Looking through this book, I realized why folks were skinny in the 50s: food was mostly unappetizing crap.
Take this suggestion from the "Ideas for making more kinds of candies and ready-in-a-hurry cookies" page:"Eat-right-away Cookies...Mix 2 tablespoons honey with 1/2 cup coconut. Spread on 12 salted crackers. Put on a cooky sheet and bake in a 375 [degree] oven for about 7 minutes."
This coconut and honey concoction spread onto saltines sounds like something that might be whipped up late at night in a dorm room by someone with an eating disorder who's spent all the spending money, not like something that should be in a cookbook.
Other winning dishes include "Super soup" (a mixture of 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup, 1 can condensed vegetable-beef soup, 1 can milk, and 1 can water) and "Magic white-sauce supper" (can you say "shit on a shingle"?).
NOTE: My copy of this book comes from the FreeCycle Windfall and has no ISBN (that I could find). Mine is a revised edition from 1963, first published in 1955.