The Manitoba Health Cookbook contains several recipes and a lot of information for the reader. The targeted audience for the cookbook was likely rural women living in southern Manitoba in the later 1930s. During this time, women were still largely expected to look after the domestic responsibilities within the family, which included staying home, taking care of the house, and raising children. Women also did the majority of the cooking, so they were the ones purchasing and reading cookbooks in the hopes of finding new recipes and ways to cook food. This cookbook was published just before the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Thousands of Canadian men enlisted initially, leaving women and older children with even more responsibilies around the home. This cookbook would have been a great way for women to learn new and more efficient ways to cook when they were burdened by so many other tasks to look after. During the war, many women sought out waged labour so they could contribute to the economy and take care of their families. In those cases, it was quite common for the older children (and girls especially) to take on or assist with the food shopping and cooking. The Manitoba Health Cookbook is a very beginner-friendly cookbook as it explains all of the measurements that are used within the recipes at the beginning of the book. This would have made it easier for anyone new to cooking to understand the amounts of each item needed for the recipes. Along with the measurements it also explains the short forms that are used throughout the book and the uncommon cooking terms that beginner cooks may not have prior knowledge of. 

Throughout the cookbook, the compilers provided various bits of information about the importance of each type of food and the nutrients and minerals they provide to the human body. This knowledge would have been beneficial for women to know because healthy eating was not always easy or accessible, especially during the 1930s when the Great Depression was happening and financial struggles meant many families couldn't purchase a variety of foods. Canadians' knowledge of foods with healthful properties was also still in its infancy at the time as scientists and researchers were still working to understand what food was composed of and how it assisted with the body's functions. The cookbook is cognizant of the fact that many Canadians were living on limited funds at the time of its publication, as demonstrated through the various advertisements which often mention the low prices of the goods and services being shown.