Don’t Sell me Food, Sell me Health
This summer, a well-known retailer in Spain has been publicising its products saying it was doing a good job against the crisis feeding a familiy of four (two adults and two children) for just 28 EUR/week (that’s 1 EUR/day per family member). For acomplising that you needed to buy what they recommended (chicken, oranges, bread…), and they plan to keep the promotion for the whole year, updating the products time and ago but keeping the 28 weekly EUROS constant.
Of course, consumers haven’t stood still and have taken a stance: some have cheered the ‘anti-crisis measure’ (as the retailer has announced the campaign), while others (the minus) have attacked it; a consumer organisation has even reported the proposed diet to start with is not a diet since it doesn’t say how to prepare it (no recipes, no suggestions); it’s only a shopping list. However, as the organisation claims, you can’t have a weekly healthy diet for a family of 4 as suggested by the supermarket chain.
OK then, so let’s shout at the marketing guys and advise them to hire an operations researcher. Yes, we OR-ers talk and research about food; for example, here, here (excellent recipes), and mainly, here, where Mick Trick shows us how to resolve our problem by means of what we call ‘the diet problem’ (a linear program that helps us to find the most economical diet that satisfies the basic minimum nutritional requirements for good health). So, if you want to start looking for calories, proteins and the lot (as it’s needed for this mathematical application) have a look at platform.fatsecret.com, or interfaces as TwoFoods (link thanks to wwwhatsnew.com).
Yummy! But healthy, please!
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