NECESSITY FOR CAREFUL MEAL PLANNING
1. As every housewife realizes, the feeding of the members of her family places upon her serious and important responsibilities. While she deserves and receives credit for their good health, the blame for much of their ill health falls upon her, too. The reason for this is that illness is due in a greater measure to wrong food than to any other single factor; and even if improper diet is not directly responsible for ill health, it certainly lowers the bodily resistance and thus makes a person susceptible to disease.
The health of her family is naturally the housewife's first and greatest consideration, and as this depends so much on correct diet, it should be the aim of every housewife to plan her meals in the careful, intelligent way required to supply her household with the food each member needs.
2. As has already been learned, a knowledge of the selection, care, and preparation of food is absolutely necessary in providing proper diet. But correct feeding requires more than this. In addition, the housewife must have a working knowledge of what foods contain and their effect in the body. She must also learn what her family needs and then make every effort to supply this need in the most economical way. The result will be a sufficient amount of food of the right kind at a minimum expenditure of funds.
She should keep in mind, however, that the cost of diet has no direct relation to its food value, but that economy and proper feeding are closely connected. For instance, an inexpensive diet may be just as satisfactory from a food-value standpoint as an expensive one. But in order to make the inexpensive one adequate and the expensive one balanced, the housewife must apply her knowledge of the general composition of food; that is, she must know whether a food predominates in carbohydrate, fat, or protein, and whether or not it furnishes minerals. Equipped with such knowledge, she will be able to purchase the largest amount of nutritive material for the smallest outlay of money. The cheapest food is not always the one that sells for the lowest price per pound, quart, or bushel, but the one that furnishes the most nutritive material at the lowest cost; also, food that is the wrong kind to serve is not an economical one to purchase.
3. Many housewives regard it as unnecessary to plan beforehand and persist in preparing meals without giving any previous thought to them. But to begin thinking about an hour before meal time what to have for a meal is neither wise nor economical, for then it is too late to determine what ought to be served from a diet standpoint and there can be prepared only those foods which the time will allow. As can well be understood, this is both a disastrous plan for correct diet and a very extravagant way in which to feed a family. Quickly broiled steaks and chops, commercially canned vegetables and fruits, and prepared desserts should be the occasional treat rather than the daily food. Instead of using these constantly, time should be allowed for the preparation of the less expensive meats and vegetables and the home-made desserts.
To prepare such foods successfully requires that meals should be planned at least 24 hours before they are to be served, and in reality the main dishes should be decided on 48 hours ahead of time. Then, sometime between breakfast and luncheon and before the day's marketing is done, detailed plans should be made for luncheon and dinner of that day and for breakfast of the next. Nor should the left-overs be disregarded if economy would be the watchword in the management of the household. Rather, they should be included in the plans for each day and used up as fast as possible.