You are what you read?

      You are what you eat.  Have been told this many times, usually by a female with my best interest at heart. Eating a greasy hamburger, with greasy French fries, washed down by a sugar rich Coke, will make you a sugar pumped greasy sort’ a guy. Living off of Butterfinger candy bars and 1 liter cokes will make you a diabetic. The McDonald’s clown is apparently a long term customer who took all meals at McDonalds, for several years, slowly morphing into the present day clown. Wandering around the grounds, an addled brain waiting for the next Breakfast Mac.

      Your body takes the food offered then repairs physical damage, and constructs replacement parts for worn out parts. It certainly makes sense, one cannot argue the logic. A clear case of garbage in, garbage out, except the garbage out is your heart muscles.

      The second point is that we eat what we like. Many of us find a greasy hamburger tasty, and high sugar drinks are almost addictive. Our better long term judgment is trumped by short term pleasure. Although an interesting side question would be, why do women make this better long term choice more often than men? But, who cares? (A typical male response).

      If this is true for our bodies, what about our minds?

      You are what you read. I could expand this to audio and visual input, you are what you listen to, and you are what you watch. Constant input of greasy intellectual rot will result in greasy mental processes. The brain will become clogged with conspiracy theories, just as the blood arties become clogged with fats.

      This seems only partially true, I read conspiracy theories all the time, mostly for entertainment, I find the various claims and ideas so ludicrous as to be astounded. The irony and total lack of self-awareness is wondrous to observe. I watch Fox News, but I have not started to believe that President Obama spent $100 million on some vacation jaunt, because the book keeping doesn’t work.  I read the writings of the climate change deniers, but I haven’t started to believe that climate change theories are invalid because it is not possible to measure temperature.

      (Just a moment to side note. The climate change deniers do argue that temperature measurement systems did not exist before the Laws of Thermodynamics were written. There forth, any claims about global temperatures from, say the time of Christ, are completely bogus. Furthermore, any claims about temperature or carbon dioxide for, say the Precambrian era, are invalid because no one was there to measure it.)

      Getting back to the “you are what you read” idea. While I personally read mentally toxic material, I possibly have immunity due to a pre-existing cerebral condition. I was exposed to far right ideology by a very kind, and wonderful Grandfather.

      We take vitamin supplements to offset dietary imbalance, and we workout to fight the excessive calories. Perhaps something similar can be done to protect us from the bad science mafia?