Fundamentals of Menu Planning by 
Gourmet Gone Wild by 
The Art of the Table by 
Nutrition Almanac by 
Nutrition for Dummies® by 
The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition by 
Nutrition and Food Safety by 
American Diabetes Association Guide to Healthy Restaurant Eating by 
Eat Better, Feel Better by 
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition by 
The Complete Book of Pork Butchering, Smoking, Curing, Sausage Making, and Cooking by 
Making a Meal of It : Smart Ways to Buy, Store and Use up Food by 
Nutrition is the study of how food is used in the body. Food contains nutrients that are essential to the bodies functioning and can only be supplied by eating specific foods. These nutrients include Iron, calcium, vitamins, and certain amino acids that combine to form protein.
When planning a menu a chef must take in account for nutrients and the way in which foods are prepared because exposing certain foods to acids, alkali, heat, light or air can causes nutrients to diminish.
When planning a menu keep in mind of balance, nutritional quality, aesthetics, and variety, including color, texture, flavors, shapes and sizes of food. Also make sure you have enough personnel on staff and equipment to create everything on the menu.
Some other factors to consider:
Cost
Production
management
Consider customer sastisfaction by understanding your customers and the people who will utilize your services. Understand sociocultural backgrounds, food habits and preferences, and nutritional influences of your customer. Finally understand that aesthetics of the food can make or break a menu. How our food is presented, along with texture, consistency, color, shape, and the preparation method, influences how we feel and what we think about a menu.
On the management side of menu planning consider the following:
Menus
Static menus: menus that stay the same every day and are most typically used in quick service to upscale casual restaurants.
Cycle menus: are most often used in non-commercial foodservice operations that serve the same group of customers every day, such as corporate dining, healthcare, schools, and long-term care. A cycle menu follows a particular pattern designed to meet the needs of the operations customers and repeats on a regular basis.
Daily or single use menus: change on a daily basis or may be planned for a special event with a one-time use.
a la carte: each item on the menu is individually priced
table d’hôte : a selection of complete meals offered at set prices
prix fixe: one price for the entire menu
Nutritional Health, Food Production, and the Environment
Open textbook
An Introduction to Nutrition v1.0
Open textbook
The purpose of this course is to familiarize and engage the student in the steps and dynamics of policy making processes that address nutrition problems and issues.
American Heart Association: Healthy Eating
An Introduction to Foodservice and World Cuisine
Nine profitable menu planning tips from the experts
Tips from Experts
The National Restaurant Association Menu Collection
The collection includes over 7,000 menus that will be digitized and uploaded to the ScholarsArchive@JWU
Menus from around the World. Provides robust searching and browsing access to two significant historic menu collections and over 1500 individual menus
New York Public Library Menu Collection
Digitized collection of menus from 1850's to present
module, you will navigate various career resources and discuss the food and nutrition career field.
In this module, you will learn how to decipher food labels and food portions. You will explore how to read food labels, understand the components of food labels on any food product, and make more informed decisions on foods to consume.
A collection of US menus with essays that set them in their historical context
Dietary Supplement Label Database
A Tool For Food History research
