This is a story about food that begins with dysfunction and a young country struggling to feed its inhabitants during a period of upheaval. From this crisis, new organizations, norms, and ways of thinking about food emerge despite institutional shortcomings. Amidst the shortages, the food industry is mobilized for war, and citizens become active agents in supporting agriculture, raising questions about diet and nutrition.
This is not the story of the Israeli food industry since October 7. Rather, it is the backdrop for Dr. Erela Taharlev Ben-Shachar’s new book, “The Magic Ladle” (Afik Publishing). A historian of nutrition at The Open University, she outlines five key chapters in the history of national nutrition guidelines in Israel. “This is not a book about food in the culinary sense, [it’s] the story of Israel’s history through the observation of nutrition recommendations,” she explains. During these transformations, different forces shaped and influenced the Israeli diet and food culture.
With the ongoing war, the culinary world is navigating significant upheaval, leading to a somewhat bewildering state of affairs. As we continue to grapple with the war’s repercussions, Taharlev Ben-Shachar’s book offers an opportunity to glean insights from the nation’s history. It explores pivotal questions such as the role of the food and nutrition industries during times of instability, the influence of class, nationality, and gender in shaping national identity, and the nuanced intersection between food, war, and peace.
Noa Berger: Your book debuted at a particularly relevant time — a period of crisis and governmental instability. What are some of the similarities and differences between the period around the founding of the state and today?
Erela Taharlev Ben- Shachar: My book reviews the period from the 1920s to the 1980s, during which Israeli society shifted from being primarily a settlement society to a nationalized civil society, moving away from a solidarity-based community toward individualism. Today, as in the settlement period, there’s a sense of a void filled by individuals, albeit in different contexts. Back then, this void stemmed from the absence of a state, whereas today, it contrasts with the existence of a state. It’s important to note that during the settlement period, there was no taxation, customs, or structured management of consumer and agricultural activities because there was no centralized state. Laws were created without a legislative institution, and consumer activities were regulated without state mechanisms. Today, despite the presence of a state, citizens often feel its absence. Rather than a state-building process, there’s a perception of state disintegration.
As you describe in the book, both individuals and institutions step in and try to dictate to the new Israeli public what they should eat through dietary recommendations and what they should purchase through ‘buy local’ campaigns.
That’s right. The book delves into these dietary guidelines. The foods recommended are often described as ‘basic’ or even ‘disgusting’ at times: egg powder, thousand-calorie diets, artificial sweeteners, and in the best cases: red bell peppers and cheese. Each food item leads to a fascinating and compelling story.
Can you share an example?
Throughout the book, gender emerges as a significant theme. Women, traditionally seen as nourishers of families and therefore the public, become the primary targets of these dietary recommendations, often bearing the burden of adaptability and change. Over time, these recommendations increasingly dictated standards for their bodies through dieting regimes.
Simultaneously, women played an active role in shaping these recommendations and striving to carve out their societal space through food. The book also unveils narratives of women who leveraged their culinary influence to alter power dynamics. An anecdote from the 1930s, possibly satirical, features a woman lamenting, “Having left my homeland where I was followed in the streets, I now find myself scrutinized by institutional spies here — monitoring my purchases and scrutinizing my shopping habits, whether I bought from Arabs, and dictating what I should eat. I deeply regret coming here.”
Does this imply that the development of a personal dietary regimen is tied to institutional interests?
Yes, during the founding of the state, there was a strong element of personal guilt, under the assumption that it was possible, permissible, and even necessary to dictate to people (especially women) what to do regarding food, cooking, and eating. During the settlement period, one of the most effective tools was propaganda. Without customs or taxes and in the absence of a centralized state, only private entities could support the local industry. This creates an intriguing paradox. Today, politics has become highly decentralized. Individuals feel they can impact the world through their personal behaviors: what they eat, what hygiene products they use. The body has become a form of political expression, which feels quite novel to us.
Have science and policy also played a role?
Yes, the story of food during the austerity period in Israel is also a narrative of reliance on science. The creation of food guidelines by the nation heavily leaned on scientific input — it was challenging to mobilize people without scientific validation that the state could meet all their nutritional needs. David Ben-Gurion pledged that scientists would ensure the composition of the austerity menu, guaranteeing it was nutritionally complete. However, an issue arose: scientists focused on proteins, vitamins, and calories — nutritional components — rather than the diversity and cultural richness of food itself. This stark contrast between food as a collection of biochemical components and food as a blend of textures and cultural significance became clear.
This tension was evident in the dialogue between women and the government. Women conveyed to the government: “It’s all well and good that this food is biochemically correct, but the children refuse to eat it. They are malnourished.” This highlighted a conflict between those who brought knowledge from their homes and kitchens and those who wielded power through labs and experiments on mice. To manage this tension, the government and rationing agents often shifted responsibility onto women. They would assert, “The food we send you is perfectly adequate; the problem is your inability to manage it properly.”
And here is where ethnicity becomes relevant. Mizrahi women, in particular, were often criticized for not understanding that the only difference between egg powder and a whole egg was the price and the shell. According to representatives of the establishment, anyone failing to grasp this was seen as primitive. They suggested that if these women could plan meals based on calories and protein, everything would be okay.
The establishment accused Mizrahi women of being ignorant and uneducated, asserting this was the main reason their children weren’t properly nourished. And all this occurred after food, sometimes spoiled, was sent to the ma’abarot (immigrant and refugee absorption camps) at irregular intervals during the austerity period.
From this story, and from the book in general, it appears that the story of food and nutrition tells a tale of both policing and resistance.
