this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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Fun fact: This is not actually much different from the process of testing which foods trigger your IBS. After keeping the low FODMAPs diet, wherein you initially remove all possible triggers, you then test them one by one to see which ones you have specifically.
I feel like a binary search method would work too
A Binary search requires a ordered data set. Something like "if you react to X, you will also react to any X+1, X+2... X+n. Food is not ordered, you cant know if you react badly to bell peper because you reacted badly to whole grain wheat.
Not necessarily, but searching a data set that’s not ordered relies on an assumption that there’s a single thing you’re looking for.
If there are 10 ingredients, you get sick and you only take half next time, you need to be able to assume that there’s one set of 5 that doesn’t get you sick and one that does, and so on until you get down to the last ingredient.
It’s a good way to e.g. quickly find the right breaker in the box, because for each device/ socket there’s just one breaker that’s responsible, so flipping half of them gives you an actionable result