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| Monday, March 23, 2009 |
| You Are What You Eat |
The Phrase Finder defines ‘You Are What You Eat’ as “the notion that to be fit and healthy you need to eat good food.”
How shocked would you be to know that this simple phrase, which defined the 1960’s modern idea, has a much older history? In fact a history older than our country!
- In 1826 a wise Frenchman named Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote: "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."
- In 1863 Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach wrote: "Man is what he eats."
- In 1942 the nutritionist "Victor Lindlahr, a strong believer in the idea that food controls health" published "You are what you eat: how to win and keep health with diet." He is credited with bringing "You Are What You Eat into public consciousness." This clever newspaper advertisment was aimed at his followers: "Ninety percent of the diseases known to man are caused by cheap foodstuffs. You are what you eat."
“In the hippy era of the 1960’s, the phrase got a new lease on life. You are what you eat represented a movement back to the land, a more natural lifestyle, a desire for foods grown and harvested organically. It summed up a rebellion against the consumer-driven lifestyles of their parents’ generation, expressed a conscious desire for harmony and peace with each other and the planet, as well as a desire to eat more ethically. Then an era passed, and the ‘flower children’ became busy parents looking for the same, or newer, conveniences for their families.
Today we might say ‘You Are What You Eat’ again and mean it. ‘To be fit and healthy’ you need to know what good food is, and where to find it. Many of us don’t. Mark Bittman of the New York Times explained this: When “Americans began applying the word “cooking” to the act of defrosting and heating mass-produced frozen food in a microwave oven,” we forgot what “good food” looked like. But “our relationship with food is changing” once again, and this time we are moving back, or ahead, depending upon your point of view. “There are more signs that convenience, that mid 20th century curse word, may give way to quality, even what you might call wholesomeness.“
Why are we taking food seriously again? “Because our lives depend on it” Mark Bittman reminds us of “the real issues; how do we grow and raise, distribute and sell, prepare and eat food? How do our patterns of doing these things affect the rest of the world?” Simply put, “If we are obsessing about where our food is from, and how it’s grown, this is progress.”
You are what you eat!
- Nancy
Labels: food for thought, healthy living, Nancy
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posted by My Sensei @ Monday, March 23, 2009   |
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