February 5, 2024

Eat This Podcast: The Invention of Baby Food

Solid food at one month of age? Unthinkable today, but not in 1950s America.

Amy Bentley, a professor at New York University, has charted the rise and continuing rise of baby food, from its earliest emergence in upstate New York and Michigan to its proliferation today. Commercial baby foods made sense, she thinks, as a safer and more convenient alternative to home-made options, and still today may form the bedrock of the best-nourished period of a child’s life. But they also reflected an American exceptionalism rooted in the triumph of World War Two.

Listen here.

Take care