THE planning and preparation of meals is a very important subject for housewives and other people who work with food. The way in which a food is prepared can determine whether or not it will be eaten. Depending on how you look at it, menu making may be lots of fun or lots of hard work. The truth is, it is just as easy to serve attractive, tasty meals as it is to fix the same old dreary tokwa day in and day out. In planning meals, there are several points to consider.
They are:
(1) nutritional value,
(2) palatability,
(3) economy,
(4) sanitary quality,
(5) variety, and
(6) the individual likes and dislikes of each member of your family. Nutritive value is an important point to consider in meal planning.
We eat mainly for health, not for pleasure alone. Therefore, care should be taken that all of the necessary nutrients are present in our food. In making menus, it would be well to use the "Basic Six" as a guide.
The Basic Six
1. Leafy green and yellow vegetables, and fruits: one or more daily (1 serving-1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw).
Examples—malunggay, kangkong, kamote tops, pechay, squash (fruit, flowers and leaves), ampalaya leaves, spinach, mangoes, carrots, sitao and cabbage.
2. Vitamin C-rich foods: one or more servings daily (medium-sized fruit, or one slice of a big fruit).
Examples—guava, papaya, orange, kala-mansi, pomelo, raw cabbage, tomatoes, balimbing, ampalaya, ratiles, straw-berries, lacatan, pineapple.
3. Succulent fruits and vegetables:-2 or more daily (1 serving-1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw). Examples—santol, chico, kaimito, duhat, egg-plant, chayote, patola, upo, cucumber, radish, watermelon, avocado, ba-nana.
4. Fat-rich foods:-3 tablespoons daily. Examples—butter, margarine, coconut milk, coconut, coconut oil and chocolate.
5. Protein-rich foods:-1. gluten, meat, fish and poultry-3 servings daily (one serving as big as a matchbox); 2. eggs—two to three a week; 3. milk-3 to 4 cups daily for children, 2 cups daily for adults; 4. legumes-1/2 cup cooked; 5. nuts-3 tablespoons daily. Examples—gluten, meat, fish, poultry, eggs, mongo, patani, kadyos, tokwa, soybeans, tapilan, milk and garbanzos.
6. Rice and other carbohydrate-rich foods:—four or more daily (1 serving-1 cup packed, cooked). Examples—rice, corn, kamote, gabi, bread, kamoteng-kahoy, oatmeal, cake, cookies, potatoes.
Other Pointers
Palatability is another factor to consider in menu-making. This includes both the taste and the appearance of the food. For example, brewer's yeast contains many of the B-vitamins but it tastes horrible to many people. The palatability of brewer's yeast can be improved by masking its disagreeable flavor with fruit juices, milk, or cocoa. It can also be added to mock meat loaf or patties. One of the most important things to consider in meal planning is economy. We need to realize that expensive foods are not necessarily the most nutritious, and neither are cheap foods necessarily lacking in the proper nutrients. For example, instead of buying strawberries, at pro-hibitive prices, for your vitamin C, why not use oranges or kalamansi instead. A glass of kalamansi juice for breakfast certainly is cheaper than a bowl of strawberries. Wise substitution in foods will leave you more money with which to buy other foods. In planning your menu, use fruits and vegetables which are in season. This way, you will be getting the best quality for the least money. If you have any leftover food, try to serve it in a different form so that the family will have no qualms about eating it. Do not serve too many kinds of food at one meal. Rice, two vegetables and one protein dish plus milk or some other beverage is enough. Dessert should be optional.
You as a housewife or cook should take care that the sanitary qual-ity of the food is preserved. It is a rather unpleasant task to eat food that has had six-legged visitors all over it. Unsanitary methods in the handling and preparation of food can cause disease and even death. All fruits and vegetables should be carefully washed after purchase. If you live in a house that has unscreened windows and doors, by all means keep the food covered until serving time so that the flies will have no opportunity to step on it. These safety measures are very simple to take, yet by following them you will save a lot on doctor's bills.
Variety in Meal Planning Variety is sometimes the biggest factor in determining whether a meal will be a success or not.
