Cost-Minimized Nutritionally Adequate Food Baskets as Basis for Culturally Adapted Dietary Guidelines for Ethiopians.

The high prevalence of undernutrition, especially stunting, in Ethiopia hampers the country's economic productivity and national development. One of the obstacles to overcome undernutrition is the relatively high cost of food for low economic groups. In this study, linear programming was used to (i) identify urban and rural nutritionally adequate food baskets (FBs) with the highest affordability for an Ethiopian family of five and (ii) create urban and rural FBs, optimized for cultural acceptability, which are affordable for a family with the lowest income.