Whenever you introduce a new diet
into your life you will inevitably be faced with issues
that lead to confusion and frustration and when left
unchecked, they can lead to feeling physically and emotionally
unsatisfied and in some cases malnourished.
This is common with every "natural" based
diet and Macrobiotics is no exception. It doesn't matter
whether you are new to your diet of choice or whether
you have been practicing it for 20 or more years, there
are still issues and sharing these concerns with others
is instrumental in resolving them so you can move on
to better health and well being.
Fortunately, for those who choose the Macrobiotic approach
to diet there is the Macrobiotic Guide along with many
other resources in the form of articles,
books, and websites to help
you through these issues.
This post began as a response to an individual
who had written to the Macrobiotic Guide with personal
questions that, when considered from a teacher's perspective,
are not really that personal at all but rather common
questions most of us have about macrobiotics at some
point in our experience. What follows are two of these
common concerns followed by my comments.
1. While I agree with the principles
of Macrobiotics, I find its "restrictive regime"
difficult to follow and have often considered giving
up the diet and moving on to something less restrictive
and limiting.
Comments: It is important to understand
that the commonly referred to "restrictive macrobiotic
diet" also known by some people as the "standard
diet" or "healing diet," is a diet "based"
on traditional diets and consists of a wide variety
of healthy unprocessed natural foods. "Based on
traditional diets" means that the standard diet
as presented in some publications consists of many but
not all foundational foods existing in traditional diets
and because of this it represents a starting point or
one could say "base camp" where one can begin
to explore a broader understanding of food and diet
according to macrobiotic principles.
The limitations or restrictions of the
standard diet, that appear to be of concern, can easily
be found within a few food categories. These include
the categories of: herbs and spices, animal products
(meats and dairy products), fruits (tropical) and some
vegetables (nightshades).
However, just because many of these traditional foods
are not usually considered part of the "basic"
macrobiotic diet it does not mean they are not or cannot
be part of a macrobiotic diet. If this were the case
then the macrobiotic claim of having a basis in traditional
whole foods diets would be untrue.
In a sense then, the standard macrobiotic diet can be
understood as a modified traditional diet that incorporates
some of the most important ingredients that form the
basis of traditional dietary structures found all over
the world. This framework or basic dietary structure
consists of varying ingredients based on locations of
cultures where the ingredients may differ but basic
principles remain the same. For example, some cultures
use several grains in their diets where others may use
one or two.
Some use a wide variety of animal products from the
sea where others are limited to mountain ranging animals.
Some use dairy products but others use no diary products
at all. Oils and fats differ from region to region as
do seeds, nuts, vegetables… It is in these fine
points of various foods where you will find the freedom
and options to make your macrobiotic diet work for you.
Granted, many of the commonly used basics
of the standard Macrobiotic diet and those listed in
many macrobiotic publications are of Japanese origin
but that is not a problem because these ingredients
(miso, shoyu, umeboshi…) are part of a long history
of tradition and are foods with extraordinary health
benefits.
And, the fact that other less familiar traditional foods
from other parts of the world with powerful health benefits
are not usually mentioned or acknowledged in no way
means that these foods are excluded from macrobiotic
diets. Quite the contrary, all traditional foods that
have a long history of health benefits are Macrobiotic
foods. Why wouldn't they be? If this were not true then
the philosophy and principles of macrobiotics would
be mere hypocrisy and contradiction.
Sure, there are times when some traditional
foods might be discouraged for personal reasons and
this is where a macrobiotic diet can at first seem restrictive
but if the basic macrobiotic diet was the only diet
among macrobiotic diets there would be very few supporters
of this extraordinary diet and lifestyle.
For some people there are what we can
call favored foods in the macrobiotic diet (rice, miso,
tamari, and other Japanese foods) and this is naturally
due to the founders of macrobiotics being of Japanese
descent and having incorporated their culture's most
important and health sustaining foods.
