1358 The Cornell Reading-Courses 



would give as good results? (6) Am I qualified to judge this article on 

 its real merits? 



The housekeeper must be more than a critical purchaser, she must be 

 an analytical one. If she finds herself not qualified to make a certain 

 purchase, she must, for once, do the best she can and then hasten to 

 qualify. 



THE REAL COST OF FOOD 



The price paid for food must not be measured solely in terms of dollars 

 and cents. Food purchased at small cost is cheap only when it is capable 

 of maintaining the body in a high state of efficiency. If it fails in this, 

 it is an extravagance far more subtle than the open, careless spending 

 of money, for it is hard to trace increased doctors' bills, lessened power of 

 accomplishing work, and earl} 7- deterioration to an extravagantly cheap 

 dietary. 



This does not mean that food procured at low cost may not furnish 

 an efficient dietary, nor that the purchase of expensive foods will insure 

 right nutrition. It merely indicates that the money value of a food 

 must not be the only determining factor in the inclusion of that food 

 in the dietary. 



If, then, the real cost of food is to be determined, the food must be put 

 in the witness box and questioned as has been previously suggested. The 

 housekeeper must learn what is the purpose of each food, in what way 

 the food meets the body's needs, whether it is necessary to the welfare 

 of the family, whether some other food could supply the same needs at a 

 lower money cost. She must know both food values and human needs, 

 and must be able to interpret one in terms of the other and to keep expendi- 

 tures within the family income. It takes no mean intelligence and no 

 little thought to provide an efficient dietarj'' on a small income. Wisdom 

 and common sense in the choice of foods for the family table have a double 

 commercial value, in that they not only reduce the cost of living but also 

 diminish the risk of lowered efficiency through wrong nutrition. 



KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY TO INSURE PROPER PLANNING OF THE DIETARY 



The ability to purchase foods wisely and well, to plan meals that shall 

 be at once gratifying, satisfying, and fundamentally right, does not come 

 by instinct nor is it to be acquired in a moment. Like any good piece 

 of work, it requires time and study, thought and effort, to make it success- 

 ful. The following outline of body needs and food functions is intended 

 to indicate only in the briefest way some of the food problems that the 

 housekeeper faces, and to show one method of judging the value of the 

 food that is so important a part of family welfare. Without a little of 

 this knowledge the housekeeper is really groping blindly. 



