Portioning of the diet was not always clear. Two main
meals of 300 ml (lunch and dinner) were anticipated
along with four smaller meals, to a total of 1400 ml/day.
Aiming to compare the costs with industrialized products,
two standard powder preparations were selected.
A daily prescription of 1,800 ml (one can) with a calorie
density of 1 kcal/ml was initially calculated. The
price range for such ready-to-use alternative was
17.55-45.74 Brazilian real (BRL), or approximately
6.5-17 €, with a mean of 31.65 BRL (11.7 €). This
value was subsequently corrected to a volume of 1,400
ml (Table III).