If I recall correctly, Taubes discusses that ~1914 was a historic low point of meat consumption because the supply could not keep up with all of the demand from

If I recall correctly, Taubes discusses that ~1914 was a historic low point of meat consumption because the supply could not keep up with all of the demand from the increased immigration. So 1914 is certainly not a good baseline either. I don't think it is at all fair to say "they were already using white flour..". Much bread had very different qualities back then- more likely to be slow fermented instead of quick rise, much more likely to be local, etc. I think this misses the point anyways- the quality of food was different- you see a large increase in sweeteners in the graph, oils transitioned away from natural animal fats to industrial processed seed oils- and in general food became much more processed.