That good digestion depends to a considerable extent on pleasurable taste in eating has been proved scientifically as well as by the experience of the ages. It is true that "appetite is the best sauce" and that abundant outdoor exercise gives good appetite. But not everyone can have a keen appetite at all times, so that pleasing combinations are important from the standpoint of health.

Foods have the following characteristics or contrasts: Heavy or light; strong flavored or mild flavored; moist or dry; crisp or soft; acid or sweet; hot or cold.

A meal should have contrast and variety; it should not be composed all of one kind of food, as all heavy or all strong flavored dishes, or all soft or all dry and so on.

Mild flavored foods, like bread or potatoes, can be eaten in considerable quantities in a meal, but the appetite revolts at large amounts of strong flavored foods, like turnips, cauliflower, game, cheese, etc.

In simple combinations and made dishes the strong flavored food should be much less in quantity than the mild flavored food, as bread and cheese, macaroni and tomatoes, baked beans and ketchup.

Creamed potatoes should not be served when there is gravy, but should be served with a dry meat. Moist meats such as stews, etc., should be served with dry vegetables. Plain sponge or butter cakes or cookies, not rich layer cakes, should be served with ice cream and whipped cream desserts, etc. Acid sauces should be served with rich puddings.

In a well-planned dinner of five courses the soup should be light, giving a stimulant to the appetite; it should be served with croutons or crackers, which furnish dryness or crispness. If fish were used it should be light, served with an acid sauce or relish. The main course of meat would be heavy, fairly strong flavored. The vegetables would be soft and moist and in general mild flavored, or only one strong in flavor. The salad should be crisp, cold and light, and the dessert warm, moderately heavy and sweet.

In a recent magazine article Miss Caroline Hunt gives the following comparison between the art of planning meals and the art of painting:

"A well-planned meal has something in common with a well-designed painting. The latter usually consists of a background of neutral colors, relieved here and there by bits of bright color, known as high lights. The background may be a forest in browns and greens and the high light may be the sun finding a way to one spot through the trees; or the background may be an expanse of sea and the high light, the foam on the crest of the waves.

"A well-planned meal has its background also. This consists usually of neutrally flavored foods: breads, meats, cereals. These should be touched up like the painting and relieved by small quantities of food having pronounced flavor: acid fruits, vinegar, capers, sweets.

"Of the painting, it is idle to try to say whether its success is due more to background than to high lights or vice versa. The background sets off the bright bits of color and keeps them from clashing one with another; the bits of color give charm to the somber expanse. So, too, with the meal. The breads, meats and cereals are the substantial part and absolutely necessary not only for health but also for the purpose of keeping the foods of pronounced flavor from clashing. The flavoring materials, on the other hand, are necessary oftentimes to make the more solid foods attractive and palatable, and authorities tell us now that good digestion waits on appetite."

As in other arts, it is not possible to give definite and specific rules for the planning of successful meals. However, keeping in mind the suggestions given, and with careful observation, the housekeeper should succeed in planning appetizing and wholesome meals.