If “they” (above) are correct, I am currently a banana.
I have been accused of being bananas, so perhaps we’ve found the cause!
In point of fact, the original statement was not to be taken literally. That was way back in 1826, when this phrase was used in a book by a French lawyer named Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.
He wrote: Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.
Of course he wrote that in French, not English. A few years later (1864) another fellow wrote something very similar in German:
Man is what he eats.
That appeared in an essay entitled Concerning Spiritualism and Materialism, which is a topic that is far more interesting than it sounds like it might be. In fact I was considering writing Can Your Brain Think? I’ll save that for another time, though, because of this very important bit of news.
With suggestions from others, I have collected forty of my articles from Do Good U and am in the process of putting those together in book form! I hope you will buy several hundred copies so you and your family and friends can devour them. The title is
40 Bites of Good. Because you are what you eat.
(Thanks to Erik Fretland for his help with the subtitle, and to Erik, John, Judy, Bill, et al, for helping with article selection.)
And so it is that “you are what you eat” is on my mind, and now in your inbox.
What does it mean?
Several years ago my wife and I found a book called How Not To Die, written by Dr. Michael Greger. He is a huge fan of — and practitioner of — preventive medicine, which cynics will say is unusual in the medical field.
Where it is really unusual is in the general population.
Many of us, at least from time to time, live by the idea that if we happen to get sick, pills will fix it. If we get too sick for medications alone, an operation can restore us to good health.
I’m not talking about illnesses that are not preventable or accidents that cause us physical harm. What I am talking about are the dozens of illnesses that can either be prevented or — in many cases — reversed by simply eating the right foods.
Obesity is one of the biggies (smile wryly if you must), and the other is heart disease. Dr. Greger’s grandmother suffered terribly from heart problems, had taken all kinds of medicines and had endured all kinds of surgeries, and was finally sent home to die. But she was a fighter, and when she learned about the brand new Pritikin diet she applied for and was accepted into a trial program for it.
She lived 31 more years, to the age of 96.
That helped inspire Dr. Greger to enter the medical field and focus on diet as a way of preventing disease and illness. Almost everything he researches — and he and his team do amazing amounts of research — can be found for free on Nutritionfacts.org.
But not everyone is online, so he took a lot of that and put it into How Not To Die, which we bought.
My wife ate it up! That did not make her a book, but the more she read the more she believed in the benefits of eating a plant-based, whole foods diet.
Amazing
Being a good disciple, she continues to learn more about plant-based, whole foods living. In a recent webinar on the topic, she heard a woman tell her story.
Esther Loveridge was 72 in 2016 and needed knee surgery. The doctor said she had to lose 70 pounds (she weighed 257) before she could have the surgery. She didn’t think that was possible, but her knees really hurt. So she started on a plant-based, whole foods diet.
Three years later, at age 75, she had lost a total of 130 pounds. Her dress size went from 26 to a size 6.
She was able to stop taking statins, pain meds, sleeping pills, lithium, and thyroid meds, her prediabetic condition was reversed, and she no longer needed knee replacement. The most amazing part to me was that her vision improved twice over those three years, and at the end of it she no longer needed glasses, which she had worn for 30 years.
“Your results may vary,” but this is still incredible and encouraging.
What does “you are what you eat” even mean?
Way back in 1826 and 1864, “you are what you eat” meant that the foods you eat have a direct effect on your state of mind and your health.
Dr. Greger would agree. His How Not To Die book wasn’t about diet, it was about health. But he had a lot of people that wanted a diet book, so he wrote one: How Not To Diet. Later he added How Not To Age.
But back to the phrase.
Wise people have said for thousands of years that what we take in has a direct impact on what comes out of us. There are examples of that in philosophical writings, in scientific books, and even in the Bible.
Here is something everyone agrees on: garbage in, garbage out.
How do we take things in? With our eyes, with our ears, our noses, our mouths, and through our skin, to name the most common ways.
One very important factor in all of this is our friends. Did you know that people who hang out regularly with friends who are overweight are more likely to become overweight themselves? Researchers have proven it.
And of course the same is true for ideas and beliefs and almost anything else you can imagine. What kinds of books do your friends read? What kinds of movies do they watch? I hope they’re good!
Knowing all this, you can help your friends as you help yourself. Read “good,” and do good. It’s in you, and it’s in them too. Especially since they are hanging out with you!
