Food, Nutrition, and the Making of Industrial Britain

FAIN: FA-56613-12

Christopher James Otter
Ohio State University (Columbus, OH 43210-1349)

This study examines a critical but understudied development in modern history: the transformation of the British diet in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A change to a diet rich in wheat, sugar and animal proteins, drawn to an unprecedented extent from a world market, had profound and lasting effects on every level, both within Britain and beyond. These effects ranged from the expanding waistlines of British consumers and the radically homogenized gene pools of wheat and cattle to transformed agrarian ecologies in Argentina, North America and Australasia and geopolitical and military strategy during the First and Second World Wars. The transformed British diet was thus causally connected to the emergence of world markets, industrialization and environmental transformation. Consequently, the new British food system has played a highly important, and clearly identifiable, role in modern world history.

Associated Products

The British Nutrition Transition and its Histories (Article)
Title: The British Nutrition Transition and its Histories
Author: C Otter
Abstract: This paper argues that food has become an increasingly important topic in British historiography. To frame this historiographical analysis, the paper focuses on the “nutrition transition” in Britain, which took place between around 1750 and 1950. This transition marked a shift towards a diet rich in refined wheat, sugar, dairy and meat. The paper explores various phenomena related to the nutrition transition, notably changes in the standard of living, the relationship between the state and the economy, the impact of war, and the development of globalization. These various historical developments have all become rich areas for historiographical analysis and debate. In general, we can observe a historiographical drift from “social” approaches to the history of food through “cultural” ones to today’s situation, which is one of methodological innovation and profusion. This situation suggests that some of the most interesting writing on British history is currently about food.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://http://www.worldcat.org/title/the-british-nutrition-transition-and-its-histories/oclc/5151213152&referer=brief_results
Format: Journal
Publisher: History Compass, 10:11

Hippophagy in the UK: A Failed Dietary Revolution (Article)
Title: Hippophagy in the UK: A Failed Dietary Revolution
Author: C Otter
Abstract: This study explores the history of horseflesh consumption in modern Britain and France. ? It examines why horsemeat became relatively popular in France, but not Britain. ? These reasons include the active role of scientists, philanthropists, journalists and butchers. ? These figures did not actively promote horsemeat in Britain. ? These factors are as important as cultural and economic ones in explaining dietary transformation.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://http://www.worldcat.org/title/hippophagy-in-the-uk-a-failed-dietary-revolution/oclc/5902360044&referer=brief_results
Format: Journal
Publisher: Endeavour

Diet for a Large Planet (Book)
Title: Diet for a Large Planet
Author: Chris Otter
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo50270736.html
Primary URL Description: Publisher website
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780226697109

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