223. Cheap And Costly Meals

There has previously been given (see p. 209) examples of food combinations that were presented as types of an efficient and economical diet. The meals suggested are simple according to present standards of living but are much more elaborate than the diet upon which countless numbers of men and women have been well nourished. The table which follows gives the quantities of raw materials which these menus would require to feed a family of six persons for one day, and there is also shown the actual nutriment supplied with its cotft: -

Table XXXVII. No. 1 A Day's Supply Of Food For A Family Of Six Persons

The above are examples of materials sufficient for eighteen meals for one person that are simple in character, easy to prepare, nutritious and inexpensive. Such a diet would support an average-sized person at moderate labor and is greatly abundant for professional men or those doing office work. Many similar food combinations could be arranged, equally nutritious and economical. It is possible to criticize the food supply in these two menus on the ground that it lacks both fruit and succulent vegetables. While the healthfulness of fresh fruit and vegetables must be conceded, and when the family means justify it, they should be included in the dietetic scheme, it is also indisputable that they do not furnish economical nutrition. Limited means predicate their limited use, especially when they must be bought in a city market.

In contrast to the foregoing examples of simple and inexpensive diet are the two following dinner menus, one of which is much more elaborate than the other:

Dinner No.

Oysters on half-shell

Clear soup

Broiled chicken

Mashed potatoes Turnip

Celery Cranberry jelly

Lettuce salad

Saltines

Chocolate ice cream

Cake Coffee

Cheese Crackers

Salted nuts

Dinner No. 2

Clear soup

Baked bhiefish

Mashed potatoes

Cucumber and tomato salad

Saltines

Sliced fruit Cookies

Coffee

It is estimated by an experienced dietitian that approximately the following supply of raw materials would be needed for the two dinners, the cost of which is given in Table XXXVIII. Reference to Table XXXVI shows that these dinners are made up of raw materials that in most instances are costly in proportion to the nutriment they supply. In addition to this the number of courses, especially in No. 1, requires a great variety of raw materials, and the labor of preparation and serving is correspondingly large. Such meals are consistent only with the possession of generous means, unless the expenditures of the family are to be unwisely distributed among its real needs.

Table XXXVIII Two Dinners Compared

It seems that, for dinner No. 1, it would take twenty-six kinds of raw material, and for dinner No. 2, eighteen kinds.

The cost per person for the raw materials of dinner No. 1 would be $0.58 and for dinner No. 2 $0,305. The one meal is nearly twice as expensive as the other, not reckoning the extra labor of preparing. The contrast with two days' simple diet previously given, where cost of the raw materials per person for one day was $0.17 and $0.19, is still more marked, with no disadvantage in the simple fare as to nutritive efficiency and a probable advantage as to health. 224. Rational food selection. - Several objections may be raised to gauging the values of human food by the number of calories bought for one dollar. In the first place, it may be said that the edible solids of one food are greatly unlike those of another food and may be more important in trie animal economy, as, for instance, beefsteak has more protein than wheat flour, and will go farther in sustaining tissue growth or repairing tissue waste. This is granted, but it is still held that cheese or milk is a cheaper source of protein than fresh fish, oysters, lobster, or broiler chickens, and that the necessary protein supply may be selected with reference to economy. It may be urged with truth, too, that with adults food is very largely used to furnish energy, and may consist chiefly of non-nitrogenous materials, and that energy from wheat flour is as efficient, if not more so, and costs greatly less, when it comes from this source rather than from lake trout or green string beans. Other objections to these mathematical measurements of food values are that we should not be confined to a few articles of diet simply because they are cheap, that we should consider the enjoyment of eating as well as the economy, that individual tastes differ, that some persons cannot digest certain foods with comfort, and that health demands a variety in the diet, including vegetables and fruit which are comparatively costly. These are facts that should be admitted, but they are not necessarily obstacles to the practice of economy in selecting food. There is a sufficient variety of the desirable and less costly materials to satisfy fully the demands of a normal appetite, individual idiosyncrasies, or the requirements of good health. Moreover, it is not rational for families of moderate means to indulge in table luxuries on a par with rich dress fabrics, Turkish rugs, or expensive furniture. Good judgment calls for restraint of table indulgence as much as of the desire for social display.

It is admitted that a variety of food is essential to the best dietetic results, and that the table cannot be wholly supplied with the cheaper materials. It is necessary to use some foods that are comparatively costly. This does not annul the fact, however, that the palatableness and nutritive effectiveness of two dietaries may be entirely out of proportion to their cost, due wholly to a wiser selection of raw materials in one case than in the other. At the same time, the writer disclaims any sympathy with those extremists who point out the low relative cost of cuts of beef from the neck of the carcass as showing how cheaply a family may secure a meat supply, or who set forth dietary plans based wholly on the cheapest materials that can be selected. These devices are consistent with poverty, but do not meet the real needs of fairly well-to-do families.