RESEARCH
Developing Low-Cost Food for Malnourished Children in India Using Linear Optimization Amith Umesh | Biophysics ‘21 Varun Mahadevan | Biophysics ‘21 Rohan Mangal | Public Health Studies ‘21 Linear Programming (LP) is seldom applied to formulating energy-dense foods for malnourished children in India—however even when used, these tools do not account for metabolite contents of ingredients. With this novel inclusion of an LP tool, this paper explores an effective method to develop cheaper and more nutritious foods for acutely malnourished Indian children.
S
Abstract olutions
to
acute
mal-
nutrition typically include provisions for lipid-dense foods (~ 50% lipids). Linear programming (LP) is seldom
applied to formulating energy-dense foods in India, causing unnecessarily high prices and inefficient ingredient use for current options on the market. However, even when used, LP tools may not account for protein quality. LP tools factoring protein digestibility corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) and digestible indispensable amino acid score (DIAAS) have formulated cheaper and more nutritious energydense
foods
for
Sub-Saharan
Africa. With the inclusion of similar parameters in this study’s LP tool, the authors aim to develop cheaper and more nutritious energy-dense foods for malnourished children in India.
Malnutrition
12
objective functions, such as cost or
age), 20% are wasted (low weight-
total energy content, while maintaining
for-height), and 57% are Vitamin-A
minimum or maximum bounds on
deficient. Despite growing to the sixth
other fields, such as macronutrients,
largest economy by GDP in the latter
micronutrients, and water content.
half of the 20th century, India has
Specifically, the advent of computer-
also experienced growth in rates of
based LP has made it significantly easier
malnutrition, especially in its most
to execute large-scale optimization
impoverished states such as Jharkhand
problems
with
often
hundreds
and Madhya Pradesh.¹ Treating acute malnutrition often includes the provision of lipid-dense semi-solid foods, including readyto-use
therapeutic
foods
(RUTF),
ready-to-use supplementary foods (RUSF), and fortified food blends (FFB). Interventions using readyto-use foods (RUFs) are successful but costly, resulting from expensive ingredients, high shipping costs from foreign countries, and poor analysis of metabolites. Our team uses a linear programming tool (LP) to leverage local crop prices and their nutritional
Introduction emergency:
million are stunted (low height-for-
information is
rates
India’s of
acute
from
up-to-date
silent
databases and literature to maximize
mal-
the
amount
of
macronutrients,
nutrition among Indian children are
micronutrients,
five times more than those of Chinese
delivered to a child (ages 6 to 48
children and twice those of children in
months) per gram of product. LP is a
Sub-Saharan Africa. About 60 million
mathematical method used to solve
Indian children are underweight, 45
linear equations in order to optimize
and
metabolites
ACUTE MALNUTRITION is often treated by lipid-dense/semi-solid foods. Photo by Amith Umesh
of