Medicines are not meat to live by.

This saying is attributed broadly to German proverbial tradition rather than to a single identifiable author or moment. It reflects a premodern and early modern household-medical culture in which remedies (herbal preparations, tonics, purges, etc.) were common, but were understood as occasional interventions rather than substitutes for ordinary nourishment. In that context, proverbs often served as practical guidance: health depends first on daily sustenance and habits, while medicines are for illness or specific need. The phrasing in English suggests it circulated as a translated proverb in collections of European sayings, where “meat” functions in the older sense of “food” or “sustenance,” not strictly animal flesh.

The proverb warns against treating medicine as a primary means of living or staying healthy. “Meat” here means basic nourishment: what sustains life day to day. Medicines can assist recovery or correct specific ailments, but they cannot replace the ongoing requirements of health—proper diet, moderation, and ordinary care of the body. Implicitly, it also cautions against dependency and the temptation to look for quick pharmaceutical fixes for problems rooted in lifestyle or circumstance. The line’s blunt contrast between “medicine” and “food” underscores a practical hierarchy: remedies are secondary and situational, while nourishment is fundamental.