Between 1850 and 1950, experts and entrepreneurs in Britain and the
United States forged new connections between the nutrition sciences and
the commercial realm through their enthusiasm for new edible
consumables. The resulting food products promised wondrous solutions for
what seemed to be both individual and social ills. By examining
creations such as Gail Borden's meat biscuit, Benger's Food, Kellogg's
health foods, and Fleischmann's yeast, Wonder Foods shows how new
products dazzled with visions of modernity, efficiency, and scientific
progress even as they perpetuated exclusionary views about who deserved
to eat, thrive, and live. Drawing on extensive archival research,
historian Lisa Haushofer reveals that the story of modern food and
nutrition was not about innocuous technological advances or superior
scientific insights, but rather about the powerful logic of exploitation
and economization that undergirded colonial and industrial food
projects. In the process, these wonder foods shaped both modern food
regimes and how we think about food.