Tangentially, I've heard it talked about that while the washing machine gets a lot of credit, it didn't have the effect most people think. When it was much hard

Tangentially, I've heard it talked about that while the washing machine gets a lot of credit, it didn't have the effect most people think. When it was much harder to clean clothes, people just cleaned them less, and wore dirty clothes more often. In fact, a much bigger timesaver was prepackaged food/microwave/ etc. For preparing food, there really isn't an alternative, because you have to eat every day - you can't simply eat less, as you can with the washing clothes case.