What are humans made of?

 

At the very basic, we think we are made of flesh, blood, bones, and hairs. But flesh, blood, bones, and hair too are made of other building blocks.

In fact, 99.95% of your body weight is made of just eleven elements. Among them, the four major elements like oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen makes up 96% of our body. Added to the list are calcium, phosphorous, potassium, Sulphur, sodium, Chlorine, Magnesium and it forms 99.95% of our body. But there are traces of other elements too, these include iron, iodine, zinc, selenium, copper, molybdenum, even gold and others.

Now, some of these names might be new to some of us, especially if we have not taken science after high school.

Watch the video here:

https://youtu.be/5pcIO8PCOnk

Among all the elements, major ones are called the macro nutrients whereas those appearing only at the level of parts per million or less are referred to as micronutrients. These nutrients perform various functions, including cell structures, the building of bones, regulating the body's pH, carrying charge, and driving chemical reactions among others. 

Given that our body is made of many different elements, this is the reason why we need Macro nutrients and micronutrients for a well-functioning body and thus to stay healthy.

You might have heard that nearly 60% of your body is water. And we know water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen (H₂O). So hydrogen and oxygen forms a major chunk of our body. Also human body like all lifeforms have carbon. Carbon atoms being 12 times the weight of hydrogen atoms, comes second to oxygen by weight.

So if we segregate elements in our body, it is 65 per cent oxygen, 18 per cent carbon and 10.2% hydrogen. Other elements like nitrogen forms about 3.1%, a pinch of calcium for the bones forms about 1.6 %, 1.2 % is phosphorous, and around 0.25% is potassium and Sulphur. With very small percentages of sodium, chlorine and magnesium, and we hit the 99.95 % mark explained above.

Although some people argue that, human body is much more than just these elements and substance, which is quite true, but we cannot deny the fact, what we are made of.

You might have herd, we are what you eat. All of us were born at just 2-5 Kg, but as we grow we accumulate mass. All the extra mass we build up over time comes through the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breadth. So, each atom we are made of has coem from somewhere. The atoms that forms our body were previously in the air, plants, animals and minerals. An average person’s body is composed of about 7 billion billion billion atoms. So the atom we are made of must have been in many previous and present living things, including trees, grass, insects or dogs, or even in dinosaurs and our ancestors.

Now, that we know we are made of what we eat, and we just require all elements in our body to be healthy, let’s eat the good and the healthy.

How much do we eat in our lifetime?

 

We know eating habits vary vastly among people, according to the place they live in, availability of food, and other factors. Just like someone living near the ocean eats more fish than someone living in mountains, people have adapted to some staple foods over time.

It is also true that we eat more varieties of foods today than ever before and life expectancy is ever on the rise, but how much do we really eat over our lifetime. Let’s find out.

If you come from a place where rice is a staple food and considering that on average people live up to 73 years globally.

If you consume 300 grams of rice per day, it would mean you eat 108 kg of rice a year. And about 7,884 kg of Rice in your lifetime, that’s rice full of a big truck. That’s equivalent to the rice production from 8-10 acres of land.

Watch the video below:

https://youtu.be/Y3WZf3vz6w0

But that’s not the only thing we eat, other major things we eat are the vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, dairy products, other food grains, drinks and many more.

So, even if we eat, 200 gram of vegetables per day, it would mean we consume 5256kg of vegetables in our lifetime, that's little less than a fully loaded TATA truck or equal to 5 pickup trucks full of vegetables. On other consumption includes pulses, so even if you consume 10 kg of pulses per year, it means 720 kg of the pulse is consumed over the lifetime.

On the meat, if you consume 50kg meat per year, it would mean you will consume 3,650kg of meat in your lifetime. That is equivalent to 20 pigs if you eat only pork, 10 cattle of you eat only beef, or 1825 chickens if you eat only chickens. In other terms, you are consuming meat equivalent to a fully grown Asian elephant.

If you consume fish and eat at least, 10 kg of fish in a year, you will eat over 730 kg of fish over the lifetime, that’s the same as eating fully grown shark fish. Or 1500 trout fishes.

Among the dairy products, Cheese and butter are most widely consumed, so even if you consume 10 kg cheese and 2.5 kg butter a year, it still means you consume 730 kg of cheese and 182.5 kg of butter in your lifetime. That is equal to 3,650 cheese balls.

Now coming to drink, tea, coffee, juice, and beer forms the most popular drinks in the world.

So, if you at least drink 2 cups of coffee or tea a day, and 2 glasses of juice per week, it would mean you will drink 53,290 cups of tea or coffee, and 7008 glasses of juice in your lifetime.

And coming to beer, even If on average you consume 4-5 bottles of beer per week, it would mean you consume 140 bottles per year or 10,249 bottles of beer in your lifetime, that’s equivalent to one water tanker full of beer in your lifetime. That’s quite a lot.

So that how much you eat on average, although not everything that we eat, but pretty much what they eat over your lifetime. The amount may vary according to place and eating habits, but you should be pretty close to this average.

I hope you are pretty amazed by the amount of food, you devour over the lifetime.