ABSTRACT
When President Franklin Roosevelt famously contended during his Second Inaugural Address in January 1937 that “one-third of a nation [was] ill-housed, ill-clad, [and] ill-nourished,” the high percentage of misfortune that he cited was neither hyperbole nor mere conjecture. The figure of one-third likely came from the results of a dietary survey that had recently been conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). By comparing food consumption data to newly formulated quantitative nutritional requirements, USDA researchers had found that 35 percent of American families were consuming less than the minimum recommended amount of at least one essential vitamin or mineral, while just 27 percent had diets that provided a liberal amount of every nutrient that had been studied. 1 As the country drifted closer to war during the next few years, government leaders became increasingly troubled by this discovery, since health officials contended that nutritional deficiencies undermined the nation's defense capability. 2
