The campus dietitian for a small college is responsible for formulating a nutritious meal plan for students. For an evening meal, she feels that the following six meal-content requirements should be met:
The meal should be at least 900 calories
The meal should be at most 1500 calories
The meal should contain at least 6 milligrams of iron
The meal should have no more than 60 grams of fat
The meal should contain at least 30 grams of protein
The meal should contain no more than 40 grams of carbohydrates.
On a particular day, the food stock includes seven items that can be prepared and served to meet these requirements.The cost per pound for each food item and the contribution to each of the nutritional requirements are given in the table below.
A. Formulate a LP problem to determine the combination of the seven food items that will satisfy the nutritional requirement at the least cost. Show the equations for your objective function and constraints below. Use Excel to find the optimal solution. Paste your Excel output below.
B. What is the cost per meal?
C. Is the solution you found sensitive to changing food prices? By how much does the price of milk need to change to affect the solution? (How does the solution change?)