According to my hero Weston Price*, modern humans have forgotten how to eat food that regenerates our bodies. In experiments, chickens choose butter containing the most vitamins, though researchers can’t discern a difference. Far from gobbling big tufts of grass, cows carefully pick the most nutrition-filled blades. Tribal humans share the adrenal glands of their prey animals, thereby preventing scurvy.

Modern humans think of food as energy, but that is not its only purpose, and perhaps not even its main one. Food also has a huge role in body building. You may be thinking, I don’t even want to bulk up! But you do want to do the sort of body building I mean. In fact, you already do it every day.

Red blood cells (RBCs), the most common human cell type, get the volume award for regeneration. There are 25 trillion in the average human body, and about 200 billion die and are regenerated every day. If you’re good at math, you’ll immediately note that the daily reboot is less than 1% of the total, actually 0.08%. Sounds low? It means all 25 trillion are replaced every 125 days, or almost three times a year.

Thinking of all this frenetic RBC production may make you feel tired, but it’s only the start. The intestines are the stars of speed regeneration. Your 25-foot long gut is bounded by a single-cell-thick lining that is completely replaced every 5-7 days. Great news if you have leaky gut syndrome: Just wait a week and you’ll have a new one! If you’ve got the goods to build it, that is.

Our largest organ is skin. Skin cells live 2-3 weeks. If you’re looking at your skin now and thinking, It looks older than that, you might not be providing the best building blocks.

On I could go, as Grogu might say, once he starts to talk, but you may be ready for the answer: what are the building blocks we need?

Micronutrients: chemical elements or substances required in trace amounts for the normal growth and development of living organisms.

These include vitamins and minerals, heard of which you will have. Manufacturers try to stuff synthetic forms into processed foods, but natural ones work much, much better. If you eat animals that get to choose their own food, and the plants that grow in non-depleted soils, you’ll have shiny new cells and energy to spare.

* Gone but not forgotten: http://www.ppnf.org