Nutrition and the Household Economy

This chapter presents a nutritional geographic overview of the relationships between land, food, and work in East Java, describing three East Javanese villages, inhabited by peoples of similar cultural backgrounds, but living in differing physical environments. Three villages are chosen to represent the major land-use types in Java: Pontjokusumo, a volcanic slope corn village; Glanggang, an alluvial valley rice village; and Pagak, a limestone plateau, corn, and cassava village. The landed and wealthy families are usually the old, established village families; these families often have three generations under one roof, and they tend to be cohesive with the married children remaining in the household. Families with large landholdings have more mouths to feed. Food intake is more strongly influenced by cultural preference than economic status. If multiple vitamins containing only the minimum amounts of missing nutrients were designed, they could be produced more economically than present multiple vitamins designed to supply recommended daily vitamin requirements.