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Macrobiotics Facts and misconceptions
Macrobiotics is more than a diet
The standard macrobiotic diet is well known to most people. It is mainly
composed of whole grains, vegetables and small amounts of fish, legumes,
soups and pickles. Keep in mind, this is the macrobiotic diet. Meaning,
the application of the macrobiotic philosophy to food and nutrition. The macrobiotic philosophy is universal and
the laws of nature
of opposite but complementary forces that macrobiotics explains
apply to everything
in nature. The macrobiotic diet is only the nutritional aspect of
this philosophy.
The right foods for your illness
Applying the standard macrobiotic diet arbitrarily can be dangerous in
some cases. Because a persons current state of health means that
even some of the macrobiotic foods can be harmful. Example: someone with a salmonella poisoning, a food allergy or advanced ulcerative colitis will not tolerate lettuce, chard or even brown rice and will have to rely on a different group of foods rather than brown rice or whole wheat until the condition improves. This person will have to follow a modified diet that suits the current state of health until the condition improves, only then the patient can move to the standard macrobiotic diet. The same logic applies to all diseases and all patients. Another example: a patient suffering from constipation will be well advised to stay away from carrots and radish leaves until their constipation is alleviated. This is because carrots and radish leaves are strong yang foods and will make constipation worse.
Do you know what foods you should start with based on your current state
of health?
Do you know how these vegetables and other foods will affect your body?
Do you know when to eat and when to avoid each one of them?
If you do, then you are your own doctor!
You are a free person.
You know what it means to be free from the need for a doctor or a
medicine
Your heart does not know fear. Fear of illness.
You know that your food is your best medicine
You know what to eat and you use
food as medicine
If macrobiotics means eating locally grown foods, why are we eating Japanese foods?
This is not a criticism of Japanese foods. Macrobiotic Japanese foods
are excellent and many are delicious. Macrobiotics philosophy originated
in the orient and the main teachers who carried macrobiotics from the
far east to the west and other places were Japanese. So it was natural
for them to teach people eating balanced Japanese macrobiotic foods.
However, we must not forget that in a broad sense macrobiotics calls for
understanding the world around us and applying its
principles of balance
in our daily lives including our eating habits. One of the fundamentals of macrobiotics is that one should eat locally grown food. This means that applying macrobiotics principle in south Africa, one has to select south African balanced foods, and there are! Applying macrobiotics principles in south America, one has to eat balanced south American foods, and there are! And so on. We provide each of them with a diet plan that suits their health condition but contains carefully selected locally grown foods. The selection of these foods is usually made based on the patients current health condition.
This is all a testimony to two things. The first is the validity and
power of macrobiotic principles and
food as
medicine. The second is the fact that
every locale has its own food cure when applied properly and
there is no need to dramatically change one's own eating habits in order
to get cured of any illness.
The standard macrobiotics diet does not work
for some people. Why? Food is always best medicine, no matter what the illness. If you have followed the macrobiotic diet for a while (especially the number seven diet which consists of eating only brown rice for many days) and found no relief, it does not mean that food is not best medicine. It means that your choice of foods for your specific health condition has been wrong. For example, if you are suffering from heart disease and decided to eat a bowl of carrots and leeks soup, you will feel much worse. Or if you have diarrhea and decided to eat a bowl of parsley, cucumbers and lettuce salad, that will greatly aggravate your diarrhea. The standard macrobiotics diet developed over the years is general and not for everyone. It recommends eating plenty of vegetables, but it does not specify which vegetables will be helpful for each specific illness. Your own health condition, especially if it is a serious condition, might require you to do more research into what foods are currently healthful for you, which means digging deep into the macrobiotics principles of yin and yang and balance. It would also mean experimenting for some time with foods to see how each type of food affects your body. |
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