Part 48 (1/2)

Food for an invalid must always be given in its most digestible forms.

Milk is one of the most valuable foods in sickness, not only because it supplies so many body needs, but because it can be used in so many ways,--hot, or cold, flavored or plain, made into junkets or sherbets, combined with eggs in eggnogs and custards, fermented as in k.u.myss or soured as in b.u.t.termilk or zoolak. In some form or other milk can almost always be made digestible. Eggs are also of great value, not only poached or dropped and served on toast, but as dainty omelets, or in beverages, as eggnog, egg lemonade, and orangeade. Mild fruit juices, as orange, grape, or pineapple, are not only refres.h.i.+ng but of considerable fuel value. If there is no fever, chicken, lamb chops, tender broiled steak or roast beef may serve to add variety to the menu. Broths stimulate the appet.i.te and help digestion, though they are of little or no food value themselves.

Cereals, eggs, and milk may be added to increase their food value. Cereals in the form of gruels or delicate puddings, as cornstarch blancmange and tapioca cream, are easily digested. Vegetables are best given rather sparingly, and only delicate, mild-flavored ones, such as spinach or asparagus, if digestion is much disturbed. In getting an invalid to take sufficient food, much depends upon the attractiveness of the service.

Remember that very little things, like a fingermark on a gla.s.s, or coffee spilled into the saucer, may take away appet.i.te and prevent enough food being eaten. Food in small quant.i.ties and taken at more frequent intervals than in health helps towards the best results. Knowledge of what particular diet is best in different diseases comes only through careful study of the science of nutrition after much study of chemistry and physiology.

EXERCISES

1. Calculate your own energy requirement.

2. Calculate the energy requirement of your family group.

3. Find the cost for your locality of the dietary arranged from Menu No.

1.

4. Make a dietary yielding 10,000 Calories, from ten to fifteen per cent of which shall be protein calories, from Menu No. II, and calculate its cost.

5. Find out the lowest sum for which a balanced dietary could be obtained in your locality.

6. Revise the dietary from Menu No. I, so that it shall not cost over one cent per hundred Calories.

7. Plan an ideal day's dietary for yourself.

8. Plan a day's dietary for an invalid which shall yield 2000 Calories, 300 of which shall be protein Calories.

CHAPTER XIX

THE HOUSEHOLD BUDGET

The divisions of the income for which we should provide are food, shelter, including taxes and operating expenses, clothing, and the ”higher life,”

including recreation, education, and savings. The size of the income determines largely the proportion of money allotted to each division. We must be nourished and protected from the elements by shelter and clothing, and an income must at least provide for these necessities to be a living wage. Yet we justly claim something more from our income than mere existence.

In most families there is a fairly definite income. When the amount is not known it is wise to estimate upon the minimum income and have a surplus, rather than to expend too much. Seventy-five years ago things cost less and incomes were less, to-day the incomes have increased and cost of living is growing higher. The question is one to be studied relatively, and the cost of living will depend on the ratio between income and one's methods of living.

Just what other satisfactions than the merely physical are to be gratified is the great question for the woman who divides the income. The problem is naturally hardest with the smallest income, where the ”must be” crowds out the ”may be.” But there is room for choice even with the small wage.

This work of dividing the income and deciding on the ideals should be shared by the family. When the home is first started the husband and wife should discuss frankly the problems of division and should agree on the methods of expenditure. This common understanding between members of a family forms a bond of union, and each feels a greater pleasure and pride in doing his part. The fact that there is a budget and a system brings orderliness in methods of work and freedom from worry and anxiety as well as a saving of money. And this saving of money and strength is the same as an increase in income. This budget or division of expenses acts as a sailing chart and can be referred to from month to month. It should not, however, become a burden, and one should not worry if every penny is not accounted for.

Statisticians tell us that about 75 per cent of the male adults of our country earn somewhat less than $600 a year. That in large cities $900 to $1000 a year is necessary to bring up a family to live decently and enjoy human happiness. Much depends upon how this income is divided as to whether results will tend to develop efficiency in the members of such a family. As the income increases from $1000 to $5000 it is possible to apportion the income and indicate certain percentages which represent wise family expenditures so as to include the higher intellectual and emotional life as well as the physical welfare of the family.

From comparison of many budgets statisticians have worked out certain percentages that are helpful in making our decisions, although they are not to be taken as fixed rules.

=Expenditure for food.=--On examining the budgets of families having incomes from $500 to $5000, it is found that the percentage spent for food increases as the income decreases, amounting sometimes to at least 50 per cent of the income. This means that there is a limit to the money spent per capita per day for food, below which we cannot go and maintain life with even sufficient efficiency for unskilled labor. Figure 77 shows that a $900 income gives about 45 per cent to food. An expenditure of thirty cents per capita per day for food in a family of five with an income of $1500, is 36.5 per cent; _i.e._ more than one third of the total income.

Suggestions as to allowance for food in families of different incomes are contained in the tables of budgets given farther on in this chapter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 77.--Typical division of a small income. _Courtesy of Ladies' Home Journal, Oct., 1912._]

Thrift in buying and using is necessary with the small income, and highly important with the larger where we are p.r.o.ne to yield to a foolish impulse to please a whim of the palate.

=Expenditure for shelter.=--The increased cost of building and the general advance in rentals make the expenditure for shelter a large one.