Why We Couldn't Get Enough Of Instant Pudding In The 1970s - Tasting Table

"Instant pudding exemplified the post-war food shift toward ultra-convenient food. Canned goods. TV dinners. Anything requiring less than 10 minutes to prepare became the gold standard for American pantries. Women were joining the workforce in growing numbers, and with the entire family either at work or at school for the whole day, families could no longer afford the time to cook meals from scratch. It was against this backdrop that boxed desserts like instant pudding found a big, grateful audience."

"Just milk and a whisk, and five minutes later, your dessert is ready. Compared to the hours it would take to make a simple, ungarnished vanilla pudding from scratch, the gap in convenience between the two was enormous. That's how these pudding mixes made their way into people's pantries and eventually became a staple - finding one back then in someone's kitchen would be like finding a box of cereal. Today, though? That'd be considered a novelty."

"After a brief resurgence in the 2000s, consumer preferences did a complete 180. From convenient food, people now actively search for everything fresh and natural. The very convenience that was once a big selling point for instant pudding became a liability as parents began to scrutinize, then promptly reject all the modified starches, artificial colors, and preservatives printed on every sachet. The decline was quiet and undramatic."

Instant pudding became a pantry staple in the 1970s by offering fast, cheap desserts that required only milk and a whisk. Working parents and the post-war appetite for ultra-convenient canned and TV-dinner style foods drove rapid adoption. The mix drastically reduced preparation time compared with homemade puddings, making it as common as boxed cereal. Consumer preferences shifted by the 2000s toward fresh, natural ingredients. Parents began scrutinizing and rejecting modified starches, artificial colors, and preservatives, turning convenience into a liability and causing a quiet decline in instant pudding's popularity.

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