Milk, Modernity and Muscles: Raw Dairy and Bodybuilding in 1960s America

In the mid-1960s, bodybuilding coach Vince Gironda began promoting raw milk. Done alongside nutritional supplement entrepreneur Rheo H. Blair, pair claimed (unpasteurised) milk was most anabolic and ‘pure’ substance available to men. Accordingly, cream were presented as effective steroids used by bodybuilders. Studies of have often focused on manufacturing, trading politics surrounding foodstuff. Few studies associated with masculinity in same way that scholars done for meat. This article examines Blair's plans reference modernity highlights hyper-realised masculine bodies personalities linked