VISUALIZATION OF FOOD NUTRITIONAL BALANCE Allan Jiang Parth

VISUALIZATION OF FOOD NUTRITIONAL BALANCE Allan Jiang, Parth Patel Summer Ventures in Science and Mathematics Appalachian State University

Why Visualize Nutritional Values? • It's important to eat healthily! • Many people do not know what is healthy at fast food restaurants. • It's tedious to calculate nutritional percentages while waiting to order! • Understand nutrition in a snapshot

How to Visualize Nutritional Information? • We used the Treemap • A cleaner display • Color and Area • Both aspects of Nutritional Balance and Portion are considered.

Methodology • We obtained data from the USDA Nutrient Database • We used MATLAB • Treemaps function • Areas • Scale the areas as percentages of the Daily Values • Map of the “perfect food”

Methodology • Colors • Green is healthy, yellow is caution, and red is unhealthy • Usage of “yellow zones”

Demo Mc. Donald's, Quarter Pounder Mc. Donald's, Big Mac Mc. Donald's, Bacon Egg & Cheese Biscuit Mc. Donald's, Premium Grilled Chick Ranch BLT Sandwich Mc. Donald's, Premium Grilled Chick Club Sandwich Wendy's Jr. Hamburger Wendy's, Ultimate Chick Grill Sandwich Burger King, Whopper Taco Bell, Original Taco Bell, Bean Burrito KFC Fried Chicken, Breast Meat Sides Mc. Donald's, French Fries Mc. Donald's, Chick Mc. Nuggets Dessert Mc. Donald's, Fruit 'n Yogurt Parfait Mc. Donald's, Hot Fudge Sundae Wendy's, Frosty Dairy

Conclusion • It is possible to make healthier choices based on visualization of nutritional balance! • It is possible to create Treemaps in MATLAB to study nutrition • There are various recommendations about nutritional ranges and balance, since different people have different dieting needs

Further Improvements • MATLAB was designed for scientists, not the general public • Wasn’t designed to have interactive features • Further improvements • Supporting the program on multiple devices • Using Java. Script to make program web-based and interactive • Allow users to choose their own ranges and daily values

Acknowledgements Thanks to our professors for all their help and instruction: Dr. Rahman Tashakkori Mr. Ahmad Ghadiri Mr. Sina Tashakkori Thanks to the camp director: Ms. Lori Tyler Questions?