SpaghettiOs and the Age of Processed Foods

History Talk, the history podcast from Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective

After World War II, canned foods became more and more common, along with a smorgasbord of other pre-prepared, processed foods: Jellos, TV dinners, frozen peas, dehydrated juices, and eventually Tangs. On May 12th, 1965, Donald Goerke invented SpaghettiOs, the round, canned cousins of spaghetti. By 2010, over 150 million cans of SpaghettiOs were sold each year; put another way, on average, 720 million Os are consumed every day. Written by Aaron George. Narration by Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle. Textual and video versions of this podcast are available at https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/may-2015-spaghetti-age-mechanical-reproduction. Audio and video production by Laura Seeger, Dr. Nicholas B. Breyfogle, and Katherine Weiss. This is a production of Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective at the Goldberg Center in the Department of History at The Ohio State University and the Department of History at Miami University. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to receive updates about our videos and podcasts. For more information about Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, please visit origins.osu.edu.