You are what you eat is a phrase I have heard my entire life, but until recently never really thought about. I have come to the conclusion that you are what you eat has never been more true than it is today. The phrase basically means that to be fit and healthy you need to eat good food.
According to The Phrase Finder:
This phrase has come to us via quite a tortuous route. Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote, in Physiologie du Gout, ou Meditations de Gastronomie Transcendante, 1826:
“Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es.” [Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are].
In an essay titled Concerning Spiritualism and Materialism, 1863/4, Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach wrote:
“Der Mensch ist, was er ißt.”
That translates into English as ‘man is what he eats’.
It is apparent that even in the 1800’s people were aware that we need good food to be healthy. Over this past year I have really been focusing on the foods I buy and eat. I try to buy as much organic food as possible. I try to buy as little processed foods as I can. If the food I’m buying has a label I read it, and look for the “best” option available. I have severely cut sugar and processed foods from our household. I have been reading books and websites to help me feed my family in the best possible way. I have made buying the best possible foods my number one objective at the grocery store. Yes, my grocery budget has gone up a bit. Yes, it takes me longer to shop for food. Yes, I have to be more selective when I am looking for products that I normally would not have given a second thought to years ago. BUT (and it’s a big but), we have been healthier all year!! and I have to believe that choosing better quality foods has played a huge part in the quality of our health. We’ve also seen the numbers on the scales go down!
I know that it’s not easy for everyone to buy organic foods. I know that a lot of people live on very strict grocery budgets. I know that in some places organic foods aren’t even easily accessible, but if you look a bit you can find it at prices that aren’t too much different than non-organic foods. I was just at Target this afternoon looking for celery for my husband and I didn’t think they had organic celery so I picked up a bunch of celery. It was $2.47. (I was shocked that celery cost that much but that’s beside the point!) I walked around to the other side of the produce section and found organic celery! It was $2.77 for a bunch!! For 30 cents more I got organic celery and I was a happy wife and my hubby was happy, too! The point in this grocery game is to show you that for 30 cents more I was able to buy something that will be better for us. No GMO’s, no added yuck, and I can feel more confident in my purchase to feed my family food that won’t hurt us.
The point of this post is to encourage you to find a couple of things that you can do to improve your food selections on a weekly basis and to see how much better those things taste compared to what you normally would purchase. Do this a little at a time and add more and more fresh foods to your grocery selections and less processed and see how your health improves over time. Be selective about what you are feeding your family and watch the changes that happen over time!
For a final note: This week my 10 year old son told me he was glad we don’t eat much “processed junk” anymore because he doesn’t want to hinder his chances of becoming a black belt in karate this fall. He has come to realize, even as a kid, that to perform well he has to eat well! If a 10 year old boy can learn this, we adults certainly can learn it, as well!!
Eat good food to exercise, which in turn will help us reach our healthy living and weight loss goals!!
One final note that has nothing to do with this post — Today is my husband’s 49th birthday!! Will you help me wish him a happy birthday, please? Love you, Guy and I hope your day is spectacular! xoxoxo
xoxoxo,
Ann
(Visited 56 times, 1 visits today)