1950 - Nutrition

Nutrition

The U.S. Department of Agriculture issues Composition of Foods—Raw, Processed, Prepared (Handbook No. 8), listing the nutritional contents of 751 items that include some frozen foods (see 1895; 1963).

Nutrition pioneer and blood expert George R. Minot dies at Brookline, Mass., February 25 at age 64; chemist Sir Walter N. Haworth of a heart attack at Birmingham, England, March 19 (his 67th birthday).

Prevention magazine begins publication at Emmaus, Pa. Publisher J. I. Rodale, now 52, has published Organic Gardening and Farming since 1942 and makes extravagant health claims for dietary supplements (Rodale and his wife will each take 70 vitamin and mineral pills per day to guard against pollution and replace nutrients lost in food processing). The magazine will warn against the "evils" of fluoridation, DDT, mercury, phosphates, monosodium glutamate, and cyclamates, and it will criticize wheat (saying that it can make people overly aggressive or deaf), sugar (even worse), and milk (good only for infants). Initial subscribers—mostly elderly people who distrust "new-fangled" methods and yearn for a simpler past—will soon find the magazine's pages filled with ads for dietary supplements (see 1971).

Look Younger, Live Longer by German-born California food faddist Gayelord Hauser, 51, promises miracles to those who will eat the "wonder foods" yogurt, wheat germ, brewers' yeast, blackstrap molasses, and powdered skim milk. A condensation appears in The Reader's Digest and boosts demands for the "wonder foods" as the book becomes a bestseller.