One of your most important duties as a senior Mess Management Specialist (MS) is to see that the general mess (GM) customers are always well fed. To be well fed means that they should have not only enough food but also the right kind of food in the proper combinations; that is, foods containing the correct amounts of the various nutrients necessary to good health and well-being. To accomplish this, the menus must be carefully and skillfully planned to produce the right combinations of food in dishes that will appeal to the personnel to whom they are served. This should be accomplished within your budget and with the food items you have had the foresight to stock on board. This service must be carried out afloat and ashore, consistently, under varying operating conditions, in widely differing geographic locations, and in all kinds of weather.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide you with the information and guidance needed in the areas of menu planning, and nutrition, and ultimately, in the supervision of other personnel in this area.

The foodservice division is a customer service oriented division, and customer satisfaction is one of our primary goals. We should take every opportunity to motivate the personnel who man the contact points (galley, serving line, and mess area), whether civilian or military, to do their best and to take pride in the caliber of service they provide their shipmates. Motivating our personnel in these positions provides a special challenge to the senior MS. We should make sure the personnel manning these contact points realize that they are part of a people-oriented team, that they are an important part of our Navy, and that the positions they hold at these contact points are positions of special trust that support our most important resource-our Navy men and women.

NUTRITION

Nutrition is the science of the nourishment of the human body, the science of food. To master this science we should familiarize ourselves with the nature of food. Food is composed of various nutrients: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals, vitamins, and water.

Nutrition concerns itself with determining what components are needed and how much of each is required to maintain healthy bodies. Nutrition concerns itself with the ways in which foods are altered in processing, storage, and preparation, and in the ways in which foods are transformed chemically in the body. Nutrition deals with the preparation and serving of foods in such a way as to make sure the nutrients necessary to good health are not unnecessarily lost in the process. In addition, nutrition should be concerned with the social, economic, cultural, and psychological implications of foods.

When you prepare your next meal, the patrons will have definite ideas-positive or negative-about the meal and the specific foods that are served. They may delight in the variations in the texture, in the color combinations of the food, in the artistic touch of a garnish, or they may find the food unacceptable because the fuel lacks color or is carelessly served. They may enjoy the tantalizing smell of meat, of freshly baked rolls, or the fragrance of fully ripened fruit. The odor of grease that has been too hot or of vegetables that have been cooked too long may cause lack of appetite and even nausea The patrons will experience countless flavors-the salty, sweet, bitter, and sour tastes and their variations; they will feel the textures of smooth or fibrous, crisp or soft, creamy or oily, moist or dry foods. The provision of a nutritious diet, well cooked and attractively served, plays an important part in the acceptability of a meal.