A table from Food Becomes You, or, Better Health through Better Nutrition indicating weight ranges based on height for both males and females. 

     Food Becomes You, or, Better Health through Better Nutrition provides great insight into the historical background of nutrition just before and during the 1960s. This cookbook came at a time in history where nutritional information was on the rise of importance within North American society. 

     Prior to the 1960s and the release of Food Becomes You, or, Better Health through Better Nutrition, nutritional information was not readily available to learn about for the public. Within medical school curriculums, nutrition was on its way out, considered to be a low priority class. Without medical staff being properly informed on the importance of nutrition, this could see an effect in which medical patients would be ill-informed of what they are eating and how it will affect their bodies. Nutrition became detached from many schools' curriculums, with a survey being done showing that out of sixty schools, only twelve had a class focused around nutrition. However, beginning at the turn of the decade and in the early 1960s, there was a growth in awareness of how important nutrition was within society. This coincides well with the release date of Food Becomes You, or, Better Health through Better Nutrition as it acts as a tool which can be utilized by the public to gain more knowledge about nutrition. 

A table within Food Becomes You, or, Better Health through Better Nutritionwhich highlights various nutrients and the food sources which contain them.

     Within Canada in the 1960s, Ontario was a growing province, with Toronto becoming a hub for urbanization. With this increase in population, the area became more multicultural and with that came an increase of popularity in a vast array of foods. As such, many food suppliers had to adapt to these new food desires and saw preserving shelf life as a tool to help with this. This saw the addition of preservatives in food which would bring nutrition further into the national spotlight. By adding in preservatives, food labels were then of much more importance as the general public would not know which ingredients were in their food. The addition of standard food labels in 1966 was of great importance as prior to the age of preservatives in food, it was quite common that meals were simply made from scratch at home. Creating food from scratch allowed those who were cooking to become comfortable with their ingredients, allowing themselves to be more familiar with which items were healthy or unhealthy. Food Becomes You, or, Better Health through Better Nutrition is a useful supplementary tool at this period for those who still cooked from scratch as it provided a breakdown of the nutritional components of common ingredients, even prior to the standardization of food labels.

     Further demonstrating the rise of nutrition around the 1960s was the overhaul of the Canadian Food Guide. In 1961, the Canadian Food Guide rebranded itself from the Canadian Food Rules, making this information appear to be more gentle and inviting to the user. This new publication of the guide further saw a focus on nutrition in the breakdown of each of the five food groups and offered alternatives to those who may need them. By making nutritional information more inclusive, the Canadian Government provided more tools for the Canadian public to become more informed on the importance of eating healthy and obtaining nutrients. To further sell their push for nutrition, the Canadian Food Guide even went through a visual reworking as well, changing from a bland yellow colour to a multi-coloured tier system within the food groups, catching the eyes of more people. With this emphasis on health in 1961, it shows that Food Becomes You, or, Better Health through Better Nutrition was released right in the height of a historical push for better education on what people are eating. 

     Food Becomes You, or, Better Health through Better Nutrition is a cookbook which provides a window into the culture of the early 1960s. With a large movement towards a more informed public in terms of what they are eating, this cookbook was a tool that proved to be of great importance. By providing a large amount of the nutritional information needed for ingredients for its many meals, it fits well within the context of when this book was published.