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Podcast: New Books in Economic and Business History
Episode: Fernando Collantes, "Milk in Spain and the History of Diet Change: The Political Economy of Dairy Consumption Since 1950" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Description: In barely three generations the Spanish diet has changed beyond recognition. The traditional concerns around nutritional health and scarcity have been mostly left behind, but they have given way to new problems linked to excess. In Milk in Spain and the History of Diet Change: The Political Economy of Dairy Consumption since 1950 (Bloomsbury, 2024) Dr. Fernando Collantes shows how the dairy industry has been central to this societal shift. From widespread calcium deficiency in the 1950s to the more recent, and controversial, turn to highly processed foods, it provides a recent history of diet change in Spain. Probing the reasons be...