Macrobiotic Life

This discussion was started by Phiya’s Facebook message. I would like to reprint it here, for other people to benefit.

Phiya >> Macrobiotics must necessarily address addictions, be they from more serious substances such as drugs and alcohol, or from foods such as sugar, ice cream, chocolate, fried foods, junk foods, baked foods and processed foods. It isn’t enough to stop the addiction itself but to also address the addictive patterns of thinking and behaving as well…

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Me >> Macrobiotic should provide more theories about all energies beside the food. Macrobiotic is very good in setting the exact food pattern, standard plate – people like precise rules. I think, there should be similar precise pattern for the rest of the life energies/activities. People are not aware of this.. that they should balance all their …

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John >> Interesting point, Frantisek, although wouldn’t there be a danger that so much precision and control over everything would kind of squash out all the freedom and joy of living? Just a thought…

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Me >> John: I think there are two sides as usually. Some people would become too rigid (yang) because of this, some people would be helped to become less unresponsible (yin). For me, I try to look at mental body the same as physical. I think the exactly same question can be put over the food plate. Doesn’t it cause too much control? From what I see and people I know, there are many rational/logical thinkers in the macrobiotic movement. I think, one of the reasons for this is – the precision with which the macrobiotic sets all the food rules (the whole logical taoism yin/yang logic). I can imagine the same style of rules for the spiritual/mental/emotional life. They don’t need to be perfectly precise.. the importance would be put on the overall harmony/balance logic. There would be suggested ‘plate’ models with the basic theory around – that everyone is different, unique and has to find his way. I am just suggesting more discussion about the spiritual/mental part in the macrobiotic. I know top M leaders are aware of this very well and they try to address this issue. For example in the latest edition of Cancer Prevention Diet – there’s whole new part about Emotions related to Cancer development.

I am getting inspired by Integral Life Practices last days – I like how they try to make balance from different world practices – http://www.kenwilber.com/personal/ILP/MyILP.html

I am just speaking from my daily macrobiotic practice, from my life experiences with M and from many M people I know around. I see where they make mistakes, where I have made mistakes.. and this issue is one of them – on of the biggest mistakes I made – I just simply didn’t balance all my parts of life, I have concentrated too much on food

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John >> Excellent insights, Frantisek…I am often in conversation with students and friends here in Scandinavia who repeatedly bring up the issue: “if MB food is meant to be local, how come it all comes from Japan?”

I have very well thought-out and articulated answers to such questions, of course, but what if one applied the same criteria to “spiritual food?”

Many of the arguments that one can make about solid food do not make sense when applied to spiritual food.

I have personally derived ENORMOUS benefit from Far Eastern spiritual practices, but I find it much easier to explain to a Finn why he should eat miso soup every day than why he should chant the Diamond Sutra every day…

Perhaps we should continue this very interesting conversation somewhere other than Phiya’s FB wall: he probably wants to put the cat out and get some sleep : )

BTW, how can you possibly have such excellent English?

best wishes,

John.

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Me >> I think we can continue chatting here, Phiya can just ignore and others can see it and join, if they want.

Excellent English? Thank you, but I don’t think so. The same question could be send to you also, right? Or at Finn, it’s usual to talk English there? For me, I am self-employed from 99, I make money from net, I get info from english websites, so I consider myself as very poor learner.. for so many years of reading in English, I am not good at all But writing, talking and reading is very different, you know. For writing, the best practice become from my blog writing http://www.macrobiotic.name

About the local macrobiotic issue. I was dealing with the same question myself and from people around, asking me why so many Asia groceries. I have found general macrobiotic answers for this – the logic of the same climatic zone and also the logic of “the more water food has, the closer to you it has to be”. It served me well. But finally, I am questioning the same thing again. Looking from different perspective and now the perspective could be described as “simplicity” and “self-sustainability”. From this point of view, I am for localizing macrobiotic to each country/environment. I am asking myself, what if there will be world crisis, what if I want to live deep in the nature. I am sure, I can live from the local production, without miso, kuzu, umeboshi, seaweeds. I think they can be exchanged with other fermented foods or that I can learn how to prepare them similarly. In the end, the fermented foods were in each country’s history, we just have to rediscover and also learn about wild plants/weeds. They are my seaweed replacement
Maybe the little problem is with rice. I like rice very much. But I am going to learn about no-water rice cultivations (if I say it right, they just don’t need so much water and warm/wet weather).

