Based on an innovative bridge between Schumpeter and Braudel, applied to a thorough empirical and theoretical work, Fernando Collantes delivers in this book not only a detailed account of the Spanish diet since the 1950s, but also a challenging account of the long term evolution of a major factor for all societies: the access and quality of food. This is nothing less than a new vision of the material roots of historical evolution, conflicts and innovation.

Francisco Louçã, University of Lisbon, Portugal

This book addresses a big issue through the lens of milk and dairy products: how societies in Western consumer capitalism have changed dietary patterns. The author adopts an original approach that integrates domains such as macroeconomics, microeconomics and consumer culture. This book will be relevant not only for historically interested readers but also for citizens engaged in current debates on sustainable food.

Ernst Langthaler, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

An excellent work. This rigorous and comprehensive analysis of milk and dairy products, and their two models of consumption in contemporary Spain, offers an in-depth study of their fundamental role in the evolution, transformation, and globalisation of the Spanish diet within the context of modern nutritional transition.

Xavier Cussó, Associate Lecturer of Economic and Social History, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

This book reflects on the dramatic secular sequence of the rise and fall of good nutrition in Spain, through the study of the evolution of dairy consumption. Its analysis masterfully demonstrates how, starting from a low nutritional level and minimal dairy consumption, there was a phase of widespread consumption of industrial milk (1950-90), followed by a period (1990-2020) where dairy consumption diversified into other derived products, although total dairy consumption declined, and the initial poor nutritional level was resumed. Public policies need to be implemented in response, and this careful research contributes significantly to that discussion.

Luis German, Professor of Economic and Social History, University of Zaragoza

This book revolutionizes our understanding of modern diets, revealing how economic and cultural changes have transformed nutrition in Spain and highlighting the urgent need for public policies to ensure healthy eating. Written in an accessible and rigorous manner, it offers valuable insights for all those interested in nutrition and public health, and thus will be appreciated by both specialists and the general public. A fundamental book.

José Miguel Martínez Carrión, Professor of Economic and Social History, University of Murcia

It is inevitable to recall Sidney Mintz's Sweetness and Power when reading Fernando Collantes. Just as sugar was the guiding thread for the anthropologist to explain social changes, Collantes reviews the dietary changes in our history through milk. An excellent piece of work, meticulously handling data and arguments, which makes us reflect on how much we have changed in Spain, but also on what remains to be done in a global society where food, in this case milk, no longer circulates as sustenance but merely as another commodity.

Cecilia Diaz Méndez, Professor of Sociology, University of Oviedo