Summary of a Citywide Meal Planning Service for Kids Based on Logic Programming

This paper describes an implemented service, and associated mobile app, that has been used for the last five school years to support effective meal planning for kids in Parma, Italy. The service suggests a daily choice of one, two, or three dinner proposals based on what children are expected to eat at the canteens of nurseries, kindergartens, and primary schools. In addition, the service provides proposals for the lunches of non-school days to cover weekends and school holidays. Lunch and dinner proposals are generated by means of a dedicated meal planning service that uses logic programming to solve constraint satisfaction problems associated with meal planning problems. The adopted constraints ensure that the proposals for lunches and dinners are nutritionally balanced throughout the week and that seasonal proposals are preferred to promote the consumption of seasonal vegetables and fruits.