For the spiritual practices. I think we are in the quest of rediscovering our old roots too. At least I am. Pagan, druid religions were the basis of nearly all religions (if you look closely and open your mind). Sacral geometry is hidden everywhere. It’s all about energies, the spiritual practices differ just like the different exercises for the body. But I have no problem with doing aikido in the Czech, or meditating vipassana style, because I see it all as having exact energy on me (more yin, more yang). Meditations and exercise are in christianity, just under different names

John, so you are Finn macrobiotic lecturer?

Thanks for the conversation, awesome topic

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Patrick >> i enjoyed this exchange, it is clever;just suggesting that everyone that is interested in this kind of mind excercise could go and simply rediscover the diet of their peaceful ancestors, some times very difficult to do find (peaceful)
michio’s work is tremendous!!
we all could turn into what i call lattitude”izing” MB,and trust me there is lots of work to be done in it’s longitude”izing” as well; to be continued if you so desire??? love peace, namaste

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Me >> Patrick: I am not sure what you are talking about. I surely desire for continuation
And I agree, Michio’s work is colossal!!

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Patrick >> frantisek, in simple terms i’m talking about about the true regionalisation of MB latitude and longitude wise, michio only touched base with that! and also i have to remember that this way of life is base on the motto of ” one peaceful world”
therefore my question about following the diet of peaceful ancestors ( pre traveling foods) is i think a crucial one

i have in storage in mass a tremendous book of about 500 pages written by a polish man ( don’t remember his name now) about fermented food complete history and geography

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Me >> Patrick: thanks for the explanation, somehow your English is a little hard for me (I don’t consider it as your problem).
You remembered me about the “Ferment & Human Nutrition” excelent book from the Bill Mollison (father of Permaculture movement), maybe this is the one you mean, but he is not polish I think

Check the reviews.. really great book!

This is my answer to one of the reader’s question. This opinion is very personal view on the “how to follow the macrobiotic diet” topic (why do I say it, this is personal blog, right?) So read it like an interesting opinion from someone who eats 6 years macrobioticaly and take what you want from it.

Here’s Wendy’s question, that inspired me to write this post:

Hello, I just searched for “macrobiotic lifestyle how-to” and stumbled upon your blog. It is extremely informative and wonderful. Please keep writing and don”t feel discouraged to quit just when I’ve found you! I need all the info I can get as I would like to begin this lifestyle.
I am a vegan and obviously would continue that while eating the macobiotic way. Any thoughts on this? I know many people following this lifestyle eat fish, is that essential? I would think not. Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated.
I am going to go back to reading your blog and gleaning more knowledge.
Thank you!
-Wendy

Hey Wendy, thanks a lot for a lovely comment
No worry, I won’t stop posting new things that interest me. It’s just, that when people comment, like you did, and ask about specific questions, I can relate to them with my posts. I can provide them with many answers from my macrobiotic experience and I am not playing “I know it all”, I know when to give my personal advice and when to provide an useful link to another website with interesting answers.

About the fish.. from the people I know around me, they have no problem at all, being on the macrobiotic without any meat/fishes. Don’t worry, experiment. Me personaly, I eat fish about 1 time a month, I don’t eat any other meat. I have no need for meat. There are questions about the B12, but there are so many different opinions, that I wouldn’t worry with this issue at the beginning. I think the best thing you can do when starting with macrobiotic is this: take it easy, keep it simple and most importantly in M, learn cooking. Don’t be stressed and obsessed by too much theories at the start, the books are full of them. The M system is very complex. But also very simple. It depends how you look at it. Leave the complexities for later if you want. Because the most important, why people don’t stick with M longer is, they hadn’t patience to learn the proper cooking styles and because of that, they don’t know how to satisfy their cravings.

