The concept of vitamins is so ingrained in our subconscious that we respond to it without

thinking, convinced that the mere presence of vitamins in a food means it must be good for us.
How did that happen?

I had a hunch as to what time period might hold the answer: the early 1920s, when vitamins
leaped from the exclusive realm of scientists to the everyday lives of consumers via stories in the
popular press and the advertisements that accompanied them. I was
interested by McCall’s magazine in particular because I knew its editors had published several
decades’ worth of columns by Elmer McCollum, a Kansas farm boy-turned-scientist who
took credit for discovering vitamin A.

McCollum’s recommended meal plan, which he called the Protective Diet, was built around
vitamins. McCollum was concerned that Americans’ increasing taste for refined and processed
foods was putting them at risk for health problems, including those caused by vitamin
deficiencies. So he pushed people to eat more of what he called “protective foods,” including
leafy greens such as spinach, kale, collards, turnip and beet greens, and two daily salads that
included raw fruits and vegetables.

McCollum was suggesting that American housewives step into a realm of nutritional detail so
recently discovered that scientists, including McCollum, were still struggling to chart it. Despite
the fact that the word “vitamin” itself was barely a decade old—and scientists’ understanding of
the substances was even younger—homemakers were supposed to know that vitamin C prevents
scurvy (a disease they’d likely never seen) and can be found in green peppers while vitamin A is
important for the immune system and is present in eggs.

The idea that women’s choices in the kitchen needed to be “officially” approved by nutritional
scientists represented an important perception shift in who could be trusted to decide what
Americans should eat. But McCollum’s supposed encouragements also hid an even more
frightening assumption: that any uncareful homemaker—that is, any woman who didn’t
follow the Protective Diet—was playing Russian roulette with her family’s health. Like any truly
successful health guru, McCollum wasn’t just a cheerleader. He was also a fearmonger.

The public’s growing awareness of vitamins was remarkably successful in changing people’s
attitudes toward food. Americans embraced the notion that carefulhomemakers would ensure
that their families— through food and, later, supplements—had “enough” of each vitamin. How
much was enough, though? Nobody knew.