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Rocío Petersen
Anthropology/Human Physiology

Geraldine Moreno-Black, Mentor

Nourishing 19th Century Americans: The Dietary Advice in Cookery Books

Before the United States’ dietary guidelines were established and before the discovery of the chemistry of nutrition, authors of nineteenth-century cookery books based their opinions of a healthy lifestyle on their own experience. The most influential American authors of cookery books dealt with cooking for the home according to their understanding of health and nutrition, evident in the advice that they provided and in the nutritional content of their recipes.  The cookery books represent shifts in the prescribed American diet before and during the dissemination of professional knowledge about the nutrients in foods. By tracing the changes in the caloric values of selected recurring recipes, I evaluate how meals from both the earlier and latter parts of the nineteenth century represent the basic tenets of a healthy lifestyle in terms of food choices at that time. The food recommendations and nutrients are assessed following the components of a “healthy” diet in the 2007 United Stated Department of Agriculture standards.