Macrobiotic Life

I have found few pictures in my digital camera storage card, so I am posting them here. They are not so hot, just my usual ordinary daily meal shots.

Macrobiotic food 01 – This is a white rice mixed with whole grain pastas (spagheti), cooked with flax seeds, and the vegetable is simply steamed cabbage.

Macrobiotic food 02 – White rice with spagheti and flax seeds again (I am not eating white rice too often, but these pictures were taken in the time of 2 days, so I was eating the same white rice over and over), vegetable is mixed leek, cabbage and parsley – simply chopped, fried on sunflower or sesame oil and then you add little water (0.5 – 1 cm in the pot) and let it simmer for 15 minutes, at the end add shoyu sauce or miso and it’s done.

Macrobiotic food 03 – Here I have spagheti pastas (whole grains) – cooked alone. And vegetable is carrot + onion + seitan. Fry onion on a little of quality oil for few minutes, add little water and carrot and seitan and steam for 10-15 minutes, add shoyu sauce and ginger (you can add ginger to any meal, just make it always different, there are not strict rules, play with it and make it fun). And the green vegies is watercress (you can simply grow it on the damped cotton wool at home).

1 onion, 1/2 leek, 1 parsley, 1 turnip cabbage (kohlrabi) – I am not sure, what’s the proper English word, 1 tbsp sunflower oil, 1 tbsp corn flower, 1 tbsp flax seeds, 1 tsp ginger juice, 5 cm wakame, 1-2 tsp barley or rice miso, 0.5 l water, green fresh vegetables for decoration – scallion, like watercress, green haulm of parsley, chives, dandelion, daisy, etc.

Total time: 38 minutes
Working time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 18 minutes

Chop all vegetables to various pieces, change the chopping style everyday. Onion should be small pieces. Heat the pan for 30 seconds, pour oil on the hot pan and fry onion on moderate flame until it gets shiny colour (2-3 minutes), give Fire (element) energy into the food by active stiring of the onion. Put corn flower and stir for 1 more minute. Pour water and turn the flame on max until it boils. Lower the flame and put all vegetables, flax seeds wakame into the pot and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Mix miso into this the nearly done soup and let it simmer for 1 minute together. Turn off the flame and add ginger. Let it rest for 2 minutes and you can start serving fresh with something green on the top.

I would like to start posting and logging and blogging about my daily eating habits. I will try to make descriptions of the ingredients and make a nice pictures of my daily foods. Sometimes I will post only my lunch recipe, sometimes breakfast or dinner too. It will depend on my time, mood and if the meals would be interesting to blog about. It’s all one big experiment what I am going to do. I always wanted to log what I eat daily and it seems that if I will blog about it here, I will even give other people new ideas and maybe encourage them to start cooking macrobiotic too. It’s not hard at all. I am single man, living alone, cooking for myself only and I am preparing 3 meals a day. I won’t lie to you, it’s taking quite much time, because I am trying to cook as best as I can just now. But any time invested in your health, is not lost time. You will gain a massive amount of energy, happiness, well-being from your orderly cooked macrobiotic foods and if you eat them in relaxed manner and chewing them well. Don’t exchange your time for money, by working hard in a lousy job and neglecting your health. Stop and try to think a little. Anything in this world is more important than your health. If you are healthy, you can build on top of that. But no model can work opposite. You can’t do anything well if you are not healthy. Be patient and start cooking macrobioticly, because it’s the only food system, that is in harmony with nature and leads to natural well-being and happiness. Ok, from now, you will see more pictures and recipes at this blog. Enjoy and post comments if you want

The following could be individual or collective reasons for sugar cravings. Read each suggestion and notice how it applies to your eating or lifestyle. Reducing your desire or addiction for sugar should not require Herculean will power. Becoming conscious of the physiological and lifestyle factors that stimulate sugar cravings should make taming your sweet tooth a piece of cake–so to speak…

1. REDUCE SALT & PRODUCTS WITH SALT The need for dietary salt from natural sources (sun-dried sea salt) is dependent on several factors; a lack of salt can cause fatigue, stimulate a desire to overeat and often result in a craving or animal protein. However, with the availability of good quality sea salt, miso paste, tamari soy sauce and natural pickles, it’s quite easy to overdose. Thirst and a craving for sweet foods is one of the most reliable indicators of excess dietary salt.

