Meal Planning for the Family
MEAL PLANNING
involves deciding what to eat day at each meal. It takes
thought, effort and use of knowledge acquired in the earlier
chapters. As the family’s well-being and health are
dependent on how well they are fed, it is a challenge to
every meal manager to meet it.
Meal Planning
You must take into account the family members, their
ages and occupation in planning family meals.
The four steps involved in meat planning are
pictorially depicted.
1. Planning
2. Purchasing
3. Preparation
4. Serving
Objectives in Meal Planning
In planning meals your aim is:
1. to satisfy the nutritional needs of the family members,
according to their age and occupation.
2. keep expenditure within your family’s food budget.
3. to decide amounts of foods to be purchased from each food
group.
4. to consider family size and composition.
5. To consider food storage space and conditions of storage, to
decide how often you need to purchase various foods.
In order to translate the meal plan into meals that meet the
family’s needs, the following additional steps have to be
taken
6. Prepare a food purchase list, taking the food preferences of
members into account.
7. Use methods of preparation, which retain nutrients, without
sacrificing palatability.
8. Serve meals, which are appetizing and attractive and fit in
the schedule of the members.
9. Manage the time, energy and available materials efficiently,
with the help of the family members.
Nutritional Adequacy
The first prerequisite of a good meal plan is that
it should meet the nutritional needs of the whole
family. This objective can be achieved by
selecting foods according to the daily food guide
Thus each meal must include
Cereals and their products:
1. Cereals and Bread
-To provide energy and proteins.
Dals, milk, egg, fish or meat
2. Body-Building Foods
-To supply proteins, B-vitamins and
some minerals.
3-5 servings- children
5 or more servings- teenager
4 or more servings - Adult
3. Protective Vegetable and fruits
To provide vitamins A
& C, minerals and fiber.
Sugars, oils and fats
To provide energy, satiety and
improve palatability.
Food is a basic necessity of life. It is important that sufficient
part of the monetary resources are set aside to meet the food
needs of the family.
Food Costs
You must remember that the price of food is not related to its
nutritional contribution to the diet; it is ruled by the law of
demand and supply. The economics of food consumption is a
broad subject, but it is important to plan meals and buy food
wisely so that maximum benefit is derived from the money spent.
Vegetables and Fruits: Vegetables and fruits
are important sources of minerals and
vitamins. Green leafy vegetables are a rich
source of the vitamins, provitamin A, vitamin
C, and the minerals calcium and iron.
Factors Affecting Food Selection
Food Acceptance: Each one of us has certain foods we like;
certain foods we do not like. But food tastes can be cultivated.
As we move from one place to another, we can enlarge our
acquaintance of foods, by trying the foods of that place
Tradition: Most of our food selection is influenced by
tradition, be it national, regional or family traditions. A lot of
traditional selection is based on experience, but sometimes
some poor practices become part of a tradition and must be
dispensed with.
Food Misinformation: Food is an important topic of
conversation, articles in newspapers, magazines and even
books.
Other Factors Affecting Meal Planning—Skill in Food.
Preparation: Skill in food preparation is an essential part of an
acceptable, enticing meal. Skill in food preparation is acquired
by practice. Ingenious combinations improve acceptability of
foods, add to variety and thus make food enjoyable .
Variety: The enjoyment of food can be enhanced by learning
ways to prepare dishes from other regions of India and foreign
countries. If a new dish prepared once a week, the monotony in
meals is avoided.
Availability of Foods
It is important to study the seasonal variation in availability of foods.
In each season one can find some foods from each group. Using seasonal
foods reduces cost. Some vegetables and fruits can be grown in the
kitchen garden. Some foods like beans, rice, wheat can be purchased
soon after the time of harvest, when the price is reasonable, and stored
for the whole year.
Home Production: If some of the vegetables and fruits are
grown at home, these need to be used in meal planning. Some
of the fresh condiments such as coriander leaves, curry leaves,
green chilies, mint and different leafy vegetables can easily be
grown at home.
Schedules of Family Members: When planning a meal
pattern, one needs to think of the schedules (time-table) of the
family members,—meal times and the number of meals eaten at
home and those that are eaten away from home.
Family Size and Composition
The family size affects the foods that can be served. It is known that the money
spent for food per person decreases as the family size increases, when the family
income remains constant.
Family composition affects the kinds and amounts of food needed and the pattern
of meals served. For example, when children are below five years of age, more milk
is needed, the number of meals are more, as the child cannot take large amounts at a
time. As the child grows the meal pattern changes to accommodate the school hours
and the need to pack lunch or snack may arise.
Planning Process in Brief
It is necessary to plan on a monthly basis. There are five main steps in
meal planning:
1. Make a list of foods from each food group, that are available in the
market.
2. Check the prices and decide which of the foods from each group fit in
the food budget on the basis of the number of family members.
3. Estimate the day’s needs for all the family-members on the basis of the
Daily Food Guide and calculate the month’s food needs from it.
4. Make a list of foods to be purchased monthly, fortnightly, weekly and
daily.
5. Plan menus to meet the daily needs of the family .
