In this animation, we examine the phrase, "You are what you eat". It's a phrase used around the world and throughout history, but how much scientific truth is there to back this statement up?
Animation by After Skool
Key Takeaways
Is it true that you are what you eat? The phrase you often hear ‘you are what you eat’ has been a core belief in many cultures throughout history.
- The ancient Aztecs would eat the brain of their rivals because they believed it would give them the wisdom and knowledge of their enemies.
- In India, some cultures do not eat onion and garlic because they believed foods with strong odor lead to aggressive and offensive behaviors.
- The Nordic Vikings believe that drinking the blood of a bear or a wolf before the battle gave them the ferocity of the animal they drank.
- In China, there is a high demand for tiger penis because men there believe that eating it will boost libido and cure erectile dysfunction.
Around the world and throughout history we see fascinating and bizarre examples of traditions that center around the idea that you embody what you eat.
Today, most of these mythical beliefs have faded away but there is still much of validity to the phrase, “you are what you eat,” so what exactly does this phrase mean?
The meaning of the phrase is pretty simple: If you eat crappy food, you’re going to feel crappy. If you eat healthy food, then you will feel and look healthy. You are what you put into your body.
Through a scientific lens, what you eat determines even the composition of your cellular membranes. All the way down to the tiniest building block of your entire body. Those little blocks that build your bones, your organs, your muscles and your brain.
The average adult loses around 300 billion cells to old age every single day. How does their body replace those cells? With the food we eat… literally That food becomes the fuel for our body’s own manufacturing plan to replace cells that die.
When we eat toxic chemically-laden nutritionless food, our bodies have a hard time manufacturing new healthy cells. It would be like giving a man a blunt hammer in the middle of the desert and asking him to build a massive castle or filling a race car gas tank with sand and expecting it to win.
Our bodies carry out billions of functions every second with those cells, thus another popular phrase is that our bodies are a temple, only instead of putting clean fuel in the machine we put in excrement and expect this machine to make a masterpiece.
Though our body is infinitely intelligent and even figures out how to replace our cells to some extent despite our poor food choices, it can only improvise on making of a masterpiece for so long before it runs out of ideas.
Eventually, eating processed junk food will lead to your cells becoming processed junk. Genetically modified food equals to genetically modified you.
So, drink clean water, eat more fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. Allow your digestive system to work as it should by reducing chronic inflamation with a better diet and consistent moderate excercise and you’ll even be able to extract more of the good stuff out of your food. Your body will also be able to dump the bad stuff with more ease.
In brief, You ARE What You EAT. More than 300 hundred billion cells depend on the fuel you give your body. Make sure you give them the good stuff.