Had macrobiotics been founded in Mexico by Mexican founders
then the favored foods would naturally have been tortillas,
corn, chili peppers, avocados, and so forth. In fact,
these traditional South and Central American foods are
no less macrobiotic than any preferred foods from anywhere
else in the world and are incorporated in many people's
macrobiotic diets on a daily basis.
Macrobiotics, more than any other approach
to diet gives us the foundation from which to build
and create a balanced nourishing diet full of satisfying
flavors, textures and health benefits beyond compare.
For those who feel a macrobiotic diet is restrictive
or limited try looking at it this way: there is a basic
standard diet as defined above then there is macrobiotic
understanding of food and diet.
By utilizing the basic principles of macrobiotics, you
can add a wide variety of healthy foods to what you
may have interpreted or experienced as a restricted
regime. Consider other traditional foods with extraordinary
health benefits even if they are yin, or for that matter
yang. You need both yin and yang foods anyway and the
fun of balancing them within your overall diet and environment
will make your diet more dynamic and interesting along
with the added benefits of reduced cravings and a diminished
desire to binge on junk foods.
The thought of quitting macrobiotics
because of the conclusion that it is an overly restrictive
diet has a lot to do with how you identify with macrobiotics
and food in general. For example, among practitioners
of natural food diets there exists common philosophical
ground in the areas of ecology, spiritual development,
organics, biodynamics and so on.
In fact, these are some of the reasons many people choose
vegan, raw food, vegetarian and macrobiotic diets. These
qualities, along with each diet's particular foods,
help to define these diets and the people who choose
them. However, with the exception of macrobiotics, all
of these "natural" diets are equally defined
by what you cannot and do not eat.
Were you to ask followers of these diets
what their diets consist of you will get an explanation
of both the foods in their diets and their importance
for health and well being and then you will get an explanation
of the dangers of the excluded foods one cannot and
does not eat on these diets. Examples include: vegan
raw food diet = no cooked food because cooking kills
the life force and destroys enzymes…, vegan diet
= no animal products because…and so on.
What is interesting here is that many of the excluded
foods in these natural diets are nourishing traditional
foods with thousands of years of recorded history that
can be supported through both modern scientific analysis
and ancient energetic science. Therefore, the defining
characteristics of natural diets and those who choose
to identify with them are dependent on both the foods
allowed in the diets and on those foods that are excluded
from the diets.
In other words, the inclusion of some natural foods
and the exclusion of other natural foods are what give
natural food diets and their followers their designated
titles and identities of vegan, vegetarian, raw, low
fat, low-carb… I am a (fill in the blank with the
diet of your choice here) because I eat these natural
foods but do not eat those natural foods. The exception
to this diet identity crisis is Marcrobiotics.
What makes macrobiotics stand apart from
all other natural food diets is that neither it nor
its proponents as a group can be defined through the
exclusion of taboo natural foods. With an understanding
of macrobiotic principles, you simply cannot exclude
any wholesome traditional foods from the macrobiotic
diet, in principle anyway.
When asked to explain what you eat on a macrobiotic
diet you can say what you eat according to your idea
or interpretation of macrobiotics but you cannot define
it for anyone else. You may be qualified to say "I
cannot eat…but you cannot say that people following
a macrobiotic diet cannot eat…cannot eat what?
Macrobiotic philosophy
embraces and respects global food traditions that have
effectively nourished and sustained people for thousands
of years and therefore does not exclude these foods
from a macrobiotic understanding of diet. Like other
dietary regimes that decide for you what you cannot
eat in terms of healthy foods, Macrobiotics leaves that
solely up to you and your understanding.
The
uniqueness of macrobiotics makes it unnecessary for
you to define your self as a proponent of macrobiotics
through food taboos or "can not haves" because
there are no "can not haves" in macrobiotics.