There are several ways of adding variety to meals. Here are some pointers toward that end:
1. Don't repeat the same kind of food in one meal. If you are having a tokwa-gluten loaf for dinner, do not serve adobong tokwa as well.
2. Try to avoid using only one type of foodstuff in one meal: A menu consisting of rice, macaroni salad, potatoes and cookies is bad because all of these foods are rich in carbohydrates. As has been stated in the chapter on good nutrition, a proper meal should be 10 to 15 percent protein, 25 to 35 percent fat and 50 to 60 percent carbohydrates.
3. Avoid serving more than one strong-flavored food in one meal. If you are serving radish kilawin, then save the gluten curry for another meal. The opposite of this should also be avoided. Too many bland foods taken together are unappetizing.
4. Combine flavors. A contrast in flavors is always good and certainly adds to the variety of the menu. Try using bland foods to complement tangy ones, sweet foods to contrast sour.
5. Use sauces and relishes to add to the flavor of a dish, but do not mask its original flavor. Just the right amount of catsup can do wonders for a meat loaf, but too much catsup can drown it.
6. Be particular about serving-temperatures. If the soup is meant to be hot, serve it HOT, and if ice cream is on the menu, serve it COLD. Nothing is more unappetizing than lukewarm soup or runny ice cream.
7. Provide attractive color combinations. A meal of mashed potatoes, Spanish rice, and cauliflower is monotonous in appearance. Try using complimentary colors such as red, green, yellow and white. Color can also be added by using garnishes such as red and green pepper rings, kin-chay, celery or peanuts.
8. Contrast textures and consistency. Don't serve a meal consisting of arroz caldo, creamed chopped gluten, mashed potatoes and pudding. Try to have something chewy like gluten steaks, something soft such as mashed squash, and something hard like peanut brittle.
9. Vary the shapes of food. Try to have a variety of shapes—round, square, etc.—on the plates. It would be rather odd to serve whole kernel corn, baked beans, rice and kadyos all at the same time.
10. Plan your menus according to the season. Piping hot soup will not be welcomed if served on a hot night in April, but it would be a nice addition to a meal in December. Likewise, cold frosty pineapple juice is not very amusing early on Christmas day. The likes and dislikes of each family member should be carefully considered when you plan your menus. If Junior likes fried tokwa but the rest of the family hates it, find something else that will satisfy every-one. Don't make your family eat something just because it is good for them.
Good substitutions can be made with a little imagination. Here, however, we should take care that we don't cater to the whims of one member and ignore the others. With so many foods to choose from, it should be easy to please everyone.
Have a Good Breakfast One of the meals that needs the most careful planning is breakfast. Since it should be the heaviest meal of the day, the housewife should make sure that it contains all of the necessary nutrients. One mistake that is very commonly committed nowadays is the skipping of breakfast or the eating of too light a breakfast. Too many people eat nothing but one or two pieces of pandesal with one cup of rice coffee for breakfast because they are in a hurry. Then when they feel run-down at about ten o'clock, they wonder why. There are two things that should be done so that an adequate breakfast can be had.
(1) Wake up early and
(2) plan simple, easy-to-prepare but balanced menus.
Breakfast should include a protein food such as egg or milk, cereal or bread, or both, and beverage. If a good source of vitamin C is included, the day's allowance is assured. Variety can be added in many ways. Cereals can be hot or cold and so can the bread. Bread may vary from plain white to griddle cakes to pandesal or ensaymada. For beverage you could have milk, cocoa, rice coffee or Postum, and your vitamin C source can be anything from orange juice to pomelo sections.
Saving Time Wise use of time spent in preparing meals can mean more time left for other activities and chores. Time is like money.
It needs to be budgeted if you are to make the best use of it. Here are some suggestions which may help:
1. When you make menus, make enough for the whole week. This will also save marketing time for you.
2. Shop when the markets are less crowded so that you will not spend too much time in pushing and shoving around the stalls.
3. Plan simple easy-to-prepare meals which are suitable for all ages. Do not cater to the individual whims of each member of the family
4. Plan a work schedule for each day. If you write down all of your activities you will notice that there are many instances where time can be saved.