The cooking doesn’t take much longer time than any different cooking style/diet. It’s only that it seems so, at the beginning. People think, it’s very complicated. But it is not. Just take it easy and learn a little each day. Practice new recipes. It’s all down to the cooking. All the theories are great, but in the end, to any illness, problem, the general suggestion is to follow the standard macrobiotic plate. You can know many details about each topic later, but when you don’t know how to cook, you are just a full head of theories without action.

Practice, practice and don’t be afraid that you can do anything wrong. Don’t be obsessed by the exact cooking rules (there are many tiny-details in each cooking book, that are making new comers crazy). Don’t fret about the exaxct cooking times, exact procedures, when you start with M. I see many people around me, they have problems with this. They ask, if it’s too bad if they boiled miso for 5 minutes instead of simmering. If it’s totaly bad for their health if they eat honey or raw fruit, or if they put raw salt on their plate instead of cooking it, the same with oil. And then, people are stressed and rather stop with macrobiotic and switch to completely poor eating habit, instead of making mistakes with macrobiotic and continuing the learning process.

But this is typical in all the human’s endeavors. We are just like this. This could be summarized as the complex of perfectionism, idealism. If we don’t eat macrobiotic (switch to your favorite diet/activity) perfectly well, we rather stop it. If we don’t go to the gym each day, we rather don’t go at all, instead of going once per week for example. If we eat something non-macrobiotic that day, we follow the same poor pattern the whole day and are thinking, that only from tommorow we can start again.
I suggest anyone starting the M diet, don’t be so strict with yourself. Accept the biggest rule of Life: we are not perfect, nothing is perfect!
Do the best you can, with what you have, where you are.
And never, never give up

I see this path as perfectly ok too:
If you have no serious illness and you would like to start macrobiotic, start just eating 1 single macrobiotic meal a day. For example for 1 week, or 2 or 3, depends on you. Then, it will become perfect habit and very easy to follow for you. For a dinner or supper or breakfast, you will have 1 macrobiotic meal. You will slowly learn the cooking. Then, simply add a second M meal to your daily eating. Again, stick to it for 1 week or more. And then try to eat 3 meals and then continue with snacks too. No need to hurry, you can transition to the full macrobiotic diet for a period of 1 year. Anything is better than nothing.

But if you are cold turkey person.. hey, no problem, just go for it in your style. The paragraph above was for the easy, relaxed people

And here are few links for your continuous research and inspiration. Check this website and there is a selection box, where you select any person and you can read their interview. The first sentence is usually how they started with macrobiotic and it follows with their real life experiences. Very interesting reading.

In general, the whole macrobiotics.co.uk website has many many informative articles about M.

But ofcourse, the first thing to do, is to buy a complete, comprehensive book. I am sorry, but I won’t give any book suggestion, because I am not from the english speaking country and I am not acquainted which books are good for he beginners. If you have any suggestions, please, leave them at the comments.

Also, anyone, anytime, anywhere.. if you have any question, post them to comments. Don’t think it’s a stupid question, there’s no one like this! I can answer many questions, give you opinions and useful links.

Macrobiotic is wonderful lifestyle system. It’s not only about eating. It transforms you completely, not from the outside, but from the core inside. Nothing can transform you so deeply as food, no other knowledge. The deepest knowledge is coming with the food, that creates all your body cells. Your physical body, but the spiritual too! All si connected.

Love&Peace

Second old article written by me at 6th January 2008.

Today I am interested to write about macrobiotic topic.
This is one of my big interests. Maybe the biggest one.
Once you realise that everything in life is somehow connected, you can’t depart from your life the influence of the food you eat daily.
Everything is energy and you should treat everything in this world like this.
If you are working in this mind picture you are seing the world quite differently.
The food you eat is transformed to the pure energy.
The macrobiotic is talking about main two energies.
The macrobiotic is derived from the Taoism and its view on the life.
Sweet, sugar is yin energy. It’s one side of the coin, one extreme.
The other side is salt, yang energy.
If you are eating overly salty and sugary foods you are flying between these two extremes and it’s very hard to stop, to balance.
If you want to be very balanced you have to work with the middle spectrum of energies. Not too much yin or yang.
These energies do containt all the main macrobiotic foods and they are:
whole cereals (rice, oat, wheat, barley..)
vegetables (except tomato)
seaweeds
condiments like shoyu, tamari, miso
fruits (but only from your local teritory)
oats