So, if you are entertaining
the thought of quitting macrobiotics and looking for
another healthy diet where are you going to run? What
other choice could you possibly have that includes every
healthy food in existence? As a generally health person,
you may have a desire to increase raw foods in your
macrobiotic diet for a while. There is no law or rule
in macrobiotics that says you cannot have a higher proportion
of raw foods in you diet if that is what your needs
are at the moment. You may decide to experiment with
adding a small amount of a variety of animal products
to your macrobiotic diet.
There is no rule or law dictating that you cannot do
that either. Macrobiotics does not have rules that define
what it is. It has principles that we use to encourage
and guide us in our understanding of the importance
of the quality of foods, the proportions of foods relative
to other foods, the character of foods and where foods
are grown, but none of these macrobiotic principles
exclude healthy foods of all kinds from your diet. You
do that! Unlike other natural diets, macrobiotics was
not founded as a reaction to 200 plus years of Western
indulgence in processed foods unfit for the human species.
It was founded on the commonsense of ancestral dietary
traditions and world peace.
If you are feeling the constraints of
a restricted diet try to break free from the idea that
a restricted diet is safe because all to often the opposite
is true. If your diet is extremely limited it can lead
to compulsive eating and nutritional deficiencies. Fear
of healthy food is the last thing you want to be carrying
while practicing macrobiotics.
Allow the part of you that identifies with macrobiotics
and diet to be open to new ideas about food and share
your ideas and experiences with others. You will be
pleasantly surprised at what you learn and what you
can teach other people. Above all, let the image and
identity of yourself as a macrobiotic person, be an
image of one who celebrates life.
2. I find it hard to relax in the
kitchen and cook without worrying about yin/ yang combinations
etc.
Comments: Think of yin and yang
as two forces that co-exist, always and in all ways,
or they do not exist at all. A common tendency among
macrobiotic people is to try to separate these two forces
and isolate them from each other by making one more
important than the other. This most definitely does
not work and will create confusion to the point where
one begins to wonder if that was yin or was that yang?
Whatever it was, you can rest assured that it is both
yin and yang!
When
cooking and preparing your food you do not have to make
the application
of yin and yang complicated but making it overly simplistic
in terms of
black and white does not help much either.
For example, you know that, relatively
speaking, oil is yin and salt is yang. So, does combining
salt and oil in a stir-fry make for a balanced preparation?
Not really, these two ingredients need a third party
to balance them out in food preparations. That third
party is spice. Whether it is ginger, scallion, chili
pepper, or any other spice, adding spice to that combination
of salt and oil creates the balance needed for those
two basic cooking ingredients. Sounds complicated right?
It is not really.
Look at any of your macrobiotic
cookbooks and you will find most of these issues
already worked out. Look further at traditional food
preparations from recipes around the world and there
too you will find the yin and yang worked out. It is
not uncommon for traditional recipes to include yin
lemons, limes, and other fruits in yang fish and chicken
preparations. Yin mushrooms are often used with yang
red meat preparations.
All foods can be balanced using macrobiotic
principles and if you look closely at time tested
recipes for grains, beans, vegetables and other foods
from Italy, Spain, Asia and other traditional cultures
you will find the harmonious balance of yin and yang
in those preparations too. While many of these foods
just mentioned may not be your personal choices, the
point is that by utilizing the macrobiotic principles
of yin and yang and letting them flow together you will
have more options.
So, do not think too much about the yin
and yang of each preparation rather continue to learn
through observation in cooking classes, cookbooks and
seminars. Try some recipes that are appealing to you
and after you have enjoyed the food take a moment or
two and think about the yin/yang aspects of what you
just ate, if you like.
Like anything else, preparing ones food in a balanced
way takes practice and commitment. After a while, it
becomes as natural as tying your shoes and you will
not think about it at all. It just happens. The more
one does it the less time it takes too.
While it is true that preparing
high quality food can sometimes be a pain, making it
a priority will help to insure your health and vitality
so you can do more of the things you love to do with
those you love to do them with.
