Recent History
January 1, 1910
The only fats that could be found in any American kitchen up until about 1910 were those that came exclusively from animals.
As the accompanying graph shows, the only fats that could be found in any American kitchen up until about 1910 were those that came exclusively from animals: lard (the fat from pigs), suet (the fat from around an animal’s kidneys), tallow (a harder fat from sheep and cattle), butter, and cream. Some cottonseed and sesame oils were produced locally on farms in the South (the slaves brought sesame seeds from Africa), but none was produced nationally or in large quantities; and efforts to make olive oil foundered upon an inability to successfully cultivate olive trees (although no less a man than Thomas Jefferson tried). The fats used by housewives in the United States and also in most of Northern Europe were therefore those from animals. Cooking with oil was a largely unfamiliar idea.
Oils weren’t even considered edible. They didn’t belong in the kitchen. They were used to make soaps, candles, waxes, cosmetics, varnishes, linoleum, resins, lubricants, and fuels—all of which were increasingly needed for burgeoning urban populations as well as the machinery of industrialization in the nineteenth century. Whale oil was the primary material for all these purposes starting in 1820; a boom in that oil’s production enriched two generations of New Englanders living on the coast, but the industry had collapsed by 1860.
January 1, 1924
The American Heart Association is formed.
American Heart Association is Founded: Six cardiologists form the American Heart Association as a professional society for doctors. One of the founders, Dr. Paul Dudley White, described the early years as a time of “almost unbelievable ignorance” about heart disease.
November 1, 1927
Sam Apple
Your Health - Herman N. Bundesen MD
Dr Bundesen warns of the dangers of sugar and starch for decreasing your lifespan and causing diabetes, kidney disease, and heart trouble, however, the Sugar Institute's payments causes him to change his mind and recommend sugar.
Sam Apple's Tweet: 15/ Less than a year before, Bundesen had warned in print that sugar should be consumed in moderation. Now, he was suggesting —among other outrageous claims—that a lack of sugar could be harmful to teeth. Had something changed Bundesen's mind about sugar? …
Bundesen -> AntiSugar
Your Health - Herman N. Bundesen M.D.
Your belt-line is your life-line. As it increases, the life span shortens and there is greater hazard from diabetes, kidney disease and heart trouble.
The man or woman who sits down most of the day and rides to work in an automobile or street car should be careful not to overeat and should take exercise regularly. Sugar and starchy foods should be taken sparingly and fats and oils should be avoided. Meat may be taken in moderation once a day. Fresh vegetables and most fruits are excellent non-fattening foods.
Dr. Bundesen will answer any health questions submitted by readers who inclose stamped self-addressed envelopes for personal replies.
Bundesen -> ProSugar
The laws in regard to the manufacture of foods, of which candy is a valuable article, are very stringent and protect you from any adulteration or undesirable substances. So, with a mind at ease, you may match your table decorations for your party with mints to follow the dessert, and you may give your children colored stick candies or bonbons.
Excitable Children
For children, whose active littel bodies make more movements in an hour than many grown-up ones do in a day, and who thus expend large quantities of energy daily, candy repairs the loss in a simple, quick, and acceptable way. The little ones need a much larger proportionate sugar ration than adults.
The Matter of Teeth
Candy of one sort has another valuable use. Teeth, like other parts of the body, need exercise. Provided the body is supplied with the teeth-building elements, the teeth will be healthy, if used. Hard candies, such as molasses candy, and stick candy, give this exercise to the teeth and gums, and leave no residue. The chewing of hard candies, and other hard foods, helps the teeth.
The Canada Lancet, a monthly journal of medical and surgical science, the oldest medical journal in the Dominion of Canada, says:
"There is a rather widespread notion that eating candy injures the teeth. There is not the least scientific foundation for this notion. The lack of sugar is much more likely to injure the teeth, through impaired nutrition, than even its excessive use is likely to do by any digestive troubles which might result from over-use."
Hard candies, such as molasses and stick candy, give exercise to teeth and gums and leave no residue, Bundesen adds.
September 2, 1928
Diabetes Deaths Rise as Sugar Sales Grow: City Health Department Reports Fatalities Up 50% for Men and 150% for Women in 30 Years.
Increased consumption of sugar is given as a probable explanation of the increased death rate from diabetes during the last thirty years, in a bulletin issued by the New York City Health Department yesterday.
Diabetes Deaths Rise as Sugar Sales Grow
City Health Department Reports Fatalities Up 50% for Men and 150% for Women in 30 Years.
Increased consumption of sugar is given as a probable explanation of the increased death rate from diabetes during the last thirty years, in a bulletin issued by the New York City Health Department yesterday. According to the bulletin, the diabetes death rate has increased 50 per cent for men during that period, and 150 per cent for women.
"Hand in hand with this has been a corresponding increase in the per capita consumption of sugar," the bulletin continues, "so that it appears probable that we, especially the ladies, are overtaking our bodies with too much sugar."
The average number of deaths per year for the five-year period ended with 1902 is given as 395. Averages for successive five-year periods from then to the present are given as follows:
1902-1907, 588;
1907-1912, 748;
1912-1917, 1,049;
1917-1922, 1,122;
1922-1927, 1,359;
The suggestion that women particularly are eating more sweets gained added interest by its contrast to conclusions drawn in London following the drop of the cocoa market. Recent dispatches gave the explanation that cigarettes have leargely displaced candy in the diet of young women, thus diminishing the demand for cocoa. But in this country, it would seem from the Health Department's view, sugar has not been similarly affected.
