How much is enough?

In your articles on nutrition, you rightly say to avoid refined foods. But your recipes often call for sugar and white flour. I don't keep either of those items in my pantry, and I have to either figure out how to substitute a more nutritious ingredient, or skip the recipe.

And could you please give the uncooked amount of beans in your recipes. I cook my own beans and often don't know how much to use. While I know that many of your readers want the speed and convenience of canned beans, some of us really do slow food. Thank you for all your good recipes.

Jane Ellen Traugott

Southbury, Connecticut

Our writers do their best to submit recipes calling for readily available ingredients, and finding an unrefined sugar substitute for white sugar used in baking may be difficult. White flour and wheat flour do not always produce the same results in baking, although the two are often interchangeable for baked goods such as muffins, waffles, pancakes and cookies. As for uncooked beans, 2 1/2 cups dried kidney beans, for example, equals about 5 1/2 cups cooked. Hope that helps.

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