Jessica Jackson

SCIENTIFIC KITCHEN

Instant Food, 1950’s

The rise of food technolgy in the 1950’s corresponded with the growing medium of television and its large scale capability of instant advertising to the masses. The result was the power to alter the beliefs of a nation by the turn of a dial. People were told how to create an ideal lifestyle by showing them how to think, live and eat. This altered the American way of life from a focus on a strong work ethic to focus on leisure time.

Advertisements proclaimed the housewife was too busy to spend her day preparing meals and needed products and recipes for quick and easily prepared instant meals. The claim was that these packaged instant foods set women free from the kitchen and allowed them more leisure time. The industry convinced millions of homes to have a lasting taste for food comparable to field rations. It has never been more popular as it is today.