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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   3433 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 25, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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How do I build a stomach of steel?

There is alpha in being able to eat food of questionable expiry-date/hygiene and being able to brush it off. Namely cost savings, more choices for eating out, and more peace of mind.

I've already noticed that eating yogurt seems to iron out a somewhat lackluster diet. And it works extremely well within 1-2 days of daily consumption.

Anything else I should go for?

This seems more risk than worth. It's not that hard to avoid foods of questionable expiry date and hygiene.

You can't. You get used to the diet you eat; but going outside it can fuck you up along paramteres detemined by your biom and your genes.

IE, I can eat raw meat and dirt and bugs and milk that is 5 seconds from cheese; but one drop of bad fry oil sends me to toilet purgatory

How do I build a stomach of steel?

I've had success with immune boosting nootropics. I seem to get sick less often and if I do start to feel sick the symptoms are minimal and don't last long. This could just be a coincidence as there is no way to really prove that the nootropics improved my immune function.

cost savings

Nootropics will cost upwards of several dollars a day so don't think you will get any alpha from it (possible exception if the nootropics help you avoid a visit to the doctor's office). The main reason to build a stomach of steel is to improve your quality of life/health so you spend less time being sick. Using the immune boosting nootropics can be especially helpful if you are doing something where the food/hygiene conditions are less than you're accustomed to such as: camping, traveling out of country, or large gatherings.

What are these immune boosting nootropics ?

  • Andrographis paniculata

  • lactococcus lactis strain plasma

  • Reacta-C (vitamin C)

  • Reduced glutathione

  • Immune Defense by Nootropics Depot (blend of Yeast Extract, Black Seed Extract, Oleamide, Tyrosol, Zinc, Palmitoylethanolamide, and mushroom extracts)

I take the Reduced glutathione daily and then usually take 1 of the other 4 per day. I'm very in tune with my body so if I start to feel anything off like a dry throat I'll take more that day.

Let's say I had to restrict myself to only one for quality of life (laziness) reasons, which one?

Immune Defense is the strongest, but it is also the most expensive. If you were to pick something else, or a single ingredient from Immune Defense, I'm not sure which would work best. It varies a lot by person.

build a stomach of steel

There was a man who could literally eat steel, Michel Lotito. His stomach was just literally thicker but he also ate most of the non-food materials with mineral oil.

As for eating questionable food, I'd suggest strong stomach acid.

There's a big difference between food that has genuinely gone bad and things that are past their expiration date, since the later are often quite conservative, especially if things are kept cold or sealed. You may still be able to build up your gut microbiome, but I wouldn't think of it as some kind of superpower.

The most direct approach would be a fecal transplant from a person whose diet you wish to emulate. Barring that, I suppose diversifying your diet with an emphasis on fermented foods and probiotics has the best shot of working e.g. yogurt as you mentioned, kimchi, kombucha, natto, miso, different sorts of pickles and vinegars, etc. Also maybe figure out whatever this guy does to survive eating century-old military rations.

I'm not really sure, but intuitively this isn't necessarily easy or possible? Things that make you sick are various microorganisms, and you could probably build tolerance to some of them, but not really arbitrary microorganisms. Compare to diseases - "how do you build an invulnerable immune system" isn't really possible, because each organism has its own mechanisms, so we have the adaptive immune system that learns.

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