Meta Hortense Given (January 25, 1888 – November 17, 1981)[1] was an American entrepreneur, nutritionist, home economist, photographer and best-selling cookbook author.
Meta Given grew up as a farm girl in a three-room homesteader's cabin with lime chinked walls.
Both were revised and reprinted in succeeding decades and followed during the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s by other volumes about food and cooking.
Given also wrote a syndicated column for newspapers across the nation often called "Eat well on $12 week" from 1939 to 1949.
[6] She recommended that Americans help themselves each day to ten different categories of foodstuffs to ensure adequate nutrition: 1) milk; 2) meat (or cheese for those who don't eat meat); 3) green or yellow vegetable; 4) another vegetable; 5) potato (once a week pasta or rice can take the place but increase vegetable); 6) egg; 7) butter; 8) whole grain; 9) citrus fruit or tomato; and 10) another fruit.