The national civilizatory project of the Institute of Nutrition of the University of Brazil (1946-1960)

Abstract

The role of the Institute of Nutrition of the University of Brazil as a place of generation of scientific and political ideas is analysed through research in articles published in its scientific journal Brazilian Archives of Nutrition (Arquivos Brasileiros de Nutrição) during the period 1944-1960. Those ideas stressed the correct feeding of the public as a means of raising Brazil as a State, in close dialogue with key interpretations and theories, originated in the Brazilian social and political thought, which tried to explain the national specificities and potentialities. The historical hunger in Brazil, according to the ideas vehiculated by the Institute, consisted in the major national issue, and was responsible for all the other problems of the country – such as diseases, low labor productivity, lack of a political role for the people, and underdevelopment – and was determined by socioeconomic causes and absence of protectiveness by the State. Taking the underfeeding as the epicenter of the other national problems, those ideas offered up an alternate explanation to those already belonging to the traditions of the Brazilian social thought, and have been formulated with the help of intellectual elaboration of new theoretical elements of understanding of Brazil. Remaking Brazil by the resolution of its barbarism/civilization dichotomy, according to an orchestration of knowledge, rights, education, and new habits – through feeding – would consist in a task to be driven by the rationality of modern science inspiring social progress, and through changes in society led by the State.