ABSTRACT
Around the turn of the twentieth century, many food manufacturers attempted to stimulate a growing British appetite for modern industrial "health foods" by spreading equally modern advertisements across public spaces and in a wide variety of publications. This chapter examines three of the most advertised and commercially successful health foods formulated in the late nineteenth century. Many consumers were persuaded that eating health foods would enhance their status, desirability or performance and imbue the eater with stamina, strength, mental wellbeing, and even morality, duty and comradeship. For the working classes and petit bourgeoisie engaged in physically and mentally strenuous or uncomfortable work, Vi-Cocoa would strengthen their resolve and enable them to do their duty. Plasmon instead appealed to middle-class vegetarians and other faddists who realised that a sound mind depended on a healthy body with strong muscles. Bovril, which produced patriotic muscularity, joviality and convenience in the kitchen, was a panacea suitable for the forebears of both Eloi and Morlocks.
