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Stigler Diet

en.wikipedia.org

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Re: Stigler Diet

#21

Post by cornholio »

Houshalter wrote: post #17

Here's a story of a guy who used the same method to come up with the optimal diet for himself: https://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/decision/1990-dantzig.... The first try he ended up with a diet that required 500 gallons of vinegar a day. There was a mistake in the data that give vinegar 0 weight. The second try ended up with 200 bouillon cubes per day. He didn't put a limit on salt content. Then it gave him 2 poun…

Clearly he was not optimizing for overall individual welfare - there are strong diminishing returns for any single ingredient.

Culinary and psychological satisfaction is a valid target for optimization, otherwise the individual will drop the diet and endanger the quality of nutrition, given a limited budget. Or he might outright commit suicide after the second week, not healthy at all.

Re: Stigler Diet

#22

Post by Scaevolus »

Houshalter wrote: post #17

Here's a story of a guy who used the same method to come up with the optimal diet for himself: https://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/decision/1990-dantzig.... The first try he ended up with a diet that required 500 gallons of vinegar a day. There was a mistake in the data that give vinegar 0 weight. The second try ended up with 200 bouillon cubes per day. He didn't put a limit on salt content. Then it gave him 2 poun…

It's even better than that: "At this point Anne got tired of the whole game. Speaking firmly so that I would know who was boss, she said, "I have been studying the various menus the computer has been generating. There are some good ideas there that I can use. I'll put you on MY diet." She did and I lost 22 pounds."

Re: Stigler Diet

#23

Post by bitwize »

istorical wrote: post #7

If you were to blend the benefits of services like Soylent (nutritionally balanced meals) and BlueApron (delicious delivered recipes), you arrive at a service where you pick from a list of healthy ingredients and the service uses linear programming to build "solutions" aka recipes for meals that balance the ingredients such that they provide proper nutrition and then provide you with the list of ingredients to purcha…

We'll have IBM use Watson to provide the solutions -- call it "Big Iron Chef".

Re: Stigler Diet

#25

Post by racer-v »

I created a diet optimized for maximum dietary fiber and protein with minimum calories (optimized separately). Highest fiber/calorie ratio is generally cruciferous vegetables; highest protein/calorie is fish and chicken (skinless boneless breast meat). Using these two food groups I can satisfy my macronutritional requirements on 600 calories/day. I add a multivitamin in case I missed anything.

Based on these parameters I can judge any food based on whether its fiber and protein can match (or beat) a linear combination of chicken and broccoli. Basically if (2F + P) * 20/3 <= C then it's on the diet. This includes non-fat yogurt, wheat bran, eggplant, and some types of beans.

Re: Stigler Diet

#27

Post by mayoff »

Houshalter wrote: post #17

Here's a story of a guy who used the same method to come up with the optimal diet for himself: https://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/decision/1990-dantzig.... The first try he ended up with a diet that required 500 gallons of vinegar a day. There was a mistake in the data that give vinegar 0 weight. The second try ended up with 200 bouillon cubes per day. He didn't put a limit on salt content. Then it gave him 2 poun…

And for those who don't know anything else about George Dantzig, the author of that article:

There's an urban legend about a college student who shows up late for a math class, sees some problems written on the board, assumes they're homework, and solves them over the weekend, but it turns out the professor wrote the problems on the board as examples of open problems in the field.

This urban legend is true, and George Dantzig was the student.

https://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp

Re: Stigler Diet

#28

Post by arca_vorago »

mizzack wrote: post #5
crwalker wrote: post #4

Bookmarking this for later use. I've always wanted to find a recipe somewhere between Soylent and Lembas Bread that can be used for long hiking or canoe trips. Unfortunately the beans and cabbage hardly sound appetizing for a bread. The obvious ideas are wheat, nuts, and dried fruits. Any good resources for this?

Not a bread, but... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pemmican

I love pemmican. Just be careful on the berries though, as they can vastly reduce how long it stays good.

Re: Stigler Diet

#29

Post by bllguo »

Houshalter wrote: post #17

Here's a story of a guy who used the same method to come up with the optimal diet for himself: https://www.gwern.net/docs/statistics/decision/1990-dantzig.... The first try he ended up with a diet that required 500 gallons of vinegar a day. There was a mistake in the data that give vinegar 0 weight. The second try ended up with 200 bouillon cubes per day. He didn't put a limit on salt content. Then it gave him 2 poun…

It's funny - the author isn't just some guy, it's George Dantzig. Relevant because he is one of the fathers of linear programming. He and his simplex algo are actually referred to in the wiki page

Re: Stigler Diet

#30

Post by fenwick67 »

crwalker wrote: post #4

Bookmarking this for later use. I've always wanted to find a recipe somewhere between Soylent and Lembas Bread that can be used for long hiking or canoe trips. Unfortunately the beans and cabbage hardly sound appetizing for a bread. The obvious ideas are wheat, nuts, and dried fruits. Any good resources for this?

PB&J are great if you don't want to break camp. It sounds lame but they're basically fruit nuts flour and salt.
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