A balanced diet

The numbers come from a teaching model, not from food tables. Each box gives the team a share of what four people need of each nutrient over the winter, and the gauges add the shares up as weeks. Real foods differ from brand to brand, and real needs differ from person to person.

In the model a nutrient that runs out is simply gone. The body keeps a store of some nutrients, so in real life the signs of a deficiency, such as scurvy, take weeks or months to appear.

The dotted line is a rule of this model: the crate has room for only 8 boxes, so food the team does not need takes the place of food it does. A little more vitamin C or calcium than needed does no harm, and spare carbohydrate and fat are stored in the body as fat.

The weeks of one box are rounded, so a crate's weeks can differ by a week from the weeks of its boxes added up.

The model leaves out energy and portion sizes, and water comes from the tank, not the crate. The 16 weeks pass in a few seconds.

With reduced motion the boxes move at once, and each winter is shown at its start and its end.