The chapter about saccharin, the artificial sweetener, for example, illustrates how women were trapped in a golden cage of the ‘good life.’ Sukarzit [an imitation sweetener] arrived in Israel in 1958 and was promoted for weight loss, regimenting the body, and generous hospitality. It helped shape the role of the hostess, the woman who meticulously keeps her home and cooks nutritional meals. But interestingly, the sweetener also became a symbol of the good life and abundance because it was one of the products that represented imports, thus fighting against regulation. It created an alliance of consumers, importers, and traders against government dictates. As an imported product, saccharin symbolized America and a new form of sophisticated modernity that offered alternatives to loading everything with sugar, emphasizing self-preservation instead.
The story of diets is also one of policing and resistance. During the austerity period, dieting was ostensibly out of place. However, there were women with hidden desires of dieting. They were denied the freedom to choose what they wanted. Some craved meatballs and a decent coffee, while others did not want to relinquish their ability to control the number of calories they consumed just because they had to eat what was rationed to them.
After the arrival of diets in Israel, women gained the freedom to shape their bodies, no longer forced to eat bread as they had during the austerity period. However, this choice masked a compulsive drive for self-starvation. Society, while outwardly appearing less regimented, was in reality highly controlled and policed under different values. As the discourse around diets grew more intense, so too did discussions about women’s rights. One significant platform for diet discourse was “At” magazine, which featured a column called “How to Get Thinner.” Opposite this column was one by feminist activist Marsha Friedman, titled “The Bra Burner.”
And what about today? After October 7, we witnessed varied reactions from the food industry. For instance, restaurateurs volunteered to feed soldiers and evacuees. While there was widespread praise for solidarity and generosity in times of crisis, questions were also raised about the role of these feeding projects in ‘discharging’ the government from its responsibilities.
There are sociologists who believe that we are all constantly playing the capitalist game, that everything is always appropriated by the industry. I don’t tend to see it that way. Yes, individuals do things that should have fallen to the state. But I am also fascinated by the idea that people shape their private lives and the most intimate aspects, such as eating, based on general ideological and social goals and ideals. Food has always been loaded with emotions. This is actually very characteristic of the Yishuv [before the founding of the state of Israel] period as well: food was a symbol of belonging, an effort to do the right thing through eating. Even then, food combined the instinctive and emotional aspects with the engineered eating behaviors dictated from above.
And speaking of solidarity, in the face of regulations that facilitate imports and make local cultivation more challenging, the call to ‘buy local’ has become fashionable among the upper middle class in recent decades. This trend was strengthened during the COVID-19 lockdowns and even more so during the war. However, the calls to buy local are not new. You talk about the government’s encouragement of local produce on the one hand, yet with indifference to the plight of the local agricultural industry on the other.
Buying local produce during the settlement period was one of the main ways to strengthen the agricultural economy. It was strictly enforced and led by various mechanisms, including recipe columns that instructed and enticed women to cook with seasonal produce, to use what was available, avoid waste, support local farms, and encourage agricultural growth.
For example, there was a moment when the dairy industry produced too much milk. This came after years of determined efforts by the leaders of Israel’s dairy industry to expand production. As historian Tamar Novick notes, they created a new, fat, and high-yielding cow to replace the leaner Arab cow. According to Novick, one of the motivations behind this initiative was the settlers’ image of the land as a ‘land of milk and honey’. This vision motivated the leaders of the Yishuv to restore the land back to its former glory and make it a land of fertile, productive cows once again. Significant work, based on technology, fertility, and medical knowledge, was invested in ‘producing’ a cow that could survive the local climate while resembling the European cows familiar to the settlers from their homelands.
In the end, they bred calves that showed promise, and as they matured, they indeed produced plentiful milk. It seemed like a happy outcome, except that upon examining the milk’s composition, they discovered it was skimmed. At the time, milk was considered a ‘superfood’, essential for providing all the necessary nutrients for adults and especially children, believed to strengthen the immune system and protect against illness. This sparked a poignant discussion among health and nutrition professionals: Is it beneficial to give children skim milk?
One of the primary arguments revolved around the nation’s health. It was believed that the nation’s well-being depended on milk consumption and supporting farmers. The fear was that without sufficient milk, especially in times of increased immigration or poor harvests, people would face starvation. Therefore, instead of wasting milk or ‘drying up the cows’, children were encouraged to drink milk — even if it wasn’t ideal — ensuring there would be something to drink the next day. This exemplified how the Yishuv’s policies dictated dietary habits to bolster the economy and promote growth.
And what about now?
In the past, the heart of the establishment was aligned with the farmers. However, in 2024, the state has shown little support and, moreover, displayed indifference and apathy towards local agriculture. They have considered allowing more imports, which reflects a disregard for local production, and a gradual decline of Israeli agriculture. This approach risks leaving us unprepared to rely on our own agricultural resources when they are most needed. Once again, private individuals have stepped in to fill this void, taking it upon themselves to support and purchase local produce.
In times of peace, buying local primarily has ecological and health implications, promoting a cuisine based on local, baladi (heirloom), and seasonal produce. However, since October 7, a national and social dimension has been added to the equation; supporting our local farmers by purchasing their produce has become a way to respond to the challenges they face. This movement has a sense of nostalgia reminiscent of earlier times, but this time it’s not driven by the state’s encouragement. Returning to a neoliberal philosophy that emphasizes individual responsibility, individuals now not only have to take care of themselves but also feel compelled to ‘save’ the state. In a way, this reflects capitalism at its ‘best.’
