You are What You Eat Eats (Part 1)

We all know that to look and feel your best, you have to eat well. Nutrition truly is the most important factor when it comes to optimizing health, and without a conscious effort to fuel your body with good foods, it is easy to put on the pounds. That is why I love the saying, “You are what you eat.” I think it perfectly describes how our bodies interact with the food we provide. If you provide poor-quality food, you are going to have a poor-quality body. The food you eat affects your body fat, your recovery, your likelihood of becoming sick or injured, your mood, your sleep, your strength, and your energy. It does it all! What is not so cliché, however, is understanding that it’s NOT just about what you eat…it’s about what you eat eats.

Healthy Food = Healthy People

While there are a wide variety of plants, animals, and their derivatives, there are a few things that all life needs to flourish. While we do not need to go into a biology lesson in this article, the one thing I do want to focus on is nutrients. All life requires some form of nutrients, and when these nutrients are poor in abundance or quality, the life form suffers. For plants, sun, soil, and water are vital components for optimizing health. For animals, the key components for good health are plants, other animals, and water. Without these elements, plant and animals cannot grow to their full potential and can become sick or malnourished.

As you can probably see, what we depend on for fuel depends on its own source of fuel to stay healthy. If what you’re eating was not cared for properly and fed properly, then it doesn’t really matter that you are eating stereotypically “healthy” food items…you are eating a sick plant or animal. On the other hand, when you provide your body with food items that have been well-nourished and have lived healthy lives, you, too, can enjoy a healthy life. When your food is health, you are healthy.

COWS DO NOT EAT GRAIN

One of the most blatant examples of how malnourished food can lead to problems up the food chain is our consumption of cow. Cow and red meat in general has gotten a pretty bad rap over the last few decades and it’s time to clear things up. Cow meat is not unhealthy. Sick cow meat is. Cows and other ruminants have a unique digestive system designed to break down and utilize grass and other forage, but not corn. Add to this that corn (especially feed-lot corn) contains very few nutrients to begin with, and overfeeding of corn to cows results in fat, sick animals. This is where hormones and antibiotics come into play in the meat industry. They have to keep these cows alive long enough to get them to slaughter, while making them as fat as possible.

Unfortunately, what ends up on your plate is a sick, over-fat piece of meat. Yummy! Contrast this with the story behind a grass-fed and finished source of meat, and you can begin to see why well fed food is important. When you provide a cow with an abundance of food it would naturally eat, the meat comes out full of vitamins and minerals, lean (only 10-15% fat), and with an abundance of healthy and essential fats such as omega-3s and CLA. These are very important fats that our bodies need to thrive, yet we rarely consume the necessary quantities to reap the benefits.

The problem with the extra fat in grain-fed meat is not only its caloric load, it is the TYPE of fat. Grains have a very high omega-6 content, and as we learned in Fat is Fuel, Not Foe (Part 2), having an imbalance of omega-6 and omega-3 can lead to some serious problems. So it turns out that cow is a great source of nutrients, but grain-fed (aka sick) cows are not. And this story does not just include cows. These days, just about every mass-produced animal is fed corn and/or soy and/or other animal byproducts. Chickens, pigs, and fish are fed a host of items that they would not naturally consume. And just like in cows, and just like in our own bodies, eating an abundance of grain leads to poor health.

While meat is most commonly talked about when it comes to grass-fed vs. grain fed, the food products which are derived from these same animals are a concern as well. Cow meat is not the only thing we consume from cows; there is milk, butter, yogurt, cheese, and kefir. These are all coming from the same sick cow that provides the over-fat piece of meat, and they have many of the same issues. The fat and protein quality can be greatly affected, and your health is very much dependent on the quality of your food.

To Be Continued…

While animal products can be a major source of high-quality proteins and fats, they are not the only thing that makes for a healthful diet. In next week’s article, we will look at the importance of plants in your diet, and why their health is just as important as that of our animal friends. We will also discuss strategies for eating healthily and how to find the quality foods your body desires.