Bounty market

This market is bounty-tiered (PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT UNDER YOUR ANSWER SO I CAN TIP IT):

• At least M$ 50 for a hypothesis I have not yet considered

• At least M$ 100 for any test and experiments I make

• At least M$ 250 for any good ideas (and up for very good ideas)

I am more likely to test things that are expected to work : Testing is costly and stopping the potatoes mean I am way less efficient. So I would much rather do a positive test "will X also induce productivity/hypomania" than negative one "let's try to remove X and see if it still works". However, I will try to ensure that answers I choose are correct to the best of my abilities, so if it really worked so far, I will do some negative testing around it.

This market resolves to the credence I have of each explanations, weighted by points. Note that my question is along the line of "how can I reproduce this", so feel free to answer that instead (ie. I don't need to know why it works exactly, I just want to know what an optimized solution looks like. Might change the title to reflect this better)

This market is intended to be primarilly incentivized through its bounties. I will be completely transparent about the points I intend to give to each options at any given time.

Context

Reviewing the data of the past two/three months, it seems clear to me that the potato diet has had a drastic impact on me: On it, I was working daily without any problems, focusing seemed fun, and I was making progress drastically. Three weeks after the diet, this gradually fell down until I was back to the baseline before it.

I've been experimenting with taking potatoes again on and off since and the effect seems very clear: Whenever I eat only potatoes, five days later the stream of energy is fully on and I can work without any interruptions.

I would like to understand what is going on, and more importantly: How to optimize this.

Personal data

You can find my original potato diet data here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QHaPRoYcSqfkfYCKY2k2c-uRQK1jbgJJN5PhFcFxdvQ/

I will update my state and findings in the following document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bqSJYXDIAoGcl1ARvCH8Be4G-lubtA0UQdfXaXLgGwo/

Key points:

• Eaten only potatoes in chips for 12 days, nothing

• Eaten potatoes boiled with their peels and peeled off: 5 days after the full effect had started to kick in

• This effect has been reproduced since

• One month of the potato diet -> 3 weeks to die down. 5 days of the potato diet -> 4 days to die down.

• Currently experimenting with starch

• Early data, but focusing on it, it seems like the rush of productivity comes ~2 hours after eating potatoes, and last for about 2 as well. This is slightly confounded by other experiments and I will

General data

I've compiled all sources I've found here: https://whatisthis.world/potatoes/
For now, it contains all sources mentionned by https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5266211/pdf/pone.0169277.pdf which argues that Few Foods Diet has a high impact on ADHD symptoms (More on that in hypothesis), as well as all SMTM reports.

I will update it as I find more sources of information.

Hypotheses

• Probably not replacement effect/avoiding a specific type of food: The diet did not kick in while I was eating the potatoes in chips (or it was a replacement effect for sugar and they generated some through Maillard? Or garlic, but that seems unlikely)

• Probably not placebo (or it needs to be way more specific): The effect occurs without me thinking about it at all and is very gradual. In fact, I was convinced that it was my new technics and methods that were working while on the diet. It might be something about routine, though that seems unlikely (I was still having a similar routine off-diet)

• Probably not Few Foods Diet? All diets in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5266211/pdf/pone.0169277.pdf include potatoes, so it is hard to gauge. But so far, it seems that it is the addition of potatoes that is having an effect on me.

• Starches? It could make sense, since cut in slices and in the oven, it would react and transform. I've tried eating some starch cooked, doesn't seem to have any effect. Taken a little bit raw, but haven't established the potato baseline enough to notice anything. A little unlikely for now, but not ruled out at all

• Something that has to do with the peels of the potatoes? I boil them in the water, so maybe there's something there

• Solanine? This feels dangerous for me to try, and so is low-priority at the moment.

• Potassium hyperconcentration? I might try potassium supplements, but this seems apriori unlikely?

Betting policy

I will not be betting on this market (I might buy and sell M$1 to bump, or buy M$ 1 to add an answer)

Close date updated to 2022-11-07 12:39 am