What is macrobiotics?
Being "macrobiotic" includes several things including one's diet, philosophy, and lifestyle.
Regarding one's diet, the standard macrobiotic diet is a whole foods diet. A whole foods diet leaves out refined and processed foods and focuses on foods in their whole form. For example, instead of eating wheat bread which has been broken down and refined into its smallest form, flour, macrobiotic people instead eat the whole cooked wheat berry grain. Emphasis is placed on eating whole grains such as brown rice in particular, in addition to millet, barley, buckwheat, wheat, oats, etc. The macrobiotic diet also includes fresh seasonal vegetables, soup, seaweed and beans. In a macrobiotic diet, some people eat fish, while others choose to be vegan. There is ample food within this diet to create an endless variety of tasty, beautiful, and nutritious dishes.
The emphasis for the whole foods is "local, seasonal, and organic." The local and seasonal aspects are connected. Eating locally and seasonally means eating foods that are grown in your region and that are currently in season. For example, when it is summer, eat fresh fruits, corn, and lightly cooked vegetables that keep your body cool, but when it is winter focus on longer cooking times, root vegetables, stews, and slightly saltier and heartier dishes that keep your body warm. Eating with the seasons is a way to stay connected to mother nature and her cycles and rhythms. It also keeps our health strong. (What are Hawaii's seasonal foods?)
Eating out of season or out of your local region can affect your health. For example, if it is winter, or if you live in a cold northern region, but you often eat bananas, papayas, mangoes, and other tropical fruits, your body will get very cold! Similarly, if it is summer season, or you live in a hot tropical area, eating a lot of meat, stews, saltier foods, and long cooked foods can lead you to feel tense, heavy, hot, and irritable. You instead want to naturally eat cooling things. When you consistenly eat foods that are not grown in your local region, and you eat them out of season, your health can deteriorate.
Eating organically is another point to pay attention to. When we eat foods that are fresh and without pesticides and chemicals, not only are we retaining vitamins and minerals, but we are putting the freshest and cleanest foods into our systems, thereby supporting our health, giving us energy and happiness for life.
Macrobiotics departs from the idea of vegetarianism or veganism that we commonly know about in the western world. It draws on the Asian concept of health and wellness. People who are macrobiotic believe that everything, including food, has its own energy, or what we know as "yin and yang." Different foods have different energies which are important to balance. When we are balanced, our emotions stay balanced, and we forget our worries, fears, and stresses, and we can live a happy, joyful, and free life. Depending on how we want to be, we can choose our foods. Foods are chosen from the categories mentioned above (local, seasonal, and organic) in addition to their energy (balance of yin and yang), always avoiding extreme foods that are difficult to balance over a long period of time (nightshade vegetables, alcohol, drugs, too much fruit and fruit juice, fatty foods, sugar, meat and poultry, red and blue skinned fish, eggs, and dairy, such as ice cream, milk and cheese). Eating too much raw fruit and vegetables, sugar, chocolate, nightshade vegetables, and oil for example, can leave us feeling depressed, spaced out, and overly emotional. Eating too much meat, salt, baked flour, and eggs can make you feel tense, heavy, and lethargic. These imbalances can lead to illness over time.
With lifestyle, there are a variety of things that macrobiotic people do. These might include (but are not limited to) Do-in, yoga, shiatsu, body scrubs, and home remedies for illnesses. Western medicine treats symptoms typically with drugs or surgery, whereas Eastern medicine is focused on answering why someone has symptoms and correcting that internal imbalance. Macrobiotic people believe that when you stop eating extreme foods that upset one's natural balance, and treat all illnesses or imbalances with nature's medicine (food), you are free to play and enjoy life at its fullest. Life is beautiful! It is meant to be enjoyed! All possibilities are open to us.
(For an official point of view, go to www.kushiinstitute.org/whatismacro .)
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