National Nutrition Month® is a nutrition education campaign created by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and held annually in March.
What better way to kick off National Nutrition Month than to take a look at the Food Science and Human Nutrition history here at Iowa State University.
The Food and Nutrition curriculum was a part of the domestic economy courses of 1872. Mary B. Welch was the organizer and head of the Department of Domestic Economy at Iowa State from 1875 to 1883. Mrs. Welch taught from her life experiences and self-study, as well as from her study of cosmetic science at various institutions. She was also the wife of Adonijah Welch, the first president of Iowa State College (University). You can view some of her papers and her cookbook online in our Digital Collections.
The Department of Household Science was established in 1918. Food and Nutrition first appeared in the college catalog in 1924-25 under the Home Economics program.
The name was changed to the Department of Food and Nutrition in 1953. The Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition was created in 1991 as the result of the merger of the Departments of Food and Nutrition in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and Food Technology in the College of Agriculture. The merged department was jointly administered by both Colleges. The department offered courses in consumer food science, dietetics, food science and technology, and nutritional science.
On July 1, 2005, the College of Education and the College of Family and Consumer Sciences combined to become the College of Human Sciences. The planning phase of the combination was completed in the fall of 2004. The department continues to be jointly administered by the College of Human Sciences and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
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