The home economics movement which occurred in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth century changed the way that individuals prepared, stored, and thought about the foods they ate. The connection between one’s diet and health was beginning to be recognized, resulting in modifications to the kinds of foods that were considered to contribute towards a balanced diet. An article published in 1928 mentions how “until recent years fruits and vegetables were looked upon as expensive foods that did not contribute very much to the welfare of the human race.” Prior to the understanding of vegetables nutritional value, diets primarily consisted of “Meat, potatoes, bread, fat and sugar.” The understanding that vegetables provided a source of essential vitamins and minerals that contributed to one’s health prompted research into different methods of cooking that rendered the healthiest meals by keeping the essential nutrients within the food. Researchers determined that cooking vegetables using boiling water resulted in a loss of valuable nutrients into the water, which are then poured down the drain before consumption of the meal. Therefore, waterless forms of cooking were presented as the solution to this problem, a method that allowed for retention of the essential minerals. This discovery prompted the manufacturing of products like the Vapo-Seal Aluminum Cooker advertised in the Eaton’s cookbook. The creation of this product and other similar products illustrates how the Canadian diet was changing along with the progressing knowledge of what constitutes a balanced diet.

Economic and social changes in Canada leading up to and during the 1920s allowed for the production of kitchen products like the Vapo-Seal Aluminum Cooker. The growth of consumerism and the evolution of manufacturing technologies, were two major changes that can be learned from the publication of the Eaton’s cookbook. The decade of the 1920s is historically known as the “roaring twenties” because “the nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929.” Such major increases in the nation’s wealth meant that Canadians had money to spend, creating an unfamiliar concept of a consumer’s society. Advertisements such as the ones placed throughout Health and Wealth from Waterless Cooking indicate how at the time people had money to spend on non-essential cookware. The second change was influenced by the evolution of manufacturing equipment that existed within factories in the early twentieth century, altering the materials that cooking tools were made from and the functions they were able to provide. With the understanding that waterless cooking was optimal for keeping nutrients within foods came the production of cookware that best performed this function. The release of the Eaton’s cookbook and the cookware advertised within it, was possible during this time due to the evolving equipment and methods of manufacturing within North American factories. At this time workers “manufactured cookware by the stamping and spinning of aluminum sheet rolled from ‘virgin’ ingots-those obtained directly from a smelter” a process that is described as more cost-efficient and flexible over the alternate method which required casting molten aluminum.