Alex Heberling

I came across something I found really interesting while working at the library recently. It was an illustration ad for “Shredded Wheat Biscuits” (the forerunners of our beloved Frosted Mini-Wheats) from Heartst’s Chicago American, dated December 9^th, 1900. Alongside some nice illustrations of shredded wheat and recipes for suggested servings was the following:

“Send This Greeting: ‘Peace on Earth and Good Health to Men’ if they will eat the bread as it comes from Nature’s kitchen, pure, sweet and wholesome. No yeast germs, no baking powder gases, no greasy shortening, which defile the body tissues, making the flesh weak and the bones fragile. A light, short bread, already baked, the perfect food to keep the body clean. Peace on Earth: Unnatural breads have killed more men than bullets.”

In “Mac Hall: Volume Whatever,” Matt Boyd remarked several times throughout his commentary that “the more people change, the more they stay the same.” Today’s huge trend of organic this and that, of which I admit I’m a skeptic (I’ve been eating normally processed produce all my life and I’m perfectly healthy) and the public outcry against additives and preservatives in food immediately came to mind when I was scanning the shredded wheat ad. It seems like indisputable proof that hype about ‘pure’ food is nothing new whatsoever.

Stuff like this was obviously going on over a century ago. And if the shredded wheat biscuit was considered the pure alternative to ‘unnatural breads,’ then what would the people who agreed with this ad in 1900 think of their peers who had grown up on unnatural bread? We now think of homemade bread and other such processing-free foodstuffs the epitome of healthy and wholesome food. What would they think of us now?

With all the hype about eating a healthy, chemical-free diet in the last ten years, did anyone ever stop to think about what the opposition to such diets were saying when they were the norm?

The more people change, the more they stay the same.

Update: The shredded wheat ad that I scanned can now be seen online here.