2. REDUCE ANIMAL PROTEINThe standard four basic food group propaganda was force-fed to the American public along with the myth that animal protein should be a dietary staple. The meat and potatoes mentality has to re-think its philosophy since established research shows excess animal protein can lead to colon and prostate cancer. If this applies to you eat less in volume (2 to 4 ounce servings) and limit it to three to four times per week (maximum), as opposed to daily.

3. REDUCE FOOD VOLUME Overeating leads to fatigue and sluggishness. This makes a stimulant like sugar (or coffee) more appealing. Eating more frequently will allow you to reduce overeating with a minimum of effort.

4. EAT MORE FREQUENTLY THROUGHOUT THE DAY One of the most common reasons for sugar cravings–especially at night. By skipping meals or waiting long periods you stop supplying your blood with glucose. The blood sugar drops and by the time you finally get around to eating, you’re going nuts for simple sugar. You’re also likely to end up overeating or craving something fatty as a compensation for sugar. Initially, don’t wait more than 31/2 to 4 hours between meals.

5. AVOID EATING PRIOR TO BED If your body’s digesting when it requires much needed rest, you’ll require more sleep, dream excessively and find it difficult awakening with alertness. Good deep sleep will result in wide-awake days. Eating to close to bedtime creates a groggy awakening craving the stimulation of sugar (or caffeine) the following morning. Eat a light evening dinner at least 21/2 to three hours before retiring.

6. AVOID SUGAR This might sound obvious, however, continuing to eat simple sugars results in a falling blood sugar. This stimulates a need for more sugar and the cycle continues. Even though fruit is a simple sugar, switching to fruit instead of sugar is a good first step. Eat the skin of the fruit as well since fiber slows blood sugar elevation.

7. EXERCISE MODERATELY, BUT CONSISTENTLY Daily aerobic exercise will increase circulation and strengthen will power. Brisk walking, biking, light jogging, etc. naturally increases sensitivity to the effects of sugar. Try to get 20 to 30 minutes of some type of pleasurable exercise at least 5 times per week. Enjoy this. It should not be a chore.

8. EMPHASIZE NATURAL WHOLE COMPLEX-CARBOHYDRATES If your daily diet is includes whole grains (brown rice, oats, millet, barley, etc.), vegetables (roots, greens and round vegetables such as squashes, cabbages, etc.) as a primary fuel, you’ll find you automatically crave less sugar. Emphasizing sweet vegetables such as carrots, cooked onions, corn, cabbage, parsnips, squashes, etc., adds a natural sweetness to meals. Introduce some sea vegetables (aka “seaweeds”) for much needed minerals to enrich blood.

9. DON’T SUPPRESS FEELINGS This doesn’t mean you have to broadcast every feeling–only those that matter and to those who really matter to you. Food indulgence, especially with sweets, is a convenient way to anesthetize feelings. Sugar can consume you with sensory pleasure, temporarily providing mental relief from whatever might be stressful. However, sweets can hinder energy levels and mental clarity so in the long run your emotional coping ability becomes compromised.

10. BEWARE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TRIGGERS The many psychological associations we connect with food have a powerful influence. Beware of family associations, movie rituals, familiar restaurants, childhood habits, etc.

Written by Meg Wolff, Healthy and Macrobiotic Living

I read an article in Saturday’s Portland Press Herald about U.S. Rep. Tom Allen’s wife Diana just being diagnosed with breast cancer. Dr. Marsha O’Rourke, medical director of the breast-health program at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Lewiston, told the paper that knowing the stage of a cancer is key to choosing a treatment option. The article refers to the American Cancer Society Web site, which notes that “Most women with breast cancer undergo surgery” and that “surgery is often combined with other treatments such as radiation therapy, hormone therapy and/or biologic therapy.”

I hope to one day soon see dietary therapy alongside these treatment options … on the top of the list for prevention and treatment of breast cancer. Allow me to explain, with plenty of important scientific data (and personal experience) to back up this assertion:

Lower the fat and animal food content of your diet and live longer.
Women who eat a plant-based diet live longer than those who eat more animal foods. This is just one of the findings that have come out of the research of Dr. James Herbert and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Herbert showed that diet greatly influences whether a breast cancer will recur, or reappear, after it has been forced into remission after treatment.

