Meal Planning

Menu planning is an important responsibility for the homemakers. The health of the entire family depends largely on the meals she plans and prepares day after day. If you are one of the approximately thirty million American women who work outside of the home, you usually have to plan nutritious and appetizing menus for meals prepared (and often consumed) on the run.Many other factors besides time for preparation enter into menu planning, such things as the size of the family, the age of this members, their likes and dislikes, come and budget, locally and occupation.

Someone in desperation wrote recently requesting an up-to-date book with menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for each of the three hundred and sixty-five days in a year. Such books are some what rare. While it seems that a year’s menus would be an invaluable aid, they are not always practical. Good menus would for a fisherman’s family in Maine, would not fit an office worker’s in southern California; appropriate menus for a family of adults would not be suitable for family with  young children.

While all of these factors complicate the task, certain techniques and procedures make menu planning easier. Meal  planning is both a science and an art.

                   
The Science of Meal Planning

Here are some hints to help you plan effective menus. They can’t change work to play, but they can make your chore more interesting and your meals less expensive.

Have a set time for planning menus if possible, and think of each day as a unit rather than each meal separately.

Plan menus in advance. Try a weekly or several-days-in-advance menu with an accompanying market list. This saves money and times by making marketing and meal preparation more efficient. The menu plan should be flexible enough to allow you to take advantage of good buys, use leftovers, and provide for unforeseen circumstances.

Stay within your budget. The lower the allowance, the greater the challenge! You may save money by using foods in season, canning, drying, or freezing when seasonal foods are plentiful, and by preparing tasty dishes from leftovers. You can save time by doubling or tripling some recipes and freezing the extra for later use.

Use the Daily Food Guide as the basis of menu planning. Adapt the Guide to each member of your family, from the toddler to grandparents. Include dishes the whole family enjoys. Your personal preferences should not dominate the menu planning; neither should food be avoided that one person dislike.

Establish a definite menu patter. Here is a suggested basic menu pattern which translates the Daily Food Guide into three meals:

BREAKFAST	LUNCH OR SUPPER	DINNER
Fruit or juice or both Cereal with milk or toast (or hot breads) or both Egg or other protein Milk or other beverage	Protein dish Fruit or vegetable Bread, toast, or sandwich Margarine or butter Milk, hot or cold	Protein dish Vegetables Salad Bread or rolls Margarine or butter Hot or cold beverage

To avoid monotony, change the pattern of a meal now and then. Plan it around the salad or soup or have a one – dish meal plus an interesting desert.

Serve a wide selection of food from meal to meal, vary your methods of preparation, and include foods of different texture at each meal. A rule sometimes suggested is to include at each meal something soft, something crisp and chewy, and something firm.

To this could be added one food with satiety value.

Serve heaviest meals in the morning and at noon if practical. Studies of both school children and adults of all ages show that greater mental and physical efficiency result all day if a fourth to a third of the daily nutrients are included at breakfast.

It is the custom and order of society to take a slight breakfast. But this is not the best way to treat the stomach. A breakfast time the stomach is in a better condition to take care of more food at the second or third meal of the day. The habit of eating a sparing breakfast and large dinner is wrong. Make your breakfast correspond more nearly to the heartiest meal of the day.

Plan the meals around the protein dish and distribute the protein, fat, and carbohydrate throughout the day, rather than concentrating it at one. Use sparingly food such as sugar which contributes only empty calories. Use fats moderately, largely avoiding fried or greasy foods.

Maintain an up- to date recipe file. Good recipes are both convenient and time –saving in planning menus. Be on the lookout for new recipes and cooking ideas in a current periodicals, newspapers and books. With ingenuity you can vary old recipes and develop new ones. International recipes will add zest to your menus. You may use family’s favorite recipes often if you vary the other foods in the meal.

Have special menus for occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. Together with cookouts, patio meals, and picnics, they will add variety and spice to the usual routine.

                                The Art of Meal Planning

Meal planning is an art. Through not difficult, it requires thought and effort. We eat with our eyes! Beautiful and colorful foods not only increase appetite but aid digestion. Clashing or drab colors are unpleasant. For example, what is more uninteresting and unappetizing than an all white meal?

