5th Part
Q What is a Budget? Explain the factors that influence the food expenditure of a family. 2+8
Q Define the term 'Budget'. Discuss the factors that will influence a family food budget. 5
Q What are the factors which influence expenditure in a food budget ? 8
A A budget is a written-down plan of how the money available to you is going to be used to meet the needs of the family. The expenditure on food and the ways and means by which it can be kept within the limits of the family's income without compromising on the nutritive value as well as the palatability of the meals consumed is called food budgeting.
Factors influencing food expenditure of a family - 6
# The income of the family: There is a basic minimum amount that one spends on food in order to live healthily and work. People with a lower income spend a greater percentage of their income on food. On the other hand, people with a higher income spend a lower percentage of it on food. However, the quality of food also varies between different income groups. In the lower-income group, money is spent on cheaper foods like cereals and among cereals, cheaper cereals like bajra and jowar. These are the foods that provide most of the calories in this income group. In the higher income group, superior quality of cereals is used which are more costly, like basmati rice and sharbati wheat.
The size of the family: Size of the family has a direct correlation with the food expenditure. Expenditure on food is high if there are more number of people in a family. However, the expenditure per person declines as the number of people increases in the family.
Current food prices: The food prices in the market has a direct influence on the food budget. If food prices are low, we spend less money on food. When food prices rise our expenditure on food also increases. Keeping current food prices in mind is essential when preparing a food budget.
The nearness of the family to the source of food supply: - The cost of food in areas of its production is very much lower than the cost of the food in the city or town market, because (1) we are paying for the transport of food from the place where it is produced to the market.
(2) you are paying for the damage to the food in transport - some eggs might break, some fruits and vegetables would get spoilt.
(3) you are paying for the rent of the market area, and
(4) you are providing income to the people who make a living by selling foods in the city markets. All these factors add substantially to food prices.
Opportunity for home production and processing of foods: Production and processing of certain food items using kitchen equipment at home not only helps to reduce the expenditure on food but also improves the quality of meals consumed. Growing vegetables, particularly the green leafy ones like spinach, amaranth, mint and coriander in your garden, and preparing jams, jellies, butter, tomato sauce, tomato puree, all kinds of squashes, pickles and papads at home saves a lot of money in addition to improving the quality of the meals.
The relative interest of the family in food and in other commodities - To some people what they eat matters a lot. They are particular about the quality of food as well as its nutritional value. Some, on the other hand, are satisfied by getting enough of the right kind of foods. Yet there are others who might spend essential food-money on non-food items such as clothing.
Q Explain the factors which can bring economy in the food budget. 8
Q Explain the role of food budgeting in keeping expenditure on food within the limits of one's income. 10
Q Briefly explain the three important factors that you will adopt to economize on your
food expenditure. 7
Q List the factors you would adopt to bring economy in food budget 4
A 1. KNOWLEDGE OF NUTRITION: The study of nutrition help us to assess the nutritional requirements of each member of our family, and plan the food budget in such a way that it takes care of nutritional needs of each member of the family. In order to get maximum satisfaction out of the money which is spent on food, we should avoid food items with little or no nutritional value. If and when we do buy such food items it should be for a specific purpose, and only after taking care of the basic nutritional needs.
2. INTELLIGENT BUYING: 8
a) Prices and quality available in different markets:- In order to purchase food items at the cheapest price and of good quality, one should assess the auction markets and the wholesale markets as they are cheaper. The same is true of the weekly markets in small towns or on the outskirts of the cities.
b) Bulk buying is cheaper: Any item when bought in bulk or in large quantity costs less per unit. For example, the cost of onions per kilogram when you buy only one or two kilograms is more in comparison when you buy a whole sack of 50 kilograms. However, one needs to have the storage space and required knowledge to store such items when bought in bulk. In addition, we also need extra money for buying such large quantities at a time. Moreover, the bulk purchase is recommended especially for non-perishable items like cereals, pulses, sugar and oils. It should be done during the season when quality and prices are at its best.
c) Seasonal buying is cheaper: Every food item is cheaper in the season than out of it. This is particularly true of fruits and vegetables. For example tomatoes, in the tomato season, they are very cheap as compared to other times of the year. One can buy and preserve tomatoes as tomato puree and use it in the lean season.
d) Buying with a definite purpose in mind: Before buying, a person should know where the food item is to be used . For example, if you are buying rice for making idlis you can buy a cheaper variety. If you are buying tomatoes for curries, you can buy the small ones which are cheaper rather than the large slicing variety.
e) Awareness of weights and volumes: Before purchasing packaged goods always look at the price as well as the weight or volume of the contents, and calculate the price per unit of
weight/volume before deciding which one to buy. A large bottle of tomato sauce is cheaper on a per gram basis than the small bottle. This would be true of almost every product.
f) Knowledge of grades, brands and labels: Grade denotes a particular quality - superior or ordinary, "A" grade or "B" grade and so on. Brand tells us who makes the product - good or poor quality eventually gets associated with the brand names. The label is what is written outside on the packaged product, and provide us with information about what is inside so as to help us to decide whether we want to buy it or not.
g) Preparing market lists: It is essential to prepare a market list of food items and categorize them as - 9
Cereals and pulses
Sugar, salt and spices
Butter, ghee, vanaspati and oils
Milk, paneer and cheese
Meats, fish and eggs
Tomatoes, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, colocasia
Fresh vegetables and fruits
Tea and coffee
jams, jellies, pickles and papads.
