🎵Cliché Month: You Are What You Eat 🥗🍨
by Crystal A Murray (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
To Joke or Not to Joke
Remember those classic funny-book-title jokes from childhood? 50 Yards to the Outhouse by Willy Make-it, Ten Yards to Go by Betty Won’t, or French Cooking by Sue Flay. Every time I see today’s cliché, I think about the funny book title of You Are What You Eat co-authored by Frank Furter and Patty Melt. 🤣
Jokes aside, we have all heard that warning since childhood. Usually, it gets tossed around when someone reaches for a second slice of cake or trades a fresh salad for a double cheeseburger. The physical truth is undeniable—the fuel we put into our bodies directly dictates our physical health, cellular energy, and daily vitality. As Christian believers, it also plays a part in how our temples (of the Holy Spirit) react when we need them to be strong for worship or working for The Lord.
1 Corinthians 6:19 BSB
[19] Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
1 Corinthians 6:19(BSB)
Romans 12:1 BSB
[1] Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Romans 12:1 (BSB)
The concept in the cliché originated in 19th-century France with lawyer and gastronome Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, who wrote in his 1825 book Physiologie du Goût: “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”). Over a century later, nutritionist Victor Lindlahr popularized the exact English phrasing in the 1930s and 1940s to promote mindful eating.
Not Easy to Break the Comfort Molds
If you’re like me, most of your life took this advice lightly. But as I age, I start wishing I’d have applied it more when I was younger (and thinner). But the platitude Better Late than Never applies well here as it’s never too late to substitute at least one order of fries for some grilled zucchini.
A friend recently mentioned how those deep-fried or sweet foods that presented comfort in our youth are even harder to break away from when our brains associate them with comfort. But I recently learned that oils used for deep frying (typically seed oils like soy because of their higher smoke point) are prepared in ways I’m not super comfortable with continuing to put in my body. That makes it easier to turn down the desire for comfort and turn up the desire to feel better. (See this Grokipedia page about what chemically refined industrial seed oils really are if you want to know about their use of things like hexane gas and bleaching.)
Feeding the Five Senses
But limiting this concept to what sits on our dinner plates misses a much broader reality. Consumption is not just about calories, vitamins and good and bad fats. We are constantly “eating” through all of our five senses every single day:
- Sight: The visuals, news feeds, and endless digital screens we gaze upon.
- Touch: The tactile comfort of our spaces.
- Taste: The simple flavors we savor.
- Smell: The familiar aromas that stir desires and memories.
- Sound: The conversations, messages, and background frequencies we let into our minds.
Just like a steady diet of junk food leaves the body sluggish, a constant intake of cynical news, gossip, and negativity will leave the mind and spirit completely exhausted. Everything we absorb through our eyes and ears acts like paint and wallpaper on the temple we live in. What goes inside is ultimately what radiates on the outside.
Nourishment for the Ears: Saved By His Scars
Just as balanced nutrition fuels physical strength, intentional listening feeds the soul. Uplifting music and truth-filled lyrics have an immediate way of shifting our perspective, easing stress, and pointing our focus back to what truly matters.
And speaking of fresh spiritual and auditory nutrition, my brother Shayne Savage just released a brand-new single today titled “Saved By His Scars.” This one has some genuinely strong heavy metal riffs and a fantastic set of lyrics. It’s part testimony and all hope. I’m so honored to share another of my brother’s quality songs. They make my big-sister heart just brim with joy. If your daily sound intake could use a faith-filled uplift filled with deep Southern bluesy rock, give his latest release a listen below:
After you listen to this one, go find Shayne on your favorite streaming service and follow him. And don't forget to check my older posts for his first two releases:
SAVAGE GRACE
SAVAGE GRACE WITH LYRICS
MAKIN' CHAINS
Find more info on his website with links to his pages on Meta and more.
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