India - Household Consumer Expenditure: NSS 43rd Round, Schedule 1, July 1987 - June 1988

Meal
A 'Meal' is composed of one of more readily cat able (generally cooked) items of food, the usual major constituent of which is cereal food. The meals consumed by a person twice or thrice a day provide him/her the required energy of (calorie) and other nutrients for living and for pursuing his/her normal avocations. A 'meal' as opposed to 'snacks ' as opposed to 'snacks', 'nasta' or 'high tea' , contains larger quantum and variety of food. In rare cases, a full meal may contain larger quantity of non-cereal food. Even that, if the total quantum of food in plate is heavy as a meal, the contents of the food plate will also be considered as a real. Sometimes the contents of a 'nasta' may not be very different from the contents of a 'meal'. The difference in quantity will there be the guiding factor for deciding whether the plate is to be led as a 'meal ' or a nasta.

Number of meals usually taken in a day : The number of meals * consumed by a person is usually reported as 2 or 3. In rare cases one may come a cross a person who may be taking food only once in a day or more than three times a day. While in the former case the number of meals for the person will be 1 per day, in the latter case, however, only 3 should be entered. That is, in this column, the recorded number of meals taken in a day, even if it is reported to be higher, should not exceed 3. Abreast fed baby does not directly share the food consumed by members of the household. Hence for such babies the entry in this column will be 'o'.