Some of these can be purchased in large quantities and stored well for a year. Some can be stored well for a month or two, and some need to be purchased on a daily basis unless you have a refrigerator or freezing facilities. This means that we have four kinds of market lists - the annual purchase list, the monthly purchase list, the weekly purchase list and the daily purchase list.
h) Avoid unnecessary buying: Let's take an example. Suppose you are planning to make banana raita for your family and you need only two bananas for it. If you buy six bananas you have four extra. These four will have to be eaten up to avoid wastage. We can call this "distress-eating". This is also a kind of wastage of money.
3. HOME PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING:
Production and processing of certain food items at home not only helps to reduce the expenditure on food but also improves the quality of meals consumed. Growing vegetables, particularly the green leafy ones like spinach, amaranth, mint and coriander in your garden, and preparing jams, jellies, butter, tomato sauce, tomato puree, all kinds of squashes, pickles and papads at home saves a lot of money in addition to improving the quality of the meals.
SELECTION OF ENERGY-GIVING FOODS
Cereals-{ rice, wheat, jowar, maize, bajra, barley' and ragi)
Wheat - The most expensive and also the best variety of wheat required for our purposes of making chapati is the grade 1 sharbati. Bansi is cheaper and also gives good quality chapaties. Nutritionally it does not make a difference which variety one uses. The most important thing while buying any wheat is to look for plump looking kernels which are not broken, shrivelled, or insect has eaten. See that the wheat is free from insects and chaff etc.
Rice - Rice should be at least a year old for better cooking. If one has adequate storage space it is economical to buy freshly harvested (new) rice and leave it to mature before starting to use it because new rice is cheaper than old rice. The long-grained fine varieties are more expensive than the medium or coarser varieties. However, in the medium varieties, there are many which cook to a good volume & consistency if they are at least five months old. The nutritive value of all varieties of polished rice is almost identical. However, in the case of unpolished brown rice (which still carries its coat of bran), hand-pounded rice, and parboiled rice, there is an advantage in terms of B-complex vitamins when compared with polished rice. (just to remember - that parboiled rice is also cheaper than polished rice. In areas where hand-pounded or parboiled milled rice is used, beri-beri (thiamine deficiency disorder) does not occur)
Millets - (bajra, ragi, jowar)
Millets are the coarse cereals that are cultivated on the poor quality of the soil. They are called dry crops and can grow in areas where there is less amount of rainfall to grow rice, or where it is too hot to grow wheat. The commonly used ones are jowar, bajra and ragi.
Use of Cereals -
(Nutritional factors in the selection of cereals: The cereals are the best and the cheapest sources of energy. They provide 60-70 % of the total calories in our diet. Starch makes up about 75% of any cereal. Cereals also contain significant amounts of proteins. These cereal proteins are incomplete because of a deficiency of amino acid lysine but are well utilized by the body when properly supplemented with milk, eggs, meat or pulses and other cereals. Cereals also contain certain amounts of fat as well as fair amounts of minerals and vitamins. They are relatively high in phosphorus but low in calcium except for ragi. Their iron content also varies. Nutritionally speaking all cereals make similar contributions to the diet except for ragi which is very rich in calcium.
Roots and tubers - They are all rich in carbohydrates and provide energy. They also contain significant amounts of vitamin C. Tubers like yellow varieties of yam are rich in carotenes.
When buying potatoes, 4
# make sure they are of one variety, well-shaped, smooth and roughly of one size.
# They should be clean, firm, heavy, with shallow eyes, without green discolourization, free from sprouts and free from decay. The skin should be unbroken and should cling tightly.
# Potatoes with excessive dirt, deep cuts, green skin, sunburn, hollow, and decay should be rejected
# Select according to needs. Buy old potatoes if one wants to make cutlets or mashed potato dish. Avoid new ones because they become sticky and lumpy.
Fats and Oil -
The visible fats that we use in our food are ghee, butter, vegetable oils and hydrogenated vegetable oils called vanaspati. Out of these the ones that are liquid at room temperature, are called oils and those that are solid are called fats. However, scientifically the term fat refers to both fats as well as oils.
Solid fats that are used in cooking medium comprises a large number of hydrogenated oils (vanaspati) in addition to ghee which is derived from milk. These hydrogenated oils are cheaper than ghee, and therefore, to a very large extent, have replaced ghee in the Indian cuisine.
[ Q What does the term 'hydrogenated oil' mean.
A Hydrogenation is a process by which oils are rendered solid at room temperature. It involves the partial conversion of the unsaturated fatty acids of oil to saturated fatty acids thereby making the oil look and behave like ghee at room temperature.]
The significance of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids in our diet -
Like vitamins, fatty acids also play a role in the growth and health of the body. Three of these fatty acids need to be present in the diet on a regular basis - they are essential to our diet since they cannot be manufactured by the body. These are linoleic, linolenic and arachidonic. The Essential Fatty Acids and the derived EFA together are known as
polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). PUFA are essential for various physiological and biochemical processes in the body. It helps in the healthy functioning of the heart. Saturated fats like ghee and vanaspati are very low in PUFA, while oils have much higher contents which are good for health.
Hence diet based completely on ghee, butter and vanaspati will be very low in essential fatty acids and hence is not good for health. Oil is also not accepted as a substitute for ghee in dals and on chapaties. The best solution is to use ghee and vanaspati where we absolutely must but use oils rich in PUFA for much of the cooking. The minimum intake of vegetable oils rich in PUFA should be 15 gms per day.
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