Chapter 1
Your Body Is Not a Dustbin
Muscle Is Not Only Protein
The next morning, Aarav stood in front of the mirror and flexed his arm. Nothing dramatic happened. The arm remained an arm.
“Needs work,” he muttered. From the kitchen, his younger sister Mira shouted, “Needs a miracle!” Mira was twelve and had the dangerous confidence of someone who had not yet discovered board exams.
Aarav opened his phone and searched: best food for muscle and stamina. The internet attacked immediately. One video said protein powder. Another said bananas. Another said stop eating wheat. Another said wake up at 4:30 a.m., drink something green, and become unstoppable.
His mother placed breakfast: poha with peanuts, curd, and a banana.
“Your body is not a dustbin.” “Good morning to you also.”
“I am serious. You cannot throw anything into your body and expect it to build something excellent. Your tongue can be fooled. Your eyes can be fooled by packaging, colour, crunch, and advertisements. But your cells are not so easy to fool.”
“What do cells want?” “Useful material.” “Like protein?” “Yes. But not only protein. Energy, minerals, vitamins, fibre, water, fats, sleep, movement, and time.”
“Where did this banana come from?” “The fruit shop.” “Still not the beginning.” “Fine. Soil.”
“So if your body is built by food, and food is built by plants, and plants are built by soil — where does your body begin?”
Aarav did not answer. Mira answered for him. “In the mud.” “Not mud,” said their mother. “Soil.”
Aarav looked down at his phone, suddenly finding his internet search results looking a bit blank.
Mira did not look back at her phone. She was staring at the banana peel on the table. “If the soil builds the banana,” she asked quietly, almost to herself, “what builds the soil?”
“Earthworms and magic, obviously,” Aarav muttered, trying to regain his position as the older, wiser sibling.
Mira rolled her eyes. But she reached for her notebook and drew a tiny, sharp question mark next to a sketch of a root. Aarav did not notice. A small crack had opened. It was just waiting for the right ground to fall into.
THE SECRET Your body is built from the quality of the life inside the food. The chain begins in the soil.
TRY THIS Before your next meal, pick one item and trace it backward. Soil? Animal? Factory? All three?