Etymology

you are what you eat

Today it means: Personal health and wellbeing is determined by one's eating habits, in both positive and negative ways. Full definition →

German Der Mensch ist, was er ißt
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The story

  1. German · calque ofDer Mensch ist, was er ißt
  2. English todayyou are what you eat

Semi-Calque of German Der Mensch ist, was er ißt (literally “The human/man is what he eats”), coined in 1850 by Ludwig Feuerbach in a review of Jacob Moleschott’s Lehre der Nahrungsmittel. Für das Volk (Erlangen, 1850). Compare German man ist, was man isst.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.