The Foods That Built America

Lately, my husband and I have really been into watching The Foods That Built America.  This show about how different well-known foods came to exist is in its second season on the History Channel although we didn't start watching it or even know about it until this season. So far, there have been 11 episodes in the season, and we don't know if there will be more. 

The episodes this season have revolved around pizza, cookies, soup, and more. Each episode focuses primarily on the battle between two titans in a particular food industry for dominance of the market. For instance, Dominos vs Pizza Hut and Coca-Cola vs Pepsi Cola have each been featured this season. 

Focusing on only two companies in an industry probably oversimplifies things because even if those two companies started out as the only ones in the market, there are usually quite a few companies in any food-related field, and many of them have been around for a long time. Of course, companies do come and go all the time and sometimes one company gets acquired by another. It's also true that some food chains or food companies are only popular in a particular area of the county. However, for the purpose of the show, they probably wanted to focus on companies that would be familiar to most people no matter where they live. Besides, there's only so much you can cram into a one-hour program so focusing on only two main companies per program does make sense. 

The show is full of fascinating information about the history of some of our favorite foods. However, it will make you hungry so it is best to watch when you are eating or when you've been well fed. There seem to be quite a lot of food-related commercials that run during the show too even more than the excessive amount of food commercials that are on TV usually. The extra amount of food commercials only add to the hunger issue so unless you have a lot of willpower, you are definitely going to want to have snack on hand while you watch. 

In case an hour per episode is too long, they also recently introduced a shorter version of the show called The Foods That Built America Snack Size. These shorter episodes provide a brief overview of a particular brand or a couple of brands. However, so far, a lot of the ground most of these episodes cover seems to be the same as the original show.   

There is also a Foods That Built America podcast. The podcast covers similar topics to the TV show, but we have not actually had the chance to listen to any of the podcast episodes. Accordingly, we don't know how much they differ from the episodes of the TV show. 

And that's our view. What are your favorite well-known food brands and/or food chains?

Tune in tomorrow for Tips for Tuesday.