Macrobiotics is
a lifestyle that incorporates living close to nature. It involves eating
foods that are not tampered with, refined, processed, or sprayed with
chemicals. In this lifestyle you eat foods in their whole form. Also
incorporated in the lifestyle is eating locally grown and seasonal foods.
It is a very healthy way of eating, akin to the way our ancestors use
to eat.
The diet is centered
around whole grains: brown rice, millet, oats, quinoa,
buckwheat, amaranth, barley and corn. These are your complex carbohydrates,
what gives your body energy, long sustainable energy to last throughout
the day. This food group is very high in fiber and full of minerals
and vitamins. Unfortunately, most people get their grains in the form
of refined grains, cereals, flours, breads and pastas, most of which
have severely diminished nutritional value.
Also centered in
the diet is beans: kidney, pinto, black, white, chick peas, lentils
and soy. This is where you get your protein which helps keep you strong.
The diet also includes a wide variety of vegetables, naturally fermented
foods, nuts and seeds, sea vegetables and fruit. Sea vegetables are
a family of vegetables that are the most nutrient dense foods on the
planet. They are high in calcium, protein, iron, minerals and trace
minerals. They are grown in the ocean and you buy them dried.
All these foods
were consumed by our ancestors. They ate a wide variety of whole foods
and unless they were dried and non perishable, they ate what was local.
For instance, living in Michigan our ancestors would not eat bananas
because they do not grow here. Bananas would be ideally suited for people
who live where they grow, but not so much for people here in Michigan.
We would be better off eating foods like pears, blueberries, squashes,
onions, wild rice, root vegetables and cabbage.
Also because we
have different seasons here, we eat according to the different seasons.
In the winter time we want to eat foods that will help keep our bodies
warm. Such foods include winter squashes, hard root vegetables, warming
stews, casseroles, thick hardy soups and hot oatmeal. In the summer
time we eat more foods that help cool our bodies down to help deal with
the heat. We can consume more raw foods such as salads, also fruits
are available, summer squashes, leafy greens and cucumbers.
Macrobiotics involves
looking towards nature. Living a lifestyle and eating according to what
nature has provided us and what is available around us from nature.
The macrobiotic lifestyle also involves the study and understanding
of energy. Here is a part of the introduction of my cookbook, Perceptions
In Healthy Cooking, that explains it briefly.

