(a) You want to construct a model so that you can enter the number of each menu item you would choose to consume in one day (e.g., 1 egg and sausage sandwich, 2 cheeseburgers, 3 chocolate shakes), and have the model automatically calculate the total nutritional statistics for that particular choice of items. You will then be able to use the model to adjust your food and drink choices to help plan a more nutritious diet.

(b) Choose a number of menu items as possible breakfast, lunch, and dinner items from the data available on-line.

Enter data for these into a spreadsheet model. Enter the nutritional information (e.g., calories, fat, protein, vitamins, and minerals) as well. You should have at least 15 items to choose from.

(c) Build the logic of the model to allow the user to enter the number of each menu item to consume in a day and have the nutritional statistics calculated automatically. If the model is organized well, you will be able to use the SUMPRODUCT function to easily calculate the totals for each of the nutritional categories, given the user's input of the number of each item to consume. Your model should also include goal or target values for the nutritional items. For example, you might want a diet that has between 1800 and 2200 calories, with no more than 30 percent of the calories from fat. Some facts you will need are that 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories, 1 gram of protein contains 4 calories, and 1 gram of carbohydrate contains 4 calories.

(d) Experiment with different values of items to consume, and develop your planned diet for the day. Are you willing to implement that diet? Discuss advantages and disadvantages of the diet, considering nutritional, taste, and cost factors.

Given your busy schedule, you eat many meals on the go. Lately, you've started to get concerned about the nutritional value of all those burger and fries lunches. You decide to build a model to help you decide ahead of time on a reasonably nutritious diet for a single day at your favorite restaurant.

A number of restaurants (e.g., Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's) have nutritional data for their menu items available on the Web. In some cases these are essentially electronic versions of their printed nutritional brochures; in other cases they are in a form that you can copy and paste into an Excel spreadsheet.

Explore the Web sites of several different restaurants to find available data. Choose a single restaurant for this case. Alternatively, you can use foods that you might prepare at home. The U.S. Department of Agriculture maintains a Web site containing documents that list the nutritional value of foods. See www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/.