You Are What You Eat

By: Carla H., MS, CSCS, EIM, CSN, Corporate Health Unlimited

You’ve heard the saying “you are what you eat” plenty of times. But is there really any truth to it? Are you really “what you eat”?

Let’s take a scientific look and see what we come up with. The body is an ever-changing specimen. The cells of the body are constantly dying off and renewing themselves on a continual basis. Every type of cell in the body has its own life span and the body’s tissues are under constant renewal. Some cells, like sperm cells only live a few days. Whereas, red blood cells can live up to four months.

The body rebuilds and renews itself from the nutrition you provide it with. The body learns to live off of what you feed it. So whether you feed it junk or nutritious foods it will renew itself off of the energy you give it.

“Just as our homes are made from lumber without looking like trees, our bodies are made from the nutrients we extract from foods without resembling those foods. The nutritional content of what we eat determines the composition of our cell membranes, bone marrow, blood, and hormones. Consider that the average adult loses roughly 300 billion cells to old age every day and must replace them. Our bodies are literally manufactured out of the food we consume.” ~David Katz M.D.

Every 2 – 6 years you have a completely new body.

So think about it… Does the saying “you are what you eat” hold true? If so, what are you?