The study, published in the journal Breast Cancer Treatment (September 1998) found that consumption of foods high in fat, including dairy products, was associated with shorter survival among women with breast cancer. Butter, beef, liver and bacon are especially dangerous, Herbert found. Pre-menopausal women with breast cancer who ate butter, margarine and lard had a 67 percent greater chance of cancer recurrence than women who abstained from these foods. On the other hand, women who ate more plant foods tended to live longer. Simply eating more vegetables each day was associated with lower rates of recurrence, Herbert found. The women who ate the most vegetables had the fewest occurrences and lived the longest, while those who ate the fewest had the shortest survival on average. Post-menopausal women who ate broccoli, collard greens, kale and citrus fruit lived longer than those who abstained from these foods. Each additional 100 milligrams of vitamin C over the amount eaten on the standard diet reduced the risk of recurrence by 43 percent.

Reduce excess calories to increase your chances of recovery.
Another UMass study in the Journal of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment (February 1999) found that women who ate an additional 1,000 calories above their optimal calorie levels experience an 84 percent increase in the risk of recurrence. It’s easy to get 1,000 extra calories by eating a few processed foods each day. On the other hand, whole foods – such as whole grains, fresh vegetables, beans and fruit – are low in calories. A diet made up mostly of these foods is a low-calorie diet.

The reason that calories are important is that the higher the calories, the higher the insulin levels and the greater the weight gain. Insulin is the hormone produced by your pancreas to make blood sugar available to your cells. Cells use blood sugar as their primary fuel. The more processed foods you eat the higher your insulin levels. And the higher your insulin levels the greater your risk of recurrence. Many scientists now believe this combination – high-calorie diet, overweight, and high insulin, now referred to as syndrome X – is the underlying cause of much of the breast cancer we see today.

Estrogen and breast cancer
Estrogen can act like a growth hormone. The larger and more numerous the fat cells, the more estrogen a woman’s body produces. Estrogen can trigger the over-production of tissue and inflammation inside the breast and uterus. This combination can block the milk ducts and the blood and lymph vessels within the breast causing waste products to stagnate, creating conditions for fibrocystic breasts and breast cancer.

To keep your estrogen levels low, eat a high-fiber diet. Fiber acts like a sponge. It soaks up excess estrogen and eliminates it through the feces. High-fiber diets speed intestinal transit and promote elimination, thus keeping the blood and lymph cleaner – which in turn keeps your breast tissue cleaner. Fiber is the reason that vegetarian women who eat lots of plant foods eliminate two to three times more estrogen than than non-vegetarians, according to a study published in The New England Journal Of Medicine (1982).

Plants are rich in healing compounds that fight cancer.
For the person combating a serious illness, the macrobiotic diet is an ideal cancer-fighting diet. It is low in fat, rich in fiber, and abundant in cancer- fighting chemicals. The diet is composed primarily of whole grains, fresh vegetables, beans, sea vegetables, soups, condiments and fruit and some fish. Macrobiotic proponents encourage people to eat only organic foods, especially if you are attempting to overcome a serious illness. These foods, scientists have found, boost the body’s healing forces, and directly fight cancer.

The vegetables that appear most protective are the cruciferous variety, namely broccoli, cabbage, collard greens, kale, mustard greens and watercress. These contain the substance sulforanphane, which promotes detoxification of the blood and tissues and helps fight cancer. Another substance is phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC), which may inhibit the emergence of lung tumors in animals that have been bred to create cancerous tumors. Plants contain antioxidants, an antidote for oxidization the underlying cause of most illness we see today, including breast cancer.

There are thousands of antioxidants, though most of us know only the most commonly reported which are vitamin C, E and beta carotene. Plant foods are the primary source of all antioxidants. Without these, your risks of cancer rises dramatically, according to Bruce Ames, Ph.D. professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a longtime researcher. Dr. Ames says that people who eat fewer than five servings of antioxidant-rich foods each day experience twice the risk of developing cancer than those who get five servings. Researchers have found that the body’s primary cancer fighter, natural killer cells, are boosted in number and aggressiveness when anti-oxidant rich foods are eaten. The Chinese, for example, eat a diet based primarily on grains and vegetables and they have lower rates of the common cancers, especially breast cancer. Two other groups of chemicals in plant foods known as carotenoids are also powerful cancer fighters.

Avoid poisons at all costs. Organic agriculture uses no synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. Pesticides and other environmental pollutants can cause many of the common cancers , including breast cancer. The Centers For Disease Control has found that Americans now carry 100 different synthetic chemicals in their fat cells and tissues and 45 are proven carcinogens. Atrazine and dioxin have been shown to have estrogen-like effects on cells, directly promoting tumors in the breast. Researchers at Berkeley found that dioxin levels accumulated over the years, over a certain threshold, more than double the risk of breast cancer.

