You Are What You Eat

You ever heard the expression, "you are what you eat"? I'm suspicious of that! The first mention of the phrase "you are what you eat" came from the 1826 work Physiologie du Gout, ou Medetations de Gastronomie Transcendante, in which French author Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote: “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what your are.” Hmmmm The French think they know everything about food, but they are delusional. Just think of what those crazy vegans and vegetarians would be if they looked and acted like the plants they ate? Oh, wait. Some vegans don't even look as healthy as a carrot or as asparagus.

Basically, the idea of that phrase is that to stay healthy, it’s best to keep off junk food because "you are what you eat".  When I meet a convert to a "healthy food diet"  they mumble that they are superior. The exclaim that, "I feel more energetic and fit now that I’ve given up processed food and eat more freshly prepared local and seasonal foods.” At that point I tell them I love donuts and hamburger. What normal person doesn't? But that falls flat, so i ask them about drugs, whether they take any.

Most health nuts pop a lot of pills. They love things like steroids, smoking joints and supplements. They eat allot of supplements, foreign, mostly made in lab drugs that they seem to think are not "junk foods". But they are. I say let me have my junkie donuts and hamburgers in peace, without any pretentious preaching about your "natural diet" and I'll shut up about your addiction to all those drugs.

To show how off those health nuts are, just look at how food changes as to whether it is healthy or unhealthy. Once butter, for example, was deemed unhealthy because it was too fatty. Margarine was invented in the lab as a "healthy substitute", but now we believe that butter is far better and far more healthy than margarine. For a long time, eggs were thought to be bad for your heart. A large egg contains a hefty 185mg of cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol was believed to contribute to high blood cholesterol levels. But for the last 20 years, nutrition and medical research has shown repeatedly that at normal intakes dietary cholesterol has very little influence on a person’s blood cholesterol levels. Take that, healthy eaters!

Potatoes are considered to be unhealthy by some, but healthy by others. That's because they have plenty of carbohydrates, but how you prepare potatoes also changes the aspects of those starches that get a bad rap and makes kit healthy. Sigh. How is one to know this good/bad food dynamic. It's the same with milk and cheese, once considered bad for the heart but now treasured by many because dairy products include the high protein and calcium content.

I think that the you are what you at motto should be thrown down the garbage disposal with the Quinoa that I hate so much. Remember, when it comes to food and health: all foods, even my donuts, can fit into a healthy diet. There are  no “super foods” or “food villains”. Enthusiastic consumption of one particular “super food” can be worse than consuming a so called “food villain”. Uh, with that remark, I think that I just endorsed eating donuts for healthier living