You are what you eat

Posted by Paul Salimans on January 04, 2004

In the Phrase Finder on this website the phrase 'you are what you eat' is said to originate in the sixties - hippy time. Now I've always assumed that this phrase was used (maybe even coined) by Sigmund Freud: 'man ist was man ist'. You will notice the pun: the German words for 'are' and 'eat' are (pronounced) exactly the same (I may have misspelled at least one of the 'ists' - someone with a better grasp of German might be able to help here).

Can anyone shed some light here?

• Food for thought Word Camel 04/January/04
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