[Reason077]

I had a engineer co-worker once who did something similar, but it was due to a dietary restriction rather than cost optimization. He'd only eat bland food with no spices due to some stomach/digestive issue. His lunches, as far as I can remember, were always either potatoes with tomatoes or rice with tomatoes. (I don't recall him losing any weight on this diet. Possibly the opposite!)

[ashwagary]

>He'd only eat bland food with no spices due to some stomach/digestive issue.

There is another method that involves focusing on food volumes rather than other restrictions.

The average stomach can hold 8 cups of solid food but intestines can comfortably only process 2-3 cups of food at a time (every 4-6 hours).

The method works for stomachs with faulty fill guages. Fast food meal portion sizes, processed foods, and some medications are really good at breaking the reliability of these guages which is part of the reason for weight issues in western populations, atleast that's the theory behind this approach.

[mulligan]

> 8 cups of solid food but intestines can comfortably only process 2-3 cups of food at a time

this is really interesting, do you have any additional references on this?

[ashwagary]

Similar to the parent poster, it's a solution a coworker came up with to deal with misdiagnosed digestion issues.

He only ate 2-3 cups of food per meal and was symptom free shortly after.

[xeromal]

I always love a true engineer's approach to solving a problem. Their brains are fun to peak into.

[suprjami]

That's amusing. Tomatoes used to be considered a low-FODMAP non-irritant, but Monash (leaders in IBS research) looked a second time and found that was wrong. A small as one slice of tomato can set off an IBS irritation episode in some people.

https://alittlebityummy.com/blog/changes-in-fodmap-ratings-f...

https://www.karlijnskitchen.com/en/monash-university-update-...