“YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT” has been traced back to Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, in 1826, in his book The Physiology of Taste. He wrote, “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.”

This quote implies that if you eat what is considered to be healthy you will be healthy and if you eat what is considered unhealthy will make you unhealthy. Well this is not entirely true. Referring to any food as healthy is not entirely accurate. Food is not healthy. Food is more or less nutritious which makes you – the eater – more or less healthy.

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Food provides your body and or mind what is needed and sometimes how nutritious you perceive a food to be will vary. If you were stranded on an island for a month with no food and came across a bag of refined, white sugar would you eat it? I bet that you would despite it being labeled by many as bad for you. I bet it would not kill you, it would return you to health, energize you and allow you to think clearly again. Not only that, sugar, which is considered by many as being one of the ‘white evils’ would save your life in this situation. So sugar is not ‘unhealthy’ nor always all bad.

Conversely, when we think of something that is ‘healthy’ or good for you, fruits and vegetables likely come to mind. When you think about what makes them nutritious we generally believe it’s their anti-oxidant content. However, according to Scientific American it’s the toxins in fruits and veggies, so-called ‘natural pesticides,’ that appear to be most important. It is these built-in toxins that provide health benefits when consumed in small quantities. These inherent toxins appear to create a mild stress on the cells similar to that achieved through exercise or fasting. This way, they enable cells to become more resilient and resistant to stress, a process called hormesis.28 In addition, what is considered to make you healthy one day, can be considered to harm you the very next.

Thinking we are what we eat appears to be a rational but simplistic way of looking at human health and wellness. There may be factors just as if not more important as what we should and shouldn’t. Eat-ology recognizes that food labeling can leave your head spinning with confusion. Any 10-year-old can tell you what foods you should and shouldn’t eat but having this information has not removed humanity’s potbelly. According to Eat-ology, these may include when we eat, how we eat, how much we eat as well as social and cultural factors that influence our eating attitudes and behaviors.

References:

Mark P. Mattson. Toxic Chemicals in Fruits and Vegetables Are What Give Them Their Health Benefits. Scientific American. 2015 page 1-7.