FOOD & THE
NUTRITION CARE
PROCESS

When I was first asked to revise this text in 1975, I said no. Why would
I want to take on this herculean task? Times were good. We were wearing miniskirts, bell bottoms, and platform shoes; the Vietnam war was
over, and a new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had just been
established. The Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program for
maternal and child nutrition was beginning, and total parenteral nutrition (TPN), the new “wow” therapy, had just entered the scene. TPN
was a powerful tool, and nutritionists knew it. Now we had a way to
feed patients with nonfunctioning guts so that they could heal and
survive. Feeding a very sick person could be targeted, scientific, and
aggressive. TPN enabled premature infants to survive as I would learn
with my own preemie a decade later. It was an exciting time for a young
dietitian. And then to be able to take over the authorship of this already
reputable text—well, wow! It couldn’t have been a better entry into a
career. I said ye