. The early 1800s were a time of frontiersmen, merchants, and farmers. Industrialization had yet to occur on a large scale and fast food was a foreign term (1). On the frontier people only had access to indigenous plants and animals, however they stocked supplies including flour, beans, and sugar at regular intervals. They would eat on average three meals a day comprised of foods like corn bread, hot cakes, boiled eggs, sausage, stew and calves' head (2). Farmers and merchants had access to a greater variety of foods including larger quantities of fruits and vegetables and a significantly larger amount of animal products as compared to the frontiersmen. According to Alex Soyer's "Modern Housewife" a farmer or merchant's diet in the 1800s would consist of coffee, butter, eggs, meat, bread, soup, and cheese. The 1850s brought the California gold rush and a plethora of new recipes to America influenced by the Chinese, Spanish, and Mexican immigrants. Westerners dined at cheap eateries and ate similar to the farmers and merchants back east. The mid to late 1800s also are responsible for the advent of soft drinks and cereal. In 1865 C.W. Post developed his first cereal called Postum (3), Coca-Cola was invented by Dr. John S. Pemberton in 1886, and in 1898 Pepsi-Cola was invented by Caleb Bradham (4).
The 19th century diet was transitional. In the beginning foods were largely unprocessed. Soda Pop and Cereal were the first heavily processed goods introduced in America. In Part 2 of A Lesson in History I will continue the transition into the 20th and 21st century.
