Are the expensive Moringa capsules cost effective against other vegetables in our diets ?

    Moringa is praised everywhere on the internet for its nutritional / medicinal value. Indeed  its trace elements , anti-inflammatory and other beneficial phytochemicals are hardly found in other foods unless we combine very high quantities.

But are Moringa capsules still cost effective against common vegetables if we target basic nutritional requirements ?
To find a solution to this sort of " what if " problems Excel provides an optimizer ( the Solver utility ) in the Tools  :  we let the program find the best combination of food quantities for the smallest total cost.

This is how the chart was done :

From a publication by the FDA we took the nutrients ( in gr. mg and %DV ) of daily rations of vegetables. We entered these quantities for these selected basic nutrients : Potassium, Carbohydrates, Fibers, Proteins, Vitamins, Calcium and Iron in 1 gr. of each vegetable as well as 1 gr. of dry Moringa powder.

We also entered the cost per 1 gr. ( in the last column on the right ). Here we take in account that such cost must include the energy of cooking. ( noteworthy Moringa capsules, as other dried edible plants and spices don't involve these cooking costs )

Then the program asks us to enter the constraints : we say that we don't want a solution that offers more than 150 gr of each vegetable ( which is a very large quantity ); no more than 20 gr of dry Moringa ( that is about 40 capsules ! ); also knowing that Moringa is full of Vitamin A we don't want an excessive amount of Vitamin A ( is there a liver toxicity caused by very high amounts of Vitamin A  ? ) so set a maximum %. etc.

Finally the targets :  they are the daily requirements of a woman. They are entered in the last range at the bottom : 4700 mg of Potassium, 325 g of carbohydrates etc. up to the 4 figures of 100 to the right that stand for 100% of the intakes.

.. And what solution does the Solver find after many iterations ? ( the numbers of the solution - weights of the plant species and the total cost - are given in range # 12 )

The solution found by the program fully supports the cost effectiveness of Moringa oleifera powder : " despite its much higher cost per gr. use as much as you can to minimize your total cost " , the Solver says, Moringa oleifera is even more cost effective than tomatoes in this chart !   ... and we are just talking about basic nutrients. There is no doubt that if we selected harder to find phytochemicals Moringa would always be on top of the combinations with the smallest possible cost !

We note that the solution found in the chart above for a total of 7.9 $ doesn't bring all of the Potassium needed, the Proteins, Carbohydrates, Fibers, Proteins, Calcium and Iron. Only the daily requirements of Vitamins A and C are covered. 
This confirms that we need to vary our food ! Curcuma and other tropical assets would love to be included in such optimization problems.

How many capsules can a 7 years child take every day ? read  ore on http://aleyagarden-medicinal-plants.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-many-capsules-of-moringa-oleifera.html

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