If you eat these balanced foods and if you use balanced cooking styles you are eating slowly, chewing right, the result is very healthy body, balanced mind and your life completely is getting better.
I know it sounds too scifi to believe that such a simple thing like food can be so powerful.
The best thing is to try it yourself and decide later.
I like Steve Pavlina’s 30 day challenge.
You will pick something you want to try and do it for 30 days, without any pause. You have to be strong and stick with it for 30 days. Then you will decide.
Btw Pavlina is starting his raw food eating experiment now.

I am resolved to stop overeating and especially to stop eating all the junk foods I was stuffing into myself the last 3 weeks. I had eaten the worst foods yesterday night, like sausages, cheese, eggs, lard, lot of salt, lot of the cheepest chocolate, ton of honey, all mixed with white bread. I was eating till 23:00.
No I want to eat really strict again. Today I want to eat very small portion of MB meals. Chew very well and not to take anything else than MB foods. Control the yin side (barley malt).
But I have nothing else sweety than barley malt at home now. It would be good to go shoping and have some fruits (raisins, apples), dried soya milk, 100% fruit concentrates etc.
I start to dislike the barley malt more and more. And it’s not satisfiing me enought with the sweet cravings. I crave for honey, but when I start to eat honey, I crave for something stronger, chocolate.. it’s really vicious cycle, that’s not clever to start/open at the first place at all!! And I am really stupid to leting myself to eat honey the last days.
Also I crave for baked products. I should prepare sourdough leaven and do my bread instead of eating the salty graham bread.

Day progress:
It’s 21:00 when I am writing this. The day progressed very very well since far. The first meal I had at 14:00 and only small portion. It was even not salty at all, bland and very watery barley grains. I was whole day consciously observing everything, every thought and watching my hunger like it wasn’t happening to me, but to somebody else. I was trying to observe without the “me, myself” thoughts and tried to enjoy the hungry state. I would like to learn what real hunger really is. Because I am afraid I wasn’t really hungry for a long time. The feeling I consider hunger, is just little voice of my stomach. Another problem I have is to know, when I am full, not even to find out when I am full from 80% only. I am not sure what full (satisfied) for me does mean.
Anyway, I found out perfect, but very simple thing, important for my “home working” life. I don’t understand why it took me so long to connect all the puzzle pieces and realize this. I need movement/exercise/be active to stop the lazy, tired, unconcentrated vicious cycle! Yeah, sounds simple. But I needed to connect it all with the food and yin/yang theories. The physical action is making whole body more yang. It seems in another way than salt/shoyu, because I have no sweet cravings after finished running. Quite the opposite. The digestive system start to assimilate more nutrients into the blood and even when I felt hungry, I feel satisfied after a short intensive physical exercise. So I can prolong my eating and I have even more energy. I can start to concentrate and my brain is freed from the lazy/tired cage.
The perfect concentration and active lifestyle I had around the New Year seems to be not only because of the good quality macrobiotic I was eating, but mainly because I was going to weight-lift to gym (3 times a week) and run (3 times a week). It made my body/thinking active.
I need to incorporate any physical activity as my daily habit. Otherwise I will get stuck in the very bad, lazy state and doing nothing important. Only dreaming and wishing to do something, but without real power to launch things.
For today I was biking quickly for 15 minutes uphill. It started me to feel perfect. And for the dinner I ate small portion of spagheti, with leek+broccoli fried on oil, chickpea paste with little shoyu.

I have new simple quick spagheti recipe also:
- pressure cook chick pea with lot more water (I will use the water as a broth but it’s very tasty for drinking
also)
- saute vegetable for few minutes, add prepared spagheti and saute for few minutes, add broth and boil for a while, add shoyu to taste
- I have crushed hot chick peas to a paste before and I put this paste on top of the spagheti
- something green for a perfect look on top of that

I finished the dinner at 19:30 and because I was having small thoughts about what to eat now, even when I wasn’t hungry at all, I took a walk into the forest. I started to run there and in the end I pushed myself very well and was running really intensive. When came home, no taste other than thirsty. Well done.

