Lindy Effect: How to Apply This Powerful Framework to the Foods You Eat

What has existed will continue to exist... Which is just a fancy way of saying what’s been around will continue to be around.

This is a thought provoking idea I learned from author Nassim Taleb in his book: Antifragile. 

Apparently he got the idea from another author named Benoit Mandelbrot, who wrote:

"For the perishable, every additional day in its life translates into a shorter additional life expectancy. For the nonperishable, every additional day may imply a longer life expectancy. So the longer a technology lives, the longer it can be expected to live."

The beauty of the Lindy Effect is that it applies to anything: including food, diet, ideas and books.

While humans and food have an expiry date. Some things increase their shelf life with each passing day.

In layman's terms: time tells us the value of something. 

The Lindy Effect explains that if anything (for example: a book or an idea) is around for, let’s say 50 years (or pick any period of time), the odds it will be around the next 50 years are high. 

We should trust things that stand the test of time. 

What does this have to do with bone broth?

There’s evidence that just about every ancient civilization benefited from bone broth.

These cultures ate nose to tail. They certainly could not afford to waste any food, so typical inedible animal parts were tossed into a cauldron with water to make bone soup.

Fast forward today, we are still making and using bone broth.

I would argue bone broth is ‘Lindy.’ It has been around for thousands of years. Odds are, it will continue to be around for thousands more years. 

Can you say the same for other foods you eat or that supplement you take? It’s a fun exercise to apply the Lindy Effect to the things we consume.