Nature's Perfect Food: How Milk Became America's Drink
For over a century, America's nutrition authorities have heralded milk as "nature's perfect food," as "indispensable" and "the most complete food." These milk "boosters" have ranged from consumer activists, to government nutritionists, to the American Dairy Council and its ubiquitous milk moustache ads. The image of milk as wholesome and body-building has a long history, but is it accurate?Recently, within the newest social movements around food, milk has lost favor. Vegan anti-milk rhetoric...
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DuPuis (sociology, U. of California, Santa Cruz) traces the social history of milk in the US, linking its promotion as "nature's perfect food" to notions of perfection, health, and modern industry. Additional topics include attitudes towards city versus country, agricultural practices, the story of pasteurization requirements, gender issues associated with milkmaids, land use policy, the milk strikes of the 1930s, dairy policies in Wisconsin and California, and the current controversy over bovine growth hormone. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
AcknowledgmentsPt. IConsumption1Why Milk?32The Perfect Food Story173Why Not Mother? The Rise of Cow's Milk as Infant Food in Nineteenth-Century America464The Milk Question: Perfecting Food as Urban Reform675Perfect Food, Perfect Bodies90Pt. IIProduction6Perfect Farming: The Industrial Vision of Dairying1257The Less Perfect Story: Diversity and Farming Strategies1448Crisis: The "Border-Line" Problem1659Alternative Visions of Dairying: Productivism and Producerism in New York, Wisconsin, and California18310The End of Perfection210Afterword241Notes244Bibliography271Index297About the Author311
\ From the Publisher"A breakthrough piece of work in food studies as well as a very enjoyable read."\ -Frederick H. Buttel,University of Wisconsin, Madison\ "DuPuis's achievement is considerable—it is a rare scholarly volume that will also fascinate general readers. Fans of Mark Kurlansky's Cod will enjoy the diverse strands of history and science that define one of the commonplace staples in our daily lives—milk. Moreover, no one thinking about the present controversey over industrialized agriculture will want to go very far without DuPuis's analysis in hand."\ -Sally Fairfax,University of California, Berkeley\ "Intriguing, nuanced, and complex. The stories DuPuis tells about milk are at once captivating and analytically astute. Lots of historical surprises and ironies add spice to her extensive findings about more than a century of milk madness in America."\ -Nancy Lee Peluso,University of California, Berkeley\ "Du Puis' book is a rich and frothy drink, well worth consuming, just like its subject."\ -New York History,\ "This is an entertaining, informative, and tightly argued book, one well worth adding to any food library."\ -Gastronomica,\ \ \
