Modeling inclusion of chufa products in daily food package for the use in bioregenerative life support system

With the help of a computer model we have simulated in the Excel Visual Basic for Applications programming environment the inclusion of flour, oil and Orgeat drink, derived from the tubers of chufa Cyperus esculentus L., in daily food package (DFP) intended for the use in bioregenerative life-support system and consisted of plant and animal origin products. Parameters of the model: objective func-tions were minimization of DFP total mass and min-imization DFP autonomy, independent variables, masses of products, constraints, i.e. nutritional standards determined by physiological needs for energy and nutrients and recommended for adult population of Russia. The conditions and conse-quences of chufa product inclusion were estimated by the following indices: DFP total mass and au-tonomy, masses of flour, oil and Orgeat drink, the nomenclature and number of food imbalances. The specific index in our modeling was DFP autonomy: the ratio “mass of products produced in bioregen-erative life-support system/ the total mass of prod-ucts” expressed in percents. Minimum mass of DFP with chufa products was 3452 g, maximal DFP au-tonomy was 95 %. It has been established that the maximum portion of flour, oil and Orgeat drink in DFP may be 102 g, 28 g, correspondingly. At this the total DFP mass rises to 4017 g. Peanut oil in the DFP can be completely replaced by the oil ob-tained from chufa tubers keeping in mind the nutri-tional standards. The reason for the use of chufa products in the DFP could be increasing food varie-ty, improving food palatability and meeting the indi-vidual food preferences.