Start moving every day.
Simple walking will do.
Walk very fast.
30 minutes daily.

But any moving is ok.
Run, bike, swim, housework.

Stop eating white sugar!
Change to fruits, honey, malts and sirups from cereals.
Eat small portions more often.

Concentrate on everything you do.
When eating, just eat.
When reading, just read.
When walking, just…
Ability to concentrate will build up like muscles do.

These three things – physical activity, healthier diet, concentration development – leads to more active lifestyle.

Previous day last meal was at 17:00, then I took high speed longer walk (hara walking) in the forest, got to sleep at 21:30 (5 and 1/2 hours after the meal). I was satisfied with the last meal maybe because I used 2 spoons of oil. I fried bread in the oil, added shoyu and ended with fresh chinese cabbage – complete satisfaction and lot of energy and no sweet cravings. I try to eat my last meals like this. End at 17pm and go to sleep around 21 pm and get up earlier, like 5 – 6 am. In this way I will not overeat at night and I can control my sweet cravings through the day much easier than at night. So if I will go sleep earlier I will withhold some portion of the sweets. And it seems to me much healthier time setup – to go sleep early and get up early. I was reading about the history of the Maya civilization and there was daily regime described in the book – they got up at 4 am and immediately went to work on the corn fields until around 14-15 pm. Then they ate their 2 main foods and went to sleep at 20 pm.

6:30 get up
8:00 – 8:50 yesterday pressure cooked oat + rice; boiled carrot + broccoli
11:05 – 13:05 the same grains + little shoyu + little sesame oil + dandelion, chives and daisy; 1 teaspoon of natto; fried bread in 1 spoon of oil and 1 tablespoon of shoyu + lot of raw chinese cabbage; roasted seeds + barley malt (3-5 tablespoons) well chewed – not a good day with sweets again but i am going to physicaly work a lot now, so at least I will compensate for this a little
physical work around the house (old windows demolition)
17:20 – 18:50 miso soup – carrot, parsley, onion, wakame, sunflower oil; lot of freshly pressure cooked brown rice + barley + lentils (soaked overnight)
19:40 I have sweet cravings, but I am sleepy, so I can manage it by telling myself, that I will rather go to sleep than to eat anything.
22:00 sleep

7:00 get up
9:00 – 9:15 stretching
9:15 – 9:45 freshly pressure cooked 50% rice + 50% emmer grain, boiled carrot and parsley, chewed 50-100x, proper sitting with straight spine (you can feel the full stomach much quicker in the straight position, when sitting hunched you will usually overeat, but the straight spine has many other positive effects ofcourse)
11:50 – 12:30 the same
4km bike trip to the forest, bare foot training chi kung and eye stretching (Bate’s method)
15:15 – 16:15 same grains, boiled cabbage with miso and wild plants (herbs)
17:45 small cup of freshly cooked red beans with kombu (1 hour 40 mins – soaked overnight)
19:25 – 21:00 same grains; boiled carrot; oil fried bread with 3 day pickles + shoyu + little water; white flour pastas + barley malt; almonds + barley malt; kuzu+shoyu drink to compensate my yin overtake

