
Optimizing a diet using Linear Programming (in Julia) - oxinabox
http://white.ucc.asn.au/2018/05/28/Optimizing-your-diet-with-JuMP.html
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vardump
That was hilarious. Figuring out sensible constraints seems to be a long
iterative process.

One diet suggested drinking 32l (~8.5 gallons) of water.

This one was the computed "maximize protein" diet:

    
    
      status = solve(m) = :Optimal
         10 grams 	Folic acid
          1 grams 	Vitamin C
        667 grams 	Flour, soya
      24034 grams 	Lard
        800 grams 	Suet
        845 grams 	Amino acid or creatine powder
      42752 grams 	Intense sweetener, containing aspartame, 
      powdered formulation
    

Almost 43 kg (~94 pounds) of intense sweetener? Sounds healthy!

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andreareina
I remember reading about a study that attempted something similar, they found
that dietary guidelines were in fact impossible to meet using a "natural diet"
without supplements (scare quotes because I don't remember the exact dietary
constraints). I think the constraints also included lower bounds for things
like sodium and potassium (this model only has upper bounds for them).

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newen
No, this model has lower bounds on all nutrients humans need and upper bounds
on some based on their toxicity.

~~~
andreareina
Yeah I misinterpreted the constraints. Still, this model has no lower bound on
sodium and no upper bound on potassium; ideally both would be bounded on both
sides.

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abacate
The idea is interesting, though the results have indeed zero applicability
unless a few additional rules are added to the system - like proportion of
macro-nutrients (fats/proteins/carbohydrates) and some sensible variability to
the meal plans (ie, no point in suggesting "1 gram" of some food source,
either you suggest a "portion" or nothing).

Personally, I think it would be easier to start with one's own dietary
approach and try to put that into rules, then optimize it using additional
guidelines (or removing some rules) instead of starting with something too
loosely defined and letting the program choose different sources randomly.

~~~
oxinabox
Yes, portions need to be defined per thing though. 1 gram of a vitamin
supplement is fine. 1 gram of eggs, not so much.

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oxinabox
Source is on github,
[https://github.com/oxinabox/oxinabox.github.io/blob/master/n...](https://github.com/oxinabox/oxinabox.github.io/blob/master/notebook_posts/Optimizing%20your%20diet%20with%20JuMP.ipynb)
Feel encouraged to mess around with it

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iamconfused
I wonder if you could get actionable results if recipes were the level of
granularity you ran the analysis on.