An artistic meal includes foods in a variety of shapes and textures. Try visualizing a plate with round browned potatoes, a round scoop of cottage cheese, round tiny whole Beets, and round little white onions. Even the texture is somewhat similar. Now substitute baked potatoes, sliced walnut loaf for the cottage cheese, broccoli spears for the onions. Retain the beets. Shape and texture as well as color are improved.

Seasoning is an art and adds that’s just right touch. Herbs can add a subtle, delicate flavour to many recipes but watch it! Over seasoning can spoil the dish.  Judicious use of strong and unusual flavors can be pleasing, but one such flavour at a meal is a usually sufficient.

 The aroma of a meal should be agreeable and tantalizing. The fragrance of fresh cut oranges or the whiff of baking bread, and many other savory odors, cause happy anticipation.

A garnish provides your distinctive, final touch. Nearly every food from soup to desert may be garnished. The garnish should be appropriate, and it should harmonize with the food it adorns. It does not need to be elaborate. Simple garnishes are often the most effective and may be in better taste. Endless possibilities for garnishes can be found in magazines, restaurants, at friends homes, and especially through use of your own ingenuity.

While foods are often improved in appearance by garnishing, meals may be artistic without added decoration simple because they have been planned with consideration for color, texture, shape, and flavour. The key to successful meal planning is simplicity, and the final touch to a pleasing meal is gracious service.

                                            MENU SUGGESTIONS

These menus for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper and picnis follow the Daily Food Guide pattern. ( Add margarine or butter  to bread and vegetables; use milk with hot beverages and cereals as desired.)

BREAKFASTS	LUNCH OR SUPPER	DINNER
Oranges juice Stewed prunes Seven-grain cereal Whole wheat toast Peanut butter Breakfast Cup	Bean sandwich Raw apple Cocoa	Royal salad Peas and carrots Mashed potatoes, gravy Oatmeal bread Berry pie Milk
Pineapple juice Fresh sliced peaches Shredded wheat Blueberry muffin Postum made with milk	Split pea soup Fresh strawberries 2 slices toast Milk or buttermilk	Gluten Steaks Deluxe Corn on cob Green beans Sliced tomatoes Whole wheat bread Cupcake Milk
Mixed fruit juice Boysenberry toast with whipped cream Toasted cashew nuts Hot malted milk	Brown rice with egg and curry sauce Fresh cherries Milk	Soy cheese patties Baked banana squash Buttered asparagus tips Tossed green salad Rye bread Orange cake Butter milk
½ grapefruit Ruskets with dates Cornbread Honey Cocoa	Cream of tomato soup, with crackers Cottage cheese and pineapple salad 2 slices pumpernickel bread	Mushroom nutmeat potpie Baked yams Spinach, lemon Avocado salad Rolls Apple strudel Milk
Sliced orange Baked apple Milk toast Poached egg Cereal coffee	Fresh fruit compote Nut butter and diced cucumber sandwich Ovaltine	Soymeat casserole Green peas Mashed turnips Grated carrot and coconut salad Whole wheat bread Molasses cookies Milk
Cantaloupe Canned pears Oatmeal and raisins Creamed nutmeat on zwieback Postum	Cream of potato soup with parsley flakes Orange slices and cream cheese Coconut sticks Buttermilk	Spaghetti Marzetti Tossed green salad Toasted garlic bread Angel cake and sherbet Milk
Tomato juice Apricot sauce Scrambled egg Rye toast Breakfast cup	Fresh fruit salad Glutenburger on buns Hot malted milk	Spanish lentils Baked russet potatoes Mixed greens, lemon Coleslaw Cornbread Pecan pie Milk

Picnic Lunches

1 Potato salad Baked great northern beans Sliced tomatoes and lettuce Olives Cloverleaf rolls Date chews Iced punch or hot drink

2 Baked noodles lasagne or garbanzos with dumplings Tossed salad Relishes (olives, radishes, celery, cucumbers) Garlic bread or French rolls Cantaloupe a la mode Iced punch or hot drink

House Cleaning or Washday Dinners

1 Sliced pea soup Tossed vegetable salad Garlic rye toast Milk

2 Baked beans Salad-vegetables or fruit with cottage cheese Brown bread Milk

Cookout

Roasted corn on cob Sliced tomatoes and cucumbers Roasted vegetables wieners in rolls

Watermelon Hot cocoa