FOOD PREPARATION 277 



FOOD PEEPAEATION AND ITS EELATION TO THE DE- 

 VELOPMENT OF EFFICIENT PEESONALITY 

 IN THE HOME 1 



Br LAURA CLARKE ROCKWOOD 



IOWA CITT, IOWA. 



Introduction 



THE main purpose of this paper is to show something of the manner 

 in which woman's work in the home in regulating and arranging 

 the diet of her family may help or hinder their harmonious vital, 

 mental, moral and social development as well as her own, through her 

 ability or inability to make use of the accumulated knowledge of con- 

 ditions necessary for human welfare. 



The purpose also is to show if possible the importance of greater 

 knowledge of what is best for individual welfare on the part of home- 

 makers to whom is intrusted the first and early care of the potential 

 citizen or the social personality with its varied phenomena of vitality, 

 mentality, morality and sociality. 



Vitality is fundamental. "Without good health we can not expect 

 the highest mental development. Without good health and the vital 

 conditions which produce it we can not expect a high morality. With- 

 out good health and the sense of well being which accompanies it, we 

 can not expect a deep sense of sociality or social sympathy. 



Two factors operate to produce vitality, i. e., heredity and hygiene. 

 Within the limits of this paper heredity has no place. One phase alone 

 of hygiene will be discussed. The hygienic methods of improving 

 vitality may be classed in three groups — public hygiene or the activities 

 of government, such as general sanitary measures; semi-public hygiene 

 or the activities of the medical profession and institutions such as hos- 

 pitals; and personal hygiene or the private life of the individual and 

 family. 



The subject of personal hygiene has three main divisions : nutrition 

 or suitable foods; environment — air, soil, clothing, dwellings and so 

 on, and activity or the proper balance between work, play and sleep. 

 Still another element in personal hygiene concerns the sex relation. 

 These divisions of the subject of personal hygiene are closely bound 

 together in their importance to human welfare. Yet food is the pri- 

 mary essential of the human organism. Food, then, is the phase of 



1 The writer wishes to express her sense of obligation in the preparation of 

 this paper to the department of sociology and economics and the department of 

 chemistry of the State University of Iowa. 