5. Arrange your kitchen tools and utensils in the order in which you will use them. Keep the most used items nearest your work area. For example, potholders should be as near the stove as possible. Never mind if they look very cute over the sink; they are quite useless there. A good breakfast is important to everyone—student, office worker, or those who work at heavy labor.
6. Prepare similar items together. If you are planning on more than one recipe that calls for garlic, pound and peel all the garlic you need at one time. Just set the extra aside till you begin on the second recipe.
7. If you have only one measuring cup, measure your dry ingredients before the liquid or the shortening. The time you would have spent in washing the cup can be used for something else. 8. Wash your utensils and tools right after using so that they will be ready for using again. It is very irritating to find the frying pan full of water just when you need it badly. Also, if you allow your kettle to stand after using it, the food will dry in it and you will have to spend precious minutes in scraping.
Common Errors One of the most frequent errors concerning food is noticed at parties and get-togethers. Every hostess wants to be a good cook, and she out-does herself in preparing food. The result? Too much food. Very frequently, the food leans heavily toward the protein and carbohydrate side. Here is a sample of a bad menu: Gluten fritada, pancit, adobo, lumpia, rice, puto, conchinta, bibingka and suman. What do you notice about this? That's right. Very little, if any at all, of vegetables.
Listed below are some of the more common errors. Also given are ways to avoid them.
1. Many people cook vegetables until they are overdone. When a vegeta-ble is overdone, it gets soggy, out-of-shape and loses its color. It also loses the vitamins present in it. Why don't we try following the Japanese practice of cooking vegetables in just a little water, and taking them out while they are still crisp. Try drinking the water the vegetables were cooked in. It's delicious and what is more, it contains the vitamins that were lost from the vegetables.
2. "No, Junior," says Lola Ticay, "you can't have any kalamansi juice. You've just finished drinking your milk. If those two are together in your stomach, the milk will solidify and you will have a stomach-ache." This is funny. So what if the milk solidifies? It is really supposed to do just that because of the action of the hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Lola Ticay should be glad that Junior shows an interest in kalamansi juice because it will provide him with vitamin C.
3. "Eggs with white shells are more nutritious than those with brown." How many times have you heard that statement? There is no reason why shell color should determine the nutritive value of an egg. Brown-shelled eggs have the same nutritive value as white-shelled ones.
4. Expectant mothers refuse to eat singkamas and tomatoes because they are "cold." What is wrong with cold foods? Anyway, even if the mother were to eat ice cream, its passage down the alimentary tract would warm it so that by the time it got to the stomach it would no longer be cold.
5. Brown rice is only for poor people. White rice is better. True? Or false? You decide. White rice has been refined until the outer covering has been completely taken off. That is why it is so shiny and white. But—many of the B vitamins are in that outer covering. The brown unpolished rice still has the outer covering. Now, answer: Which is better?
6. "Milk is fattening." This is a fallacy. No particular food is fattening. Overeating is what fattens people because the extra calories are turned into adipose tissue. Actually, milk is very necessary in the diet because of the calcium it provides.
7. Nana Emang threw a big party on her sixteenth birthday. All of her friends and relatives came and helped to diminish the piles of food on the table. What was on the table? Chicken adobo, fried chicken, boiled chicken, fritada, menudo, kaldereta, atchara, puto, bibingka, cochinta, sinukmani, suman, and plenty of rice. What's wrong with this menu? It leans too heavily on the protein and carbohydrate side. All of the main dishes are protein and all of the dessert is carbohydrate. This is one instance where a knowledge of variety in foods is necessary. Vegetables could be substituted for some of the meat dishes, and fruit for some of the desserts.
Staying Quality of Food In planning meals, include those foods that give a feeling of satisfaction that lasts nearly to the next meal. The staying quality is dependent upon the rate of digestion of the food and the rapidity of its passage through the digestive tract. The form and composition of the food determine its staying quality. Protein foods and foods cooked in fat are high in their satiety value or staying quality. Carbohydrates, fruits, vegetables and liquids are rather low. Indoor workers such as housewives, teachers, students, and young children who stay at home need food that has a moderate staying quality. People who work outdoors or do manual labor indoors need food with a high staying quality.
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