Listening to a new music (to me) The Bouncing Souls – very speedy funny style. I am dancing all over the flat till midnight I have also started to get interested in the natural house building processes. I want to learn some techniques how to build simple cheape houses. I am very interested in the traditional Japanese building techniques, but it will be really hard to get to know someone who can really make old tatamis and old Japanese houses. But after watching samurai DVD series I fell in love with their houses simplicity and effectivity. I have also read, that Tatami does smell very nicely, because it’s made from the rice straw – imagine sleeping in the straw and the beatiful smell. I am thinking about trying to make my own tatami from the writings I have read about it. It will be just for fun, at least the smell of fresh strow will be there
I got also offer to live or spend some time in the Russia beginning alternative village (according to the Anastasia dreams). There are people of Czechs, Russia and Srbia and their main aim is Love in the Nature – what could be better. Yeah, one thing is missing from our macrobiotic view – they are mostly vegetarians, but still eating sugar and other more extreme yin/yang energies. They would be much more connected with the Nature line if implementing macrobiotic lifestyle (eating habits). I the past I was finding big problems with living in such a community where people are not eating macrobiotics. But the more I chew and more I am humble, I can imagine living anywhere, as long as I could cook my macrobiotic meal there and be happy with some small personal space (house).
I am on the crossroads in my Life now. I have many great options what to do and where to move now. One is the Russia village, another is Holland Kushi Institute, another is macrobiotic community in the sounce France and another new one is to work as a Security man in the UK. The last one is not spiritual, it’s just simple money making opportunity. The job is very easy, good for meditative people, because all you do is walk and watch at some places like supermarkets, construction places etc. And the earning is nice for this simple job – it’s 6 pounds per hour. The living costs there would be 200 – 400. So with the 10 hour shift, the real net income would be from 800 – 1000, which is quite nice if you consider the type of the job. I feel I will need money in the future to start my living in the nature, to build my simple cheap house (cob, wood, bamboo – i don’t know yet) and to buy the land place, or I can use our land that my mother inherited, but I don’t see it as the perfect dream place, it would be the last option. I don’t need too much money for the house, I imagine maximum of $35.000 to get me builded nice low energy natural house. But still I need these money at least. I am not sure which path to choose now, but I feel I don’t need the money now and I will concentrate on experiences and money will come somehow later. My new dream, growing inside me and completely strange to my computer professional life is to be “Natural House builder”. To learn some techniques (my dream one is Traditional Japanese Houses) and to get better and better, to study, to travel and learn from other people and work hard in the sunny nature, not inside some building while sitting before computer. It’s my BIG dream now. I am more moving from the computer and closed buildings to the outside Nature beautiful world and feeling very happy there, something I have never felt before. It all began with my intensive rice chewing and humble asking the Nature for my new life direction. And since then (3 months before), I started to really live and my life changed by a big amount – complete 180 degree turn for somebody who was used to sit before computer and earn money with building spammy SEO sites.
Thank you mother Nature for everything

5:50 get up
8:30 – 9:10 yesterday grains (rice + millet) with water deep-fried broccoli + roasted flax seeds (50x chewing)
12:20 – 12:40 small portion of fresh cooked kuskus with carrot and daikon + 2 plates of seitan; going out to school and taking 2 jars of this food
15:00 – 15:20 eating 1st jar at school, being very hungry, not chewing at all
18:10 – 18:40 chewing well 2nd jar, still at school

I am feeling very warm and very fine, happy minded. Outside temp is 0 *C. I have bought another camping tools for my traveling future plans. I have new gas cooker (var2 – czech made), new camping cooking set (2 pots – 1.5 liter and 1 liter) – but they have very thin bottom, i am not sure how well will these serve for macrobiotic foods cooking, because they need longer time preparation and lower flame. These camping cookers are prepared for maximum effect – high flames, rapid boil, but not for the low simmering. Anyway, for the longer trips to the foreign countries (Asia, Russia, Mongolia etc.), I imagine taking small 3.5 liter WMF pressure cooker. Yes, it sounds crazy, but I was inspired by Nelissen, who pictures I saw, when he was traveling China and taking not only one but two of these WMF pressure cookers in the backpack – their handles were sticking out of his bag like a two samurai swords But you need a lot of gas bombs for long time cooking too. Hope I will get more experiences. And what better could I do, than going to sleep in the nearby woods tonight. I was really feeling very warm, even hot. I have also bought new professional all-season groundcloth (14mm strong). It was veeery adventurous to go outside in the night for me, it was first time sleeping without tent, under the beautiful sky and trees. I packed my stuff and also some food to enjoy the morning breakfast in the nature and to test my cooker. I had head-light already boughten.
I went out at 22:30 and was preparing my sleep place at 23:30. Although I have slept no more than 3 hours, the enjoyment was VERY VERY cool. I felt like I can really go and sleep anywhere. I fall asleep fast, because I was heated from the trip and I was even sweating. But then I woke up and being cold. I couldn’t slept at all, I was feeling completely awake and was thinking about many thinks where I will travel. But while being still chilled, I went out and do a quick muscle training set (crunches and quick nunchaku set – yeah, I took my nunchaku also). And then went fast to the sleeping back and was ok and fall asleep again for a 1 hour. Woke up at 5:30. All birds were singing and I started to hear something very similar to barking, it was quite close to me. I looked around and I realised that even roebucks are barking I fall in love with sleeping outside. I fall in love with Nature. I want to spend more time outside than in the house. And with today’s achievement, I feel very powerful. It was my first trip in the quite cold weather, sleeping without tent. I forgot to say, that it was -3 *C through the night.
At the morning I made a lot of streching, some fast runs, Bates eye stretching method for my shortsightedness (I have very strong – minus 6 dioptres and I consider this as a biggest goal in my life, to corect this shortsightedness problem and to enjoy the World without glass crunches, it limits me in many adventurous dreams and sports, I need to wear contact lenses, but I am ok with them only for 12 hours, sometimes I would need more hours without glasses, especially if I would like to hike in the mountains).
Then I warmed my leftover grains (kuskus + rice with millet) in the bancha tea. All went ok with the VAR cooker. And chewed 50-150 times in the meditative morning forest atmosphere. I eat that from 6:50 – 7:40.
I come home at 8:30.
But now, while writing (10:00), I feel like I have small higher temperature. But I am happy for this, because the yin overeating in the previous days needs to be eliminated. I am very thankful it goes out in the natural manner – higher temperature and sweating. I will definitely support my body in this process with small food portions and perfect chewing today.

