Nutritional Health and Financial Wealth: An Application of Data Science to Quantify the Cost of a Healthy Diet

The goal of the project was to apply data science techniques to nutritional data to identify the cost of a healthy diet. Linear programming was applied to create optimized diets for different age and sex combinations. A recommender system was also created as an educational tool which allowed the user to input a food item and the recommender system would return similar food items that were more nutritionally dense and less expensive than the given food item. Both the linear programming model and the recommender system were created as educational tools and to learn about the need for nutritional assistance programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).