The Foods You Eat Every Day That Didn’t Exist 100 Years Ago

Walk through any kitchen and it is easy to assume everything on the shelf has been there forever. A surprising number of everyday staples are actually barely a century old, some far younger than that.

Each one came from a specific person solving a specific problem, usually with no idea it would become a permanent fixture of daily life, the kind of story that rarely gets told alongside the food itself. The stories behind them are more interesting than the foods themselves most days.

None of these existed in anything like their current form 100 years ago. Here are the everyday foods that are younger than most people ever stop to consider.

Sliced Bread

The literal standard for a great invention did not exist until 1928, when Otto Rohwedder’s bread slicing machine debuted at a bakery in Chillicothe, Missouri. Before that, every loaf of bread in America had to be sliced by hand, one piece at a time, in every single kitchen.

Instant Ramen

Momofuku Ando invented instant ramen in a small shed behind his home in Japan, reportedly sleeping only four hours a night while perfecting the recipe through trial and error, according to Newsweek.

The product, nicknamed magic ramen, launched in 1958 and later inspired Cup Noodles after Ando watched American shoppers breaking up the noodles into a cup with hot water.

Sriracha

The bottle of rooster sauce sitting on roughly half of American kitchen tables was first produced in 1980, according to Men’s Fitness. David Tran, the founder of Huy Fong Foods, began selling it out of the back of a truck in Los Angeles before it grew into the condiment now found in nearly every grocery store in the country.

Energy Drinks

The entire energy drink category is a product of the last four decades, starting when Red Bull was created in 1987 and reached international markets a decade later. Monster followed in 2002, and the category has since become a fixture of gas stations, gyms and college dorm rooms everywhere.

Greek Yogurt

The thick, strained yogurt now dominating the dairy aisle barely existed in American grocery stores before Chobani launched in 2007. What is now a multi billion dollar category was, twenty years ago, something most Americans could only find in specialty or international markets.

Avocado Toast

Avocado toast, the dish now synonymous with brunch menus everywhere, traces back to a cafe owner in Australia who added it to his menu in 1993, according to BuzzFeed. It took another two decades to become the near universal brunch order it is today.

None of these foods are ancient, ceremonial or handed down through generations, they are inventions with a specific birthday and a specific inventor. It is a good reminder that the food landscape people treat as permanent is actually changing constantly, one bottle of hot sauce or bag of instant noodles at a time.