Here is a list of a few of the many  processed foods developed in the 1920s and 1930s. You may be surprised to see  how long these familiar foods have been around.

Wonder Bread

WONDER BREAD (1921) The Taggart Baking Company of  Indianapolis, Indiana, came out with a one and a half pound loaf of white bread that contained preservatives to keep it fresh. In 1930 WONDER BREAD was sold as sliced bread (Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the first machine that sliced and wrapped bread in 1928). From this new product came the expression, “The greatest thing since sliced bread.”

Quaker Oats

QUAKER OATS (1921) The Quaker Oats Company introduced quickcooking oatmeal (cooked in five minutes instead of twenty), and it became one of the United States’ first convenience foods.

Wheaties

WHEATIES (1924) The Washburn-Crosby Company introduced thiscereal that would become known as the Breakfast of Champions.

PeterPan Peanut Butter

PETER PAN PEANUT BUTTER (1928) Swift Packing Company introduced its first hydrogenated (chemical process that makes unsaturated fat more solid), homogenized peanut butter (the homogenization process of  keeping the peanut butter from separating) invented by J. L. Rosefield in 1922. In 1932 Rosefield produced his own brand and called it SKIPPY PEANUT BUTTER.

Rice Krispies

RICE KRISPIES (1928) This cereal, one of many by the Kellogg Company, had the popular saying, “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” first appear on its box in 1932. The three happy gnomes came along in 1933 to represent the sounds of the food. In Sweden these characters say, “Piff! Paff! Puff!” and in Germany they say, “Knisper! Knasper! Knusper!”

Gerber Baby Food

GERBER BABY FOOD (1929) Daniel Gerber began selling strained baby foods in cans to  grocery stores. Some mothers resisted buying the product until salt was added to it in 1931.Babies couldn’t tell the difference, but mothers who tasted their babies’ food could.

Birds Eye Frozen Food

BIRDS EYE FROSTED FOODS (1930) General Foods introduced Birds Eye Frosted Food. They were advertised as foods fresh frozen that traveled from plant to store to rental freezer (the only freezers available before home freezers were developed). These frosted foods were developed by Clarence Birdseye (father of the frozen-food industry) when he discovered during a visit to the Arctic in 1914 that fish pulled from icy waters froze rock hard and could be kept for weeks. When they were cooked, they tasted fresh. However, the system of buying and keeping frozen foods had some drawbacks for the consumer. In the 1930s and 1940s, people had to rent a space at a frozen-food locker plant to store their frosted food. When they wanted to use frozen food, they had to drive to the locker, making the system inconvenient until home freezers arrived in the 1950s.

Fritos Corn chips

FRITOS CORN CHIPS (1932) Ice-cream salesman Elmer Doolin ate lunch in a Texas sandwich shop that was selling fried corn chips (made with Mexican corn masa). He bought the recipe, the FRITOS name, and a potato ricer for one hundred dollars from Gustave Olguin, the owner of the shop. Doolin kept expanding his territory to sell FRITOS corn chips until he eventually merged his company in 1961 with the H. W. Lay Company, and the name Frito-Lay, Inc., was created. Soon many Americans loved to  “muncha buncha Fritos.”

RITZ Crackers

RITZ CRACKERS (1933) The National Biscuit Company developed around, buttery cracker and called it Ritz because it was so rich tasting.

Kraft Mac & Cheese

KRAFT MACARONI & CHEESE DINNER (1937) Kraft Macaroni & Cheese Dinner was introduced by National  Dairy Products and consisted  of grated American cheese and Tenderoni Macaroni in a box. It was advertised on the Kraft Music Hall radio show as “a meal for four in nine  minutes for an everyday price of nineteen cents.”

SPAM classic

SPAM & COMPANY (1937) This spiced ham product, introduced by the  George A. Hormel Company, would become the world’s largest-selling canned meat by 1942 when the United States entered World War II. Millions of cans of this fatty ground pork shoulder mixed with salt, ham,  sugar, and sodium nitrite were shipped overseas to feed the Allied troops.

Toll Chocochips

NESTLÉ CORPORATION’S CHOCOLATE MORSELS (1939) Nestlé developed chocolate morsels (chocolate chips) to go in Toll House cookies. In 1930 Ruth Wakefield invented the actual recipe for chocolate chip cookies in her Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. It happened by accident when Wakefield was making cookies for her customers, and she realized that she was out of baker’s chocolate. In a panic, she chopped up a semisweet chocolate bar and dumped the pieces into the cookie dough. After baking the cookies, she was surprised to see that the chocolate didn’t melt into the dough as she had expected, and the United States’ favorite cookie, the chocolate chip, was born. In 1939 she signed a contract with Nestlé to let them use her Toll House recipe on the back of their morsel packages.

A Popsicle

History has it that the Popsicle was invented (or discovered) by an 11-year old California boy who accidentally left his soda, with a stirring stick still in it, outside on a cold night. The next morning he had frozen soda on a stick. He called it an Epsicle, a play on icicle and his name, Frank Epperson. It took him nearly 20 years to obtain a patent for the Epsicle ice pop, which was later renamed “Popsicle“by the encouragement of his kids.

Popsicle has come a long way since the days of Frank Epperson. Instead of soda, the ingredient list contains sugars, stabilizers, colors, and flavors. Color and flavor are important for consumer appeal, but it’s the choice of sugars and stabilizers that governs the physical attributes of the Popsicle. Without sugars and stabilizers, it would just be a colored ice cube.

Sugars reduce the freezing point of water. That is, sugared water freezes at a lower temperature than pure water, which means that, even though it seems pretty hard, there is still some liquid water in a frozen Popsicle. A Popsicle is essentially a bunch of ice crystals held together by a slush that contains dissolved sugars, colors, and flavors. The more ice (less slush), the harder the Popsicle.

Frank Epperson

The manufacturing process is also much more high tech than what Frank Epperson did. Thousands of Popsicles are made every hour in modern continuous automated Popsicle freezers. The sugar concoction is deposited into molds and then submerged in a very cold brine (saltwater) to induce rapid freezing. Sticks are added just as the mixture freezes. This type of freezing, called quiescent freezing because there is no stirring, results in long, needle-like ice crystals. They form initially at the mold surface where it’s coldest and then grow radially inwards, toward the center of the mold. All ice crystals lead to the stick. Next time you bite into a Popsicle, check out the pattern of ice formation.

Popsicles have also developed beyond the single stick variety. There are numerous variations to the traditional one-stick Popsicle of Frank Epperson. There are twin pops, with two sticks and two Popsicles, joined at the hip. There’s the rocket pop, a multicolored ice pop made by sequentially freezing three or four different layers of sugar syrup. There are Popsicles that glow in the dark, with a glow stick inserted down the middle. You can even make your own frozen ice pop, just like we did as kids, by pouring liquid Jell-O, Kool-Aid or fruit juice into molds and letting them solidify in the freezer.

Next time you pull one out of your freezer, study the ice crystals while you enjoy the cool refreshment. A Popsicle may be a simple treat, but there is still a lot of science involved.