Kathrin Hilde's Project Made

Sleep. Water. And food. The three most essential things the human species needs to survive, and along these lines, the biggest factors for health, happiness and living a rich life. Being quite far away from starvation in our privileged Western lifestyle, nutrition and diets have now become the number one topic around beauty. Perfect bodies and flawless skin are today’s new social currency in many developed societies, and nutrition, far ahead of beauty products, is the number one denominator. No surprise that the food industry with its constant inventions is one of the largest in the world.

I have been obsessed with finding the perfect diet ever since I had a serious health condition a few years ago that made me very aware of the choices I needed to make to keep my body healthy. It’s no secret that scientists around the world agree that nutrition in combination with exercise is the most successful cancer and disease prevention, so I started completely reinventing my diet. It has been a journey ever since. I consulted specialists to analyze my DNA, did Metabolic Typing, introduced cleanse weeks, fasted, lived off shakes, juiced, did gluten-free, lactose-free, no carbs, paleo, and now vegan… You name it! I am realizing there is no such thing as the perfect solution. If there was, I think I would have found it by now. What I did find though was one question that would make things a lot easier in regards to the food choices I need to make in any given situation. It’s a very easy question that, instead of a restrictive diet, your body will answer itself: “Do I want to be this?”

Let me explain and offer you my newly found perspective on food.

No matter if you’re a foodie or not, the main reason we eat is to live. A high percentage of our body’s energy consumption goes into metabolism and the process to turn the food we consume into energy and, here it comes, new body cells. The big mass of body cells that you are today will completely be replaced by new cells in only a few years, as the body keeps restoring and repairing the tear and wear that our environment and hectic lives force on us.

Once I understood this concept, things started becoming very clear to me. “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are” – what the famous French gastronome Brillat-Savarin concluded more than 200 years ago sums up this idea perfectly. So, ask yourself this question: What are the essential “products” you want your future body to be made of? The adrenaline that runs through and remains in an ox’s body just before he is slaughtered? The chemistry that makes coke be a perfect rust cleaning product for maintaining cars? The antibiotics that many animals are fed with in order to keep them healthy enough to turn them into a profitable steak? Or the additives that cause a Big Mac to decompose slower than your body itself?

It gets very real once you understand that these will turn into the future “you”. You could take this idea even further for the ones of you interested in energies and vibrations, because the ethical energy of food will remain in your system just as well as the physical. Either way, looking at food and asking my body this question before consuming it has completely changed the way I look at my options. “Do I want to BE this after my body is done processing it?” Do I want to BE the product of processed and beaten up, slow and lazy carbs, or a juicy and colorful apple? A pig scared to death as it sees another one be slaughtered in front of it, or a vibrant rich and sun-spoilt avocado?

I’m not a food saint by any means, and I splurge on bad things once in a while, just like everyone does. But answering this question every time before I make a choice, good or bad, has made me much more responsible and aware of the role that food should play in my life.

Try it out! What do you want to be made of in a few months? Certainly not Coke and Big Macs.