This paper describes what we consider creative and innovative ways in which the dietary staff participate as part of the team in providing milieu treatment for emotionally disturbed children at Gerard Schools of Minnesota, a residential treatment center for disturbed children. By reason of the emotional significance of food and its associations with feelings of security, deprivation, love, aggression, etc., the routines and rituals surrounding the provision of food as well as the individuals who prepare it are invested with special meanings and affects which can be used therapeutically to help children with emotional problems by those who understand and make use of them.