I have also finished the school. Actually, I call it school, but it was course in the “Www administration” that belongs under the Labour Office, because I am unemployed at this time. From today I have all my time for my future plans. I have some money stream coming from my internet website projects. But it’s not much and I will need to live frugal life, if I wouldn’t want to go to work.

Thank you Nature for this beautiful World.

5:45 get up
9:00 – 9:40 freshly pressure cooked 80% short rice + 20% millet with salt; water deep fried leek; chewed very well (50-150x), small portion; i was chewing my saliva 500x before the meal
11:40 – 12:15 the same
13:10 – 14:00 walking outside
14:30 – 15:15 miso soup – carrot, daikon, wakame, sunflower oil (1 spoon); today’s grains
16:15 – 18:10 little of grains; finished miso soup; Racio “breads” – it’s a local product, i call them styrofoams, very dry whole grain slices, I eat them with a half of raw chinese cabbage pressed with salt; I can say that I have overeaten by this, but I feel somehow satisfied, not craving for anything; it seems like the raw vegetable aspect (yin) does work for my craving (at least now); it concurs with my reading at the fruitarian forums, where people say, they have no need for overating on the raw food diet, they say they are completely satisfied with the raw vegies and fruits and seeds/nuts
and have no cravings and binges; maybe I should switch my barley malt overeating with raw salads overeating; i will prepare pickled raw cabbage today for tommorow consumption

19:30 – 20:15 grains fried on oil with shoyu + the chinese cabbage salad + small piece of seitan; well chewed
21:00 – 21:20 meditation
21:50 sleep

Not the worst day from the macrobiotic eating view, because I haven’t eaten any simple sugars like barley malt or my favorite oat milk (sweetened). Just lot of raw pressed salad and 3 tablespoons of oil, which is better than malts or fruits I think. But I haven’t adhered to the pause of at least 3 hours after the dinner.

I would like to try to log my daily eating habits and some personal observations from my days.
These logs will be maybe a little chaotic for you. For this I am very sorry, but I will risk it, maybe somebody will still find some value in them. At least I would like to read some eating logs of other macrobiotic friends, so I could see, how is their eating regime structured and to see that I am not the only one, who has a lot of cravings (sweet for me) and is overeating and not eating straight macrobiotic diet at all (which is nearly impossible – we are just humans).
I am also for the grammar/typing mistakes, English is really not my native language. I am also using my food version names, if you become really interested what did I really mean, just ask in the comments. Well, I start with the day log now.

7:10 getting up
10:15 – 10:50 pressure cooked rice with red lentils (from yesterday); deep-fry broccoli+carrot (in water)

12:30 – 13:00 rice+lentils again; fresh miso porridge – turnip cabