You are What You Eat by Berea

You are What You Eat by Berea - July 2017 Scholarship Essay

If I were given the chance to give a TED talk, I would talk about the vast effect diets have on an individual’s mental health.
A diet is usually only regarded in attempt to lose weight or gain muscle, though your diet radically shapes your mentality. Our current generation is the result of hundreds of years of an everchanging naturally-selective gene flow, though we’re still just the descendants of the Neanderthals. We have been constantly adapting to our environment and been revolutionizing modern technology to compensate for a massively demanding population. We’ve created efficient processes to provide food, medicine, shelter and clothing to our enormous population, and have made these readily accessible. This ingenuity has allowed individuals to eat almost whatever, whenever.
The human body is very simple in nature, and thus prefers to digest simple foods. We have genetically modified our foods, and have added processed sugars, salt, starches, hydrogenated fats and much more into our daily diets. The body can break these substances down, though not easily. The brain begins to craves these foods again to receive a dopamine rush, thus drastically shaping our moods, cravings, and even our memories. Like our Neolithic ancestors, we should strive to eat foods rich in nutrients, easily decomposable, and in practical portions. Neanderthals ate scarcely. When they binged, it was likely followed by elongated periods of fasting. When they casually ate, it was portioned to preserve food for their next meal. Our generation’s modified, cheap foods have allowed us to eat frequently in massive quantities, and has misaligned out metabolic diurnal clock. The result is neurodevelopmental disorders, exhaustion, increased risk of organ failures, and imbalanced neurochemical expression.
Humans are incredibly intelligent, and have scientifically discovered ways to feed the masses, though in turn, have scientifically modified our bodies internal processes. You are what you eat, and we are not eating natural food.