A 'Balanced Meal'
Taleb argues that the timing and variability of nutrient intake may matter as well as the total consumed. He uses episodic deprivation as an example of a stressor that could change the body’s response; the passage proposes benefits without establishing a dietary regimen.
THE IDEA
A "Balanced Meal"
Consider variability in nutrition: we are currently told by the Soviet-Harvard U.S. health authorities to eat set quantities of nutrients (total calories, protein, vitamins, etc.) every day, in some recommended amounts of each. Every food item has a "percentage daily allowance." Aside from the total lack of empirical rigor in the way these recommendations are currently derived, there is another sloppiness in the edict: an insistence in the discourse on the regularity. Those recommending the nutritional policies fail to understand that "steadily" getting your calories and nutrients throughout the day, with "balanced" composition and metronomic regularity, does not necessarily have the same effect as consuming them unevenly or randomly, say by having a lot of proteins one day, fasting completely another, feasting the third, etc.
This is a denial of hormesis, the slight stressor of episodic deprivation. For a long time, nobody even bothered to try to figure out whether variability in distribution—the second-order effect—mattered as much as long-term composition. Now research is starting to catch up to such a very, very simple point. It turns out that the effect of variability in food sources and the nonlinearity in the physiological response is central to biological systems. Consuming no protein at all on Monday and catching up on Wednesday seemingly causes a different—better—physiological response, possibly because the deprivation, as a stressor, activates some pathways that facilitate the subsequent absorption of the nutrients (or something similar). And, until a few recent (and disconnected) empirical studies, this convexity effect has been totally missed by science—though not by religions, ancestral heuristics, and traditions. And if scientists get some convexity effects (doctors, just like weight lifters, understand here and there nonlinearities in dose response), the notion of convexity effects itself appears to be completely missing from their language and methods.
When to use it
Evaluating whether a claim about fasting measures effects of timing separately from total food intake.
Implementing varied work schedules (sprints and breaks) to boost productivity.
Applying cyclical training regimens (e.g., periodization) to enhance athletic performance.
Comparing claims about dietary regularity with the evidence offered for them.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Episodic Protein Deprivation
Taleb suggests that consuming no protein on Monday and catching up on Wednesday could produce a different response from steady intake. He speculates that deprivation activates pathways involved in nutrient absorption; the passage does not establish that mechanism.
Intermittent Fasting
Taleb points to traditions of fasting and feasting as examples of variable intake. His question is whether the pattern of intake changes physiological effects even when total consumption is similar.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
What evidence would distinguish a benefit from variable intake from an effect of changing total intake?
In what other domains — beyond nutrition — does the bias towards regularity cause us to miss beneficial second-order effects?
Can you recall a personal experience where varying your approach (e.g., studying, exercising, eating) produced better results than sticking to a uniform routine?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Antifragile (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)