It doesn’t happen overnight. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes years, sometimes even longer. But, sooner or later, we become what we eat. We all heard about it: “You are what you eat!” the preacher announced from the pulpit. Or was it our physician? “You are what you eat!”

Hence, the swine-flue. There was a time, long, long ago, when only swine contracted swine-flue. Hence, once again, the name. And now us. We get the swine-flue. A pandemic? Guess why? As I said, it doesn’t happen overnight. We must eat pigs like pigs. Stuff ourselves with pork chops, bacon, roasts. Gradually, we become what we eat.

Especially those who eat too much. Much too much. Like us. In the USA, last year, 64% of adults were fat or obese. 26% of those are already obese. By 2015 this number will grow — literally — grow, expand, bloat, distend to 41%. Like pigs, ah, sorry, like swine. Don’t congratulate yourselves too much. Canadians and West-Europeans are not much better.

Ah, yes. We are what we eat. You must have heard Hollywood spewing monikers like “You dirty rat”. Or, “he’s a snake”. Or, “bird-brain!” Do people eat snakes? Rats? Well, maybe just in Hollywood. In the movies. We certainly eat lots of chicken. Look out for your gray cells. Oops! I forgot. We already had avian-flue. What else do we eat?

Anyway, soon we’ll be getting the bovine-flue. We can’t stuff ourselves with all those cows and not become like them. One day we shall all, well, some of us, absorb cosmic rays for sustenance. On that day, we shall be swine no more.


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