I predict that within the next 10 years … plant-based nutrition will be commonly recommended for long-term breast cancer survival.

As we see, it takes a long time for the science to get translated into treatment options. Though we have much scientific evidence about plant-based diet and good health, these treatment options are not commonly being recommended by our doctors. I’m very fortunate to have heard about this option nine years ago when I was diagnosed with advanced invasive breast cancer. Had I not found out about this, I am certain I would not be alive and healthy today.

More people need to have this information, as it is a key piece of the cancer “puzzle.” Plant-based nutrition could increase the chances of long-term survival for so many more people!

www.megwolff.com

The macrobiotic diet though it does not advocate a vegetarian or vegan diet includes very little amount of animal based food products. The macrobiotic diet lays emphasis on cereals which constitute the bulk of the diet (about 50-60%). The diet is based on the principles of Yin and Yang (property of duality); foods are classified according to their characteristics like for example the degree of their saltiness and sweetness or whether they are acidic or alkaline in nature.

The macrobiotic diet does not forbid non vegetarian food but classifies foods like poultry and meat as being extremes of Yin and Yang and hence asks to limit their intake. The diet recommends maximum intake of fruits, vegetables, salads and pulses along with cereals as the ideal combination with limited amounts of animal products according to the time of the year. Essentially the macrobiotic diet advises one to live in harmony with nature by consuming foods that are ideal according to place, climate as well as the age and activity level of the person.

The term Macrobiotic diet or macrobiotics was first devised by the German physician Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland in his book Macrobiotics or the Art of Extending Human Life (1796) which included a dietary regime.

The Macrobiotic diet as we know it today is based on the philosophy of George Ohsawa (1893-1966), a Japanese philosopher in his book Macrobiotic Guidebook for Living. Various books have been written on the subject of macrobiotic diet mainly by Ohsawa’s pupils Michiko Kushi and Aveline Kushi; some of the books that could be mentioned are Macrobiotic Way (M. Kushi), Aveline Kushi’s Complete Guide to Macrobiotic Cooking (A. Kushi), The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health (M. Kushi and Alex Jack).

The Macrobiotic diet is supposed to prevent and cure cancer and various books have been written on the subject like for example the book Recalled by Life describes the way Anthony Satillaro, M.D battled prostate cancer with the help of macrobiotics; Michiko Kushi has also written on the subject in his book Macrobiotic Approach to Cancer.

Rolling Stones were in Canada this weekend for a concert in Halifax, Nova Scotia on Saturday night. Guitarist Ron Wood and his wife Jo had dinner at The Wooden Monkey on Friday to get ready for the gig. This is not just any restaurant, however. The menu is organic, macrobiotic, and based on locally-grown food.

The Woods began an organic diet about 15 years ago when misdiagnosed with Crohn’s disease, an intestinal disorder. Jo currently has a line of organic body care products called Jo Wood Organics and is currently working on an organic lifestyle book.

So what did the rock n’ roll couple have for dinner? Ron had the free-range beef sandwich with horse radish while Jo opted for the haddock. For dessert they had chocolate tofu and blueberry pie and then bought a couple of bottles of blueberry juice before leaving.

On Saturday, Lil MacPherson, the owner of the Monkey got a call offering her 2 VIP, backstage passes to the show. She decided to go, and bring an organic blueberry pie with her. The crust made from organic spelt, a type of wheat, and filled with organic blueberries sweetened with maple syrup.

Lil says of her time in the green room with the band, ”It’s just Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, me, my brother Jeff and Jo. I said, Oh, my sweet God, we are in. Jeff and I are like in shock. And they’re all eating the pie. They’ve all got blue mouths, they’ve all got blue lips, they’re going to go on stage with blue teeth,” she said. “It was so funny.”

The macrobiotic celebrity community is growing pretty well. After sporty, energetic looking Madonna undergoing 4 hour concerts easily (no doubt it’s due to daily macrobiotic menus), following Sting which is macrobiotic eater also, Gwyneth Paltrow is the next famous macrobiotic lover, but she has some intestine problems, which I heard are caused by not eating macrobiotic foods quite well and at the end, we have the new macrobiotic celebrity of this year – Ron Wood. It’s awesome. The more macrobiotic eating celebs the better to spread it around the world fastly. Go celebs, go macrobiotic

Here are some of my thoughts what I am planning to do to empower traffic to this blog and do basic website promotion.

