An Introduction to Macrobiotics

Thanks to Wanderer7 writing a blog about Macrobiotics yesterday http://wanderer7.gaia.com/blog/2008/5/macrobiotics_a_philosophy_of_food it seems like the perfect moment to write my story about Macrobiotics.  And this may get long, so it may be more than one blog (or you all will get pretty darn bored reading paragraph after paragraph about this....)

So, to start, what is this strange word and what kind of diet is this?  Macro, in Greek, means "large" and bios translates as "life."  So macrobiotics is about Large Life.  It is about the big picture, about eating and nourishing ourselves in a way that creates balance. 

My husband and I ate a pretty standard healthy diet up until a couple years ago.  It wasn't bad, but wasn't great.  About twenty years ago, a local librarian began to share about his diet and invited himself over to make us a macrobiotic feast.  It was strange, but good.  I remember thinking "If I ever get sick, this will be the diet to try."  He told stories about being healed from illness, people cured from different diseases and other intriguing tales.  A few years later I met another friend who had eaten a fairly strict macrobiotic diet for many years and seemed to glow with good health. 

The standard diet includes whole grains and whole grain products, locally and organically grown vegetables, beans, sea vegetables, and soups.  Tofu, tempeh, seitan, limited fruit, fish and other supplemental beverages, desserts and condiments round out the menu selection.  This usually translates to no meat (except fish), no dairy, no sugar (although rice syrup and some "natural" sugars such as honey or maple syrup are ocassionally allowed), no eggs, no coffee, no alcohol and no drugs for the basic macrobiotic healing diet.

Having said that, remember that the definition means: Large Life.  A basic theory of macrobiotics is that many of us have fed our bodies so much processed, junk and toxic foods for so many years that we've forgotten how to listen to our body's innate wisdom.  The healing introductory diet begins to flush away sludge that has accumulated in our systems for many years.  It is common for people to experience discharges in the form of headaches or other minor stresses as they learn to eat healthy.  The idea is that when one has re-learned how to listen to the body, to truly know what foods create a healthy balance within the unique individual, then one may begin to ocassionally add some other "less healthy" treats.  Even meat is not off-limits in the larger perspective of a macrobiotic diet, although not common.

 The concept of balance is integral to this way of eating.  All of life is viewed in terms of opposing forces.  The energy of yin expands; the energy of yang contracts. When we eat food that is highly contractive (such as salt, eggs, red means, cheese and poultry) our bodies contract.  Because our bodies then naturally seek balance, we tend to  crave expansive foods on the other end of the spectrum.  We often want extreme expansive food such as alcohol and chemicals, sugar and coffee, honey and spices, butter and oil, and tropical fruits.  Our moods and energy begin to swing between these two extremes.

Macrobiotic philosphy suggests that we eat near the middle of the spectrum.  Whole grains are slightly contractive and vegetables are slightly expansive.  When we eat in this balanced area, we ideally become calmer, more healthy, less stressed, less craving, less extreme, more sane. 

This is only the beginning of this topic, so I will post more later....including our personal experiences with eating this way.  (Hint:  it even helped me avoid surgery!)