On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 19:38:49 -0500 (EST), Lena B Katz
> wrote:

>1. How much should i feed someone at supper?

How hungry are they? :-) For entertaining, there should usually be at
least a bit more food than one would calculate for a 'regular' meal.
Given currently rising rates of obesity, serving smaller portions
attractively arranged is doing most people a favor.

>2. What kinds of food should a poor shopper mix together?

Here's something that may be of interest:

http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/Pubs/Cookbook/thriftym.pdf

(note that this is a .pdf file and takes a while to d'load.)

Search on "frugal meals" or "thrifty meals". There are a lot of sites.

>3. How do I balance everything?

Learn something about nutrition. The sweet ol' USDA will tell you all
about food content, once you know what you're looking for:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl