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Showing Original Post only (View all)How the Fast Food Industry Destroyed "Home Ec" to Hook Americans on Processed Crap [View all]
http://www.alternet.org/how-fast-food-industry-destroyed-home-ec-hook-americans-processed-crapPublished on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
How the Fast Food Industry Destroyed "Home Ec" to Hook Americans on Processed Crap
October 16, 2013 |
The following piece first appeared on Mother Jones. [3]For more great content from Mother Jones Magazine, click here to subscribe. [4]
I was a rotten high school student, a shirker and smart-ass of the first rank. I even found myself purged from a typing class for bad behavioran event I regret to this precise moment, since touch-typing is obviously a convenient skill for someone in my profession. Afterward, I had to choose another "elective." Naturally, I seized upon home economicsin which, I hoped, I'd spend my time amusing girls with wisecracks and whipping up desserts from boxed mixes. If memory serves, that's exactly how it played outespecially the bit about the just-add-water confections. Mmmm, instant cake. In other words, I retained just as much from my home ec class as I did from my failed stint as a student of the keyboard: which is to say, nothing. Yet Ruth Graham's recent Boston Globe essay "Bring back home ec! The case for a revival of the most retro class in school" [5]strikes me as spot on. Graham isn't talking about the home ec of my misspent '80s youth, nor that of quaint stereotypes featuring "visions of future homemakers quietly whisking white sauce or stitching rickrack onto an apron."
She means a revitalized, contemporary home economics for all genders, one capable of at least exposing youth to basic skills that so many adults (i.e., their parents) lack: "to shop intelligently, cook healthily, [and] manage money." And I think such a reimagined home ec should move from the shadowy margins it now occupiesthe field has been rebranded as "Family and Consumer Science," Graham reportsand become mandatory for all high school kids, andwhy not?even elementary school ones.
snip
The convenience food industry that's so powerful and entrenched today was just taking root in the 1950s. And as it began to aggressively market its products to a growing US middle class, it "faced one real obstacle," Moss writes: the "army of school teachers and federal outreach workers who insisted on promoting home-cooked meals, prepared the old fashioned way." Home ec teachers explicitly battled against the industry's claims of convenience, Moss shows. In 1957, he writes, the American Home Economics Association conducted a demo pitting a commercial cake mix against a homemade batter, Moss reports. "As reported in the association's journal, the homemade cake not only cost less and tasted better, it took only five more minutes to prepare, cook, and serve." Plus the batter could be made in advance and stored, "for quick parceling out when a cake was needed." Home-ec teachers also schooled their charges in frugal shopping, teaching them to "avoid buying things they didn't need."
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How the Fast Food Industry Destroyed "Home Ec" to Hook Americans on Processed Crap [View all]
SoCalDem
Oct 2013
OP
it hasnt totally disappeared. the folks who manage dorm kitchens, nutritionists . the profession
Liberal_in_LA
Oct 2013
#134
Unless I'm mistaken, car dealerships in Chicago are still closed on Sundays.
AnotherMcIntosh
Oct 2013
#68
There is nothing to stop people from taking a day off consumerism all on their own.
kestrel91316
Oct 2013
#156
But if we teach them the value of government, then they might actually want government!
CrispyQ
Oct 2013
#107
Home Ec was ditched at the same time when "shop" classes were thrown out. Stupid.
Eleanors38
Oct 2013
#49
when i took home ec it was mandatory gender separation . home ec for girls
Liberal_in_LA
Oct 2013
#128
I am so proud of my son & d-i-l.. Their little baby has NEVER had anything to eat
SoCalDem
Oct 2013
#16
I learned to bake young too - my dad wanted/demanded homemade biscuits for breakfast so mom would
Hestia
Oct 2013
#42
I'll have to tell my tongue that the homemade, french-braid bread currently in my mouth
kentauros
Oct 2013
#52
I could write a book on this subject..The woman who was my Home Ec. teacher was kind in a way..
Tikki
Oct 2013
#33
My favorite from childhood is apricot fried pies - it is an art that I cannot master all these
Hestia
Oct 2013
#46
Boys should take Home Ec and girls should take shop (metal or wood). Both should take both.
Bernardo de La Paz
Oct 2013
#62
It always amazes me that people think cooking must be difficult or time consuming
IronLionZion
Oct 2013
#83
I'd like to see mandatory classes on personal finance, cooking, home maintenance and basic car care.
bklyncowgirl
Oct 2013
#87
gets you comfortable in the kitchen--and my middle school home ec teacher was the first to tell us
MisterP
Oct 2013
#115
I agree. I think that is a huge part of it. Budget cuts, over-testing, and for
GreenPartyVoter
Oct 2013
#125
great topic. home ec wasnt just food. curriculum included sewing, crafts, hygiene, social skills
Liberal_in_LA
Oct 2013
#129