You Are What You Eat, so they say
If “they” (above) are correct, I am currently a banana.
I have been accused of being bananas, so perhaps we’ve found the cause!
In point of fact, the original statement was not to be taken literally. That was way back in 1826, when this phrase was used in a book by a French lawyer named Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.
He wrote: Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.
Of course he wrote that in French, not English. A few years later (1864) another fellow wrote something very similar in German:
Man is what he eats.
That appeared in an essay entitled Concerning Spiritualism and Materialism, which is a topic that is far more interesting than it sounds like it might be. In fact I was considering writing Can Your Brain Think? I’ll save that for another time, though, because of this very important bit of news.
With suggestions from others, I have collected forty of my articles from Do Good U and am in the process of putting those together in book form! I hope you will buy several hundred copies so you and your family and friends can devour them. The title is
40 Bites of Good. Because you are what you eat.
(Thanks to Erik Fretland for his help with the subtitle, and to Erik, John, Judy, Bill, et al, for helping with article selection.)
And so it is that “you are what you eat” is on my mind, and now in your inbox.
What does it mean?
Several years ago my wife and I found a book called How Not To Die, written by Dr. Michael Greger. He is a huge fan of — and practitioner of — preventive medicine, which cynics will say is unusual in the medical field.
Where it is really unusual is in the general population.
Many of us, at least from time to time, live by the idea that if we happen to get sick, pills will fix it. If we get too sick for medications alone, an operation can restore us to good health.
I’m not talking about illnesses that are not preventable or accidents that cause us physical harm. What I am talking about are the dozens of illnesses that can either be prevented or — in many cases — reversed by simply eating the right foods.
Obesity is one of the biggies (smile wryly if you must), and the other is heart disease. Dr. Greger’s grandmother suffered terribly from heart problems, had taken all kinds of medicines and had endured all kinds of surgeries, and was finally sent home to die. But she was a fighter, and when she learned about the brand new Pritikin diet she applied for and was accepted into a trial program for it.
She lived 31 more years, to the age of 96.
That helped inspire Dr. Greger to enter the medical field and focus on diet as a way of preventing disease and illness. Almost everything he researches — and he and his team do amazing amounts of research — can be found for free on Nutritionfacts.org.
But not everyone is online, so he took a lot of that and put it into How Not To Die, which we bought.
My wife ate it up! That did not make her a book, but the more she read the more she believed in the benefits of eating a plant-based, whole foods diet.
Amazing
Being a good disciple, she continues to learn more about plant-based, whole foods living. In a recent webinar on the topic, she heard a woman tell her story.
Esther Loveridge was 72 in 2016 and needed knee surgery. The doctor said she had to lose 70 pounds (she weighed 257) before she could have the surgery. She didn’t think that was possible, but her knees really hurt. So she started on a plant-based, whole foods diet.
Three years later, at age 75, she had lost a total of 130 pounds. Her dress size went from 26 to a size 6.
She was able to stop taking statins, pain meds, sleeping pills, lithium, and thyroid meds, her prediabetic condition was reversed, and she no longer needed knee replacement. The most amazing part to me was that her vision improved twice over those three years, and at the end of it she no longer needed glasses, which she had worn for 30 years.
“Your results may vary,” but this is still incredible and encouraging.
What does “you are what you eat” even mean?
Way back in 1826 and 1864, “you are what you eat” meant that the foods you eat have a direct effect on your state of mind and your health.
Dr. Greger would agree. His How Not To Die book wasn’t about diet, it was about health. But he had a lot of people that wanted a diet book, so he wrote one: How Not To Diet. Later he added How Not To Age.
But back to the phrase.
Wise people have said for thousands of years that what we take in has a direct impact on what comes out of us. There are examples of that in philosophical writings, in scientific books, and even in the Bible.
Here is something everyone agrees on: garbage in, garbage out.
How do we take things in? With our eyes, with our ears, our noses, our mouths, and through our skin, to name the most common ways.
One very important factor in all of this is our friends. Did you know that people who hang out regularly with friends who are overweight are more likely to become overweight themselves? Researchers have proven it.
And of course the same is true for ideas and beliefs and almost anything else you can imagine. What kinds of books do your friends read? What kinds of movies do they watch? I hope they’re good!
Knowing all this, you can help your friends as you help yourself. Read “good,” and do good. It’s in you, and it’s in them too. Especially since they are hanging out with you!
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