What Is Food, Exactly?

A few days after my last post, Charlie Munger passed away.

I think of Charlie Munger as the Michael Jordan of decision-making. He's also been called "Nerd Jesus," "Abominable No-Man," and "The Zen Master of Los Angeles." If you haven't heard about Charlie Munger before, here are the highlights: Warren Buffett's right-hand man, a WWII veteran, and was worth $2.6 billion when he passed away at the age of 99. He pioneered the use of interdisciplinary mental models in business and was an inspiration to me and many others. The starting point for this post's metaphysical exploration of food is this banger quote from Charlie:

“Take a simple idea, and take it seriously.”

When presented with a problem, we're often limited by constraints that have been along for so long that we fail to see that they're merely constructs and can be removed. This is often termed mental rigidity or cognitive rigidity. It's the opposite of cognitive flexibility, which is the ability to see situations in a different light.

A really useful technique to become cognitively flexible is to apply a simple model to your situation. Simple ideas taken seriously often prompt a reexamination of what we currently take for granted. There's a scene from the show Parks and Recreation where Ben Wyatt solves an accounting problem by dissolving the trust that had a claim to the property - riveting television, I know - which illustrates this technique nicely. Our hero, Charlie Munger, also had a simple model that he used consisting of two questions outlined in his 1994 talk at USC Business School.

1. First, what are the factors that really govern the interests involved, rationally considered?
2. Second, what are the subconscious influences where the brain at a subconscious level is automatically doing these things—which by and large are useful, but which often malfunctions?

The full transcript can be found here, courtesy of the excellent thinkers at Farnam Street (who I highly recommend people check out).

The first point that Mr.Munger makes here is what most people focus on and what classical economics is concerned with: rational actors and actions. The second part is much more interesting and the reason why the standard models don't work. Knowing that our subconscious is always influencing our decision-making makes examining and understanding our subconscious thought processes critical to choosing the correct courses of action.

There are many ways to monitor our subconscious, but the most overwhelming thing we can control is our diet. As I said in my last post, nothing impacts our mood more than our food. So, what exactly should we be eating?

On the surface, this seems like an easy question. Most people would answer that a healthy diet involves a balanced variety of different food groups high in nutritional value, little or no processed junk, and plenty of water. This is the wisdom of the crowd's answer, and it's broadly accurate when it comes to the scientific consensus. Whether or not most people follow this diet is another question - my diet has far too much pasta to be considered healthy.

I'm supposed to be writing about decision-making and not my love for lasagna, but I first want to challenge the assumption of food being limited to what we eat and drink. We're going to be working with a broadly metaphysical definition of food that's more along the lines of consumption. Specifically, there are three kinds of consumption: physical, mental, or economic.

• Physical consumption isn't limited to what we think of when we say "food." It's everything that we tangibly consume, which would include not just food and drink but any drugs (tobacco, cannabis, or harder substances) or environmental pollutants that enter into our bodies (e.g., lead poisoning from lead pipes).
• Mental consumption consists of all the stimuli that are entering our conscious or subconscious mind. Examples of this include advertisements we see, books we're reading, or heavy conversations we have. Think of it as intangible eating.
• Economic consumption can be thought of as how we "eat" with our wallets. It's what enters into our lives through spending. The amount of money we spend and the stuff we buy is important not only for our personal well-being but also for organizational health - a company can't hope to thrive if it's regularly having $26,000 worth of sides at dinner.

Food: anything that enters into our body, mind, or environment.

Defining the three ways that we "eat" is critical for understanding the effect our "diet" has on our subconscious, which in turn allows us to acknowledge and overcome those influences on decision-making processes. We also need to know the criteria for a healthy diet on the mental and economic levels as well as refine it for our physical level.

Everyone has an opinion on a healthy diet. Ask ten friends, and you'll probably get at least ten recommendations, including but not limited to keto, regular juice cleanses, paleo, whatever Andrew Huberman's saying, intermittent fasting, Ayurveda, the Mediterranean diet, the Lindy diet, veganism, the Atkins diet, Whole30, the carnivore diet...the list goes on.

All of these diets have pros and cons, but there's a singular pitch at the heart of all of their value propositions: follow this diet, and you'll end up looking good, feeling good, and being strong and healthy. The opposite end of the spectrum is food that will have the opposite effect: it'll make you look unhealthy, feel unhealthier, and become sick and weak. It'll taste bland and flavorless at best and be rotten or spoiled at worst.

The ideal diet would actually deliver on what it promises for everyone. Of course, nothing is ever ideal, so it's all down to the shades of gray. There are two key parts to healthy eating outside of the promises of diets that are also present to various degrees on the spectrum:

• Moderation: eat too much, and you'll end up obese, no matter how healthy the food is. This also applies to other dimensions besides quantity: too spicy and your stomach will hurt; not enough protein, and you'll wither away.
• Personal need: the nutrition of nuts doesn't matter if you're allergic to them. Everyone's got their own individual needs and preferences, and these inform the other two aspects of nourishing food and moderation.

This is a spectrum on which to judge physical consumption, but we can apply this to mental and economic consumption as well. These three qualities - nourishment, moderation, and personal need - are the criteria by which we can judge if what we consume is helping us make good decisions.

I don't want to go too much longer, but in the next few posts, we'll be diving deeper into each of the types of food, how to assess them based on what makes a healthy diet, and how to optimize our consumption for better decision-making.

-Sid

Thoughtful strategies for sustainable success.