• Submit it anywhere and everywhere possible. Diet, food, recipe, healthy food, vegetarian oriented websites are the best for the link popularity and to boost my SE relevance. I have no submit list for now but I will post my findings of interesting websites you can submit to if you are an operator of a similar website to mine.
• Make link trades with my friends. I have a few friends running vegetarian and recipe blogs already running. I will swap the links with them
• For the actual macrobiotic news I will implement another websites through their RSS feeds. It will make my content more interesting and always changing for the SE robots and for you it will brings the latest news from the macrobiotic world.
• I will try to find some interesting macrobiotic posts and will track them back. Have no experiences with trackbacking as for now and I am interested how it all works
• And note to myself, restart my computer more often than 1 times a month. Win XP are really stable but they are getting too slowly after 7 days of running. Maybe I should upgrade memory instead

If you would like to exchange links with my blog, I would be really happy. Let me know in the comments please.

And if you know about any macrobiotic website that you think is worth looking at and mentioning in my blog, let me know also please.

Macrobiotic diet

Macrobiotics (from the Greek “macro” (large, long) + “bio” (life)) is a lifetyle that incorporates a dietary regime.

Macrobiotics was brought to Europe from Japan by the philosopher Georges Ohsawa (who taught extensively in Paris) and subsequently to North America in the late 1960s by his pupil Michio Kushi.

Behind macrobiotic thinking stands the idea that food, and food quality affects our lives more greatly than is commonly thought. It affects our health, well being and happiness. Therefore it is better for us to choose food that is less processed, more natural, use more traditional methods of cooking and cook for ourselves and families and friends.

Macrobiotics emphasize locally grown, whole-grain cereals, pulses, vegetables, fruit, seaweed and fermented soy products, combined into meals according to the principle of balance between Yin and Yang properties. Cereals (and in particular, rice), which are seen as being naturally balanced in terms of Yin and Yang make up the main part of the diet. Foods which are either extremely Yin in nature (such as very sweet foods, or dairy products) or extremely Yang in nature (such as very salty foods or red meat) are eaten very rarely if at all.

For people who want to adopt the diet, it is recommended to read more about it and even consult a macrobiotic counselor (especially in case of illness). It is generally recommended that the diet be adopted gradually, reducing animal products, refined flour, sugar, dairy products and adding more whole grain and vegetable quality foods.

Some people try and extend the diet into a macrobiotic lifestyle. People who practice a Macrobiotic lifestyle belive they try to observe Yin & Yang in everything they do. They strive for balance and happpiness in their daily lives and living in harmony with nature and their physical surrounding.

(Copied from Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Macrobiotic diet“)

After flirting with the idea of starting my own blog about macrobiotic, I have finally organized my thoughts and registered macrobiotic.ws domain yesterday. I was surprised by how many great domains containing macrobiotic search strings is still available on the net and was tempted to register ten of them. Maybe I will. It all depends on the success of this blog. I am working for a long time on the net, I am self employed for the long 5 years to be precise. I am making my living by promoting other websites and selling their products. But from the boom of webloging I was more and more interested in starting macrobiotic blog.

I was living with macrobiotic principles on and off for a 5 years. But the last year was the breakthrough for me. I am doing the diet strictly for 7 months and feeling better and better. I am still surprised how long does it take to empty and clean my body from all the dirt gathered through the 24 years of my life. But if you know the principles of how the organism work and why are pimples forming and why you have runny noses and that what is higher temperature for, it’s very interesting and entertaining to just watch and learn. The most important is to trust your organism and to keep the healthy diet even if you are feeling really bad. Physically or mentally. Tired, angry, irritate, nervous – these are all indications of mind cleaning. All is energy and even your thoughts are energy. The peace will come after the bad thoughts are wiped off. The healthy and beautiful skin, good posture without excessive fat, no more cold, no more tiredness… all will eventually come when your body empty all the dirt.

Don’t give up. Your health is worth it.

As I am writing this, I still realize how my English sucks and that I am very limited in expressing myself. I am very sorry for my English, because it’s not my native language. I am living in the Czech Republic. Because I wasn’t forced to communicate and write any lengthy stories in English, I adapted myself to ability of reading in English only. As I see, I have a long way before me and this blog will help me enormously and my posts will be better by the time. For now, excuse my English, please.

Love and bliss