The saying, “You are what you eat” has become a popular — and probably somewhat annoying to some — cautionary catchphrase that warns or praises eaters about the content of their food, but did you know it actually has some truth to it? In fact, it probably has a whole lot more truth than you’ve been taught to understand.
While you may not literally instantly turn into a pig after eating a factory-farmed pork chop or slab of crispy, salted bacon after it, you are ingesting everything and anything that animal ate. In some schools of thought, particularly Earth-based religious and spiritual practices, eating the flesh of animal also involves eating its “energy” or life force, whether that be positive or negative. Under this theory for example, eating the flesh of a factory farmed animal can be particularly hazardous to one’s health because of the amount of physical abuse they suffer, which results in the meat retaining negative energy.
Whether you believe in this or not, it’s no secret that eating foods high in refined ingredients such as sugars and fats is bad for you. But maybe you don’t realize how bad. Take for example the fact that close to half of children are overweight, which creates the perfect platform for a lifetime of poor nutritional and lifestyle choices.
While it may seem bizarre that a fairly young person would need to enter into a pulmonary rehabilitation program, this is actually becoming a fairly common occurrence. Pulmonary rehabilitation programs and many other kinds of restorative care programs for various pulmonary disorders are seeing more and more patients at or younger than middle aged. Even with top notch clinical care teams, these patients are still being diagnosed with chronic illnesses early and earlier.
Sure, eating one Big Mac won’t send you to a pulmonary rehabilitation program the very next day, but it’s one step in the wrong direction towards an unhealthy lifestyle. In fact, your body will have an immediate reaction to eating fast food that can affect your energy levels and even your mood. So in the end, you really have to ask yourself a few questions about your food and lifestyle choices and how they’re linked to your overall health and well being.
Is it really worth it? What do you have to lose? Don’t you want to feel the best you’ve ever felt before?
If there’s anything to take away from this article — or rant, whatever — it’s this: Remember, food is medicine! Your body has the power to heal itself; it just needs a little help. That’s all.