Short Suck 62: From Mom-and-Pop to Mega-Corporations: The Transformation of America’s Food Industry
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to another edition of Time Sucks, Short Sucks. I'm Dan Cummins, and today I will be answering a question you may not have asked, but maybe should be asking. What are we eating? What in God's green earth has been going on with America's food industry? I'll sum it up with just four words, but really just one word. It has been economized. But I think you probably want more than that summary, right? You do. So stay right where you are and allow me to explain the past hundred year shift in America's food industry.
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A century ago, what the average American family ate was probably not surprisingly very different than it is now. Caviar, lobster, and steak. That was it. That was all any American ate ever 100 years ago. Just nothing but caviar, steak, and lobster. What a dream! No, but let's look at some data. taken from USDA's loss-adjusted food availability historical data sets, the USDA being the United States Department of Agriculture, an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and production, works to assure food safety, protects natural resources, fosters rural communities, and works to end hunger in the U.S.
and internationally, or so they say, headed by the Secretary of Agriculture, who reports directly to the President of the U.S. and is a member of the President's Cabinet. And the data I will be sharing from the USDA represents the actual ingested calories for a blended average of U.S. adult men and U.S. adult women aged 20 to 39. And we'll first look at 1930, the first year we have comprehensive data. Back then, almost a century ago, we consumed an average of 597 calories of bread and pasta per day, 543 calories of potatoes, 336 calories of red meat. So top three, bread and pasta, potatoes, red meat. And then 314 calories of milk and yogurt, 295 calories of lard and butter, 156 calories of vegetable greens, followed by 129 calories of fruits and berries, then 115 calories of canned and preserved foods,
canned and preserved food way down on the list. 94 calories of eggs, 62 calories of sweets and candies, also way down on the list. 160 calories of rich and whole grains, 41 calories of poultry. And then finally, just 27 calories of cheese and melted dairy for an average of about 2,870 actual ingested calories. Now let's compare all that to now. It's gonna look a little different to 2026. The new category of fast food, now the top category for average calorie consumption. 657 calories from fast foods such as cheeseburgers and pizza. Then the new category of junk snacks. Stuff like mostly mass-manufactured bags of potato chips and Oreos and fudge graham cookies, etc. Second place with 482 calories. Then seed oils in third place with 306 calories.
How did American diets change from 1930 to today according to USDA data?
Seed oils had already hit the market by 1930, but they weren't that popular. Man, today, fast food, junk snacks, and seed oils. Top three categories of caloric consumption. After that, the bottom category from 1930. Cheese and melted dairy has fucking soared into fourth place with 248 calories, over nine times as much as we ate in 1930. Holy shit, do we love ourselves some cheese? Next is 219 calories of poultry. We now eat over five times as much poultry as we did in 1930. Then another fun new category shows up on the list. Sugary drinks. Not that those didn't exist technically back then, but it wasn't a whole category, like widely marketed and produced like it is now. You know, stuff like soda, juice that is actually maybe at most 5% juice, but mostly just refined sugars.
171 calories. Fuck yeah, bro. Thank you, Kool-Aid man, for introducing me to your sugary elixirs.
Oh, yeah.
I'm surprised just the Kool-Aid I was allowed to make myself growing up didn't just single-handedly give me diabetes. So many giant scoops of sugar. I just remember dumping those into that pitcher.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:25
2
How did American diets change from 1930 to today according to USDA data?
3:25–12:58
3
What are the biggest new calorie sources like fast food and ultra‑processed foods?
12:58–34:25
4
How much of our diet now comes from ultra‑processed foods and added sugars?
34:25–1:07:12
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Timesuck with Dan Cummins
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