AI Program Assists School Nutritionists in Designing Meals
The National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) and the Ministry of Education of Taiwan developed an AI program to help school nutritionists prepare balanced and diverse meal plans for the students. It reduces the administrative work and costs of meal preparing, ensuring therefore that students get nutritionally balanced meals.
Streamlining Meal Planning with AI
With the new AI method, an average of a month's meal plan can be generated in 20 seconds as compared to the typical planning time of 30 to 60 minutes spent by nutritionists. As a result, the program allows nutritionists to work more on quality checks for food that they have contracted and take care of individual student's dietary needs.
The AI incorporates a different set of parameters such as seasonal ingredients coming from the local market, cost control, and nutrients, thus generating different and appetizing options for students.
The AI program adjusts food programs for students by calorie requirement and food preferences. The program can change menus for children of different body sizes or health problems. Moreover, the program brings diversity to meals by averaging about 400 types of ingredients per month, which helps maintain a balance between repetitive meals and a healthy diet.
Nutritionists like Hsu Chun-shan from the Kaohsiung Municipal Renwu Elementary School believe that the AI system selects food based on its nutritional value and textures and flavours that children might accept.
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Ensuring Nutritional Quality and Student Satisfaction
The Ministry of Education has allocated NT$2.1 billion (approximately $70.1 million) for kitchen facilities improvement in schools in underprivileged areas every year. It also spends $1.5 billion as subsidies on the food budget of the restaurants.
Apart from that, it subsidizes approximately NT$3.8 billion every year to domestic farmers and suppliers of seafood meeting quality standards and can provide certificates of the origin to ensure that all fresh and local ingredients are supplied to the schools.
This AI-powered project is a giant leap to modernize meal planning for schools in Taiwan and enhance efficiency as well as nutrition for students.
