“When does it stop being peanut butter?”: FDA food standards of identity, Ruth Desmond, and the shifting politics of consumer activism, 1960s

Boyce, Angie2016-05-192016Boyce, Angie M. 2016. “When does it stop being peanut butter?”: FDA food standards of identity, Ruth Desmond, and the shifting politics of consumer activism, 1960s–1970s. Technology and Culture 57, no. 1:54-79. doi:0.1353/tech.2016.0016.1097-3729http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:27022907This article uses a historical controversy over the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s standard of identity for peanut butter as a site for investigating three topics of high importance for historians of technology, consumption, and food activism: how new industrial food-processing technologies have become regulatory problems; how government, industry, and consumer actors negotiate standards development; and how laypeople try to shape technological artifacts in spaces dominated by experts. It examines the trajectory of consumer activist Ruth Desmond, co-founder of the organization the Federation of Homemakers. By following Desmond’s evolving strategies, the article shows how the broader currents of the 1960s–70s consumer movement played out in a particular case. Initially Desmond used a traditional style that heavily emphasized her gendered identity, working within a grassroots organization to promote legislative and regulatory reforms. Later, she moved to a more modern advocacy approach, using adversarial legal methods to fight for consumer protections.en-US“When does it stop being peanut butter?”: FDA food standards of identity, Ruth Desmond, and the shifting politics of consumer activism, 1960s–1970s.Journal Article2016-03-1820162016-05-1910.1353/tech.2016.0016