“When Does It Stop Being Peanut Butter?”: FDA Food Standards of Identity, Ruth Desmond, and the Shifting Politics of Consumer Activism, 1960s–1970s

This 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.