Applying the Oranges Principle to Dieting and Chocolate

I was surprised no one in the last thread brought up the NASA example. When shipping costs 10k per lb, this concept becomes even clearer.

@robc,
Yes.
@Ed Hanson,
I don’t understand your comment. I suspect, but am not sure, that you don’t understand my post.

I actually do the same thing, although I haven’t had a formal explanation of the rationale. Another part of my reasoning was that if the sweets (and alcohol) I eat are prohibitively expensive, I will buy and eat fewer of them.

David

I tried in a light hearted manner to point out that you allowing your bias for high quality chocolate control your economic thought. But you want things serious, ok.

First the proper universe of products to eat is not just chocolate, but all sugar containing foods. The economic measure is not your ‘shadow price’ but opportunity cost of what non-chocolate food you can not have due to your chocolate intake. I would bet there is a sugar containing food that is better for you out there by some measure other than love.

It is your love, read that craving, for chocolate which limited your look at opportunity cost.

But, giving you the benefit of the doubt that it is love not craving that determine your choice of chocolate, and that is the measure of opportunity cost, then we will investigate the universe of chocolate. But believing in keep it short it will be another post.

Ed

In my experience, the best tasting chocolate is at least 90% cocoa. The less sugar, the less the terrible aftertaste.

@Rob Rawlings,
I think there may be some “reasoning from a diet change” going on here.
Correct. I’m dieting. Then I reason through to what that implies.
The fact that dieting causes the shadow price of the sugar in a piece of chocolate to increase may explain why people tend to choose more expensive chocolate while dieting.
Exactly. That’s what my post is about.
But I do not immediately see why knowledge of “shadow pricing” gained from a study of economics should influence one’s choices while dieting in any way, any more than knowledge of the ‘Oranges Principle’ would cause (rather than explain) the ratio of high-quality oranges to low-quality oranges consumed by Minnesotans to change.
Correct. I’m explaining my behavior. I would have behaved the same even if I had never heard of shadow prices.

Thanks for your response. I had (clearly incorrectly now I reread it in the light of your response) gathered from your “here’s the reasoning” paragraph that theory was guiding rather than explaining your chocolate choices.

For the record: I rarely disagree with (but apparently sometimes misunderstand) your posts.

Better tighten the constraint on proteins too. The healthiest shift away from carbs is into ‘good’ fats, not proteins. Without a tightened constraint on proteins, the optimal diet plan may increase protein consumption beyond what’s healthy, damaging your kidneys. Best to track your BUN if your going to diet over long term.

if you are dieting and cutting carbs, remember to keep your fiber content high, possibly by taking fiber supplements (i.e. psyllium husk). Otherwise you risk developing other issues like gallbladder disease. Fiber helps clean toxins out of the body which can be stored in fat cells.