You Can't Make Chicken Salad Out of Chicken $#%@
As my college wrestling coach use to say, “You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken #$%#.” He used this expression when talking about someone’s potential. He preferred a hard worker to pure talent. He often says he doesn’t recruit state champions; he recruits the runner-up, who has potential but is still hungry.
“Hard work is better than potential that hardly works but hard working potential is unstoppable.” Dr. Eric Plasker
Ironically, this philosophy also applies to our health. Genes or genetic potential do not determine health, your action steps do. Yes, genes play a roll; they are your genetic potential. However, what you do with your potential is what matters most. There has been a big change in genomics in the last few years.
It was once thought genes dictated health, that genetic code determined what would or would not happen to you and what diseases you would or would not get. We now know signals from the environment ultimately determine health. Signals from the environment determine which genes the body turns on or off.
Imagine the Empire State Building filled with recipe books. The recipes within represent your genes. The choices you make on a daily basis, how you eat, move and think, determine which of those books you take off the shelf, which books you open and which recipes you read. The recipes you read determine what you make. Your body functions the same way.
The signals from your environment determine which genes are read and expressed and which are not. Your signals are determined by your lifestyle choices.
These mice have the same genes; the only difference is the mother of the mouse on the right received supplements during pregnancy.
Dr. Bruce Lipton’s book Biology of Belief is one of the best resources I’ve read that gives several clear examples of how changing environment can change genetic expression. Agouti mice are frequently used in biological experiments.
In one study, scientists studied the effect of dietary supplements on pregnant mice. Agouti mice have yellow coats and are extremely obese, which predisposes them to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer. PICTURE
In the experiment, one group of yellow, obese, Agouti mothers received supplements such as folic acid, vitamin B12, betaine, and choline. The mothers who received supplements produced standard, lean brown mice even though their offspring had the same genes as their obese, yellow-coated mothers.
Generations of obese yellow mice and by simply changing the environment (signal) with the addition of supplements, their bodies instead epitomized health. Same genes →different environment→ different product! PICTURE
Think how this may affect you. Think how the decisions you make daily affect your health and your children’s or future children’s health. Every decision made moves toward either health or sickness.
Make fewer decisions moving you toward sickness and more decisions moving you to health.
