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The Most Popular Junk Food From Every Decade In the 20th Century!
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Mar 31, 2025
Weird History Food is taking you on a Junk Food trip, through each decade, to see what were the most popular foods and snacks. The most impressive aspect of junk food developed throughout the 20th century is just how many of the inventions stuck around.
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Today on Weird History Food, we're talking America's favorite junk food through the decades
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So what was our nation's very first confection? Cracker Jack. Cracker Jack was sold at the Chicago World's Fair in the late 19th century
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Rapping up the arts, Hershey's chocolate began as a hairbrained enterprise by none other than popular Carmelar, Milton B. Hershey
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Before all the world wars, things were easier, especially copyright infringement. Take Oreo, one of the most popular cookies in America
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actually a direct copy of a pre-existing cookie, the hydrox. In fact, Oreo just had one major difference from its hydrox, lard
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That's right, Oreos had lard in them. Lard is what makes anything delicious
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11-year-old Frank W. Epperson accidentally invented a cold, tasty treat when he left powdered soda on his frozen front porch overnight
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with the mixing stick still stuck in the packet. In 1923, Epperson patented his creation, the Epsicle
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which his children helpfully redubbed the popsicle. Harry Burnett Reese was a Hershey dairy farmer and foreman
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who had his own idea for a delicious bowl-shaped candy in 1928
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and left to make his dream a reality. His peanut butter cups were an immediate smash hit
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and after he died, his six sons sold their dad's product to Hershey's
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for shares worth billion It was Frank Mars who introduced the world to his son chocolate concept the Milky Way The Milky Way opened the soft nugut floodgates
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and Mars perfected the practice with his 1930 stickers bar. Followed two years later
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by three musketeers. Milk's in your mouth, not in your hand. Wasn't just someone trying to be cute
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in Eminem's slogan department. The 1941 confection resulted from a wartime necessity
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as Mars began producing hard-coated candies that could withstand overseas travel and store for the troops
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The end of World War II meant a boom season for a McDonald's, Jack in the Box, Taco Bell, and Kentucky Fried Chicken all became household names
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McKee Foods entered the ring in 1960 with their individually wrapped Little Debbie snack cakes, which to this day has kept its nostalgic packaging
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The 1970s was a banner decade for snack foods. Pringles wowed the potato chip world, ring pops became a fashionable treat in 1975
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Pop rocks were another curiously-crackly carbonated creation only the 70s could have produced
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When Reese's pieces came onto the scene in 1980, it was viewed as the red-headed stepchild in the Reese's dynasty
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That all changed in 1982 when the snacks were featured in E.T. the extraterrestrial
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What better treat for the end of the snack century than Dunkeroo's
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Betty Crocker's mad experiment that flew in the face of conventional cookie frosting logic
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Two fruity fan favorites during the 90s were also Betty Crocker. originals, fruit by the foot and gushers
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