Foods and household management

Attention to the art of menu making not only helps to make the diet easier to digest, but also better balanced. Foods which are similar in color, flavor, and texture, like potatoes and rice, are not artistic in combination, and it is better to substitute for one of them a green vegetable, or meat, or butter, in which case we get a better balance, as more ash, protein, or fat would then be included with the starch of the rice or potato. In making the bill of fare it is a great mistake to consider each meal by itself alone. If we do so, some days are likely to be very high in fuel, while others may be very low. Then, too, the impression left from one meal carries over to the next. We do not care to see on the dinner table the same foods that we saw at luncheon. Our love of variety is one of nature's ways of seeing to it that we get different kinds of foodstuffs in our diet. Variety stimulates appetite, but this does not mean a great variety at one meal. The truest variety is obtained by a few well-selected dishes at each meal. If we do not exhaust our resources on one meal, we shall be able to have a greater range of foods in the course of a week. A hotel may have fifty or sixty items on its bill of fare, but after a few days one feels as if there were a great sameness, because all of them are impressed on the mind at each meal and every day. Dietaries. — A dietary, as we shall use the term here,^ is a statement of the food requirements of a person or group of persons for a day or spme other definite length of time, with a selection of foods to satisfy this requirement. The first part of a family dietary will have to be calculated according to the age, weight, and occupation, as stated on pages 299-303. When complete, it will stand somewhat like this: Food Requirements Members of Family Age Weight Pounds Total Calories Protein Calories Man Woman .... Giri Boy Boy 268-402 216-^24 220-330 225^^338 160-240 Total requirement! 10,890 1089-1634 1 Observations of the food eaten by individuals or groups of people are also called dietary studies, whether the observed dietary is such as to satisfy the food requirement or not. In selecting food to satisfy these requirements it is a good plan to make first a list of those foods that need to be included in the day's dietary, no matter what the particular menu may be. This will include foods for growth where there ai'e children, special dishes needed if any one is sick, and those common foods which we are accustomed to include in every day's menu, such as bread and butter., For the family which we are considering, this list will stand somewhat as follows : Food 100-Calosxb Pobtions Milk 20 M6 for each child, the rest for the adults) Cereal 5 Eggs (for children) 2 (counting } portion per egg) Fruit 5 Green vegetable 2 Meat or meat substitute .... 5 Bread 15 Butter 15