YOU ARE WHAT YOU IS...

If all humans responded to "nutrition" in exactly the same way, there would be a universal diet that worked for everyone. They don't and there isn't. Hence the plethora of "scientific" opinions when it comes to nutrition and what is deemed "essential".

And the opinions vary radically from "you must eat meat as a vegetarian diet doesn't do it for you" to "meat isn't necessary at all" to all incremental arguments in between.

And they are all supported by "facts" and "nutritional science" right?

So it is claimed. 

And then start on the detail: eat carbs and protein separately… no, eat them together…..if you avoid foods with fat, you will not put on weight (fat)…..if you avoid sugars ditto….if you have a certain blood type you should only eat certain foodstuffs….and then there is the raw food - processed foods debate not to mention the exponential upsurge of allergy-related ailments that now beset the Western population of the planet…what was a godsend in human development - agriculture and the cultivation of wheat and other grains has now become a curse in the form of gluten and other natural foods which are now euphemistically referenced as "allergens" making what once sustained us, the enemy within.

What has changed since then? Uh - probably everything, not least of which our own evolution and change in perception not to mention the increase in synthesised products being passed off as food when in truth they are merely food-like products.

Meat eaters love to show how unhealthy a pure vegan diet can be and for some maybe that's true - for others it certainly isn't.

And I do not for one moment believe that we need meat products in any manner or form to maintain balanced health and wellbeing but this argument appeases the carnivores in their meat choices - it is essential, I am told. No, it isn't. But if you want to eat meat because you like it then admit that that's the case instead of using the old "it's essential" chestnut to validate the support of a horrifically cruel industry. We all make choices about what we eat and all that I advocate is that that choice is well informed. In many, many cases it isn't and even sadder - many more don't give a shit either way.

For me, diet, nutritional intake is as much about belief as it is about choice and what you believe (nocebo / placebo) has a very significant effect on your wellbeing - period.

Food choices are the same for me as tobacco usage: if tobacco unequivocally caused cancer through its use then why didn't millions of Native Americans succumb to this dread disease as tobacco has been a sacred part of that culture for millennia? And why doesn't everyone who smokes develop cancer? Genetic proclivity, I hear one say and yet, it's almost universally agreed that lifestyle and anthropogenic influence is more likely to cause cancer than most heredity. 

Nature? Nurture? Permutations of both? The latter, I think coupled with personal choices and personal beliefs.

Perception is everything and our relationship with what we eat perhaps even more significant. But who takes time out nowadays to make a proper and thankful ritual of a meal when we are such busy, important creatures that would rather chomp super-sized shit on the run and suck our coffee through a plastic nozzle instead of touching the liquid with our lips directly from an organic ceramic vessel?

I'll just keep on with my horrible vegetarian diet, thanks very much and be very happy about it - oh and try really hard not to ram it down anyone else's throat. I was a carnivore once and I do believe that (in my case) I evolved but to each his own.

You are what you eat? You betcha - and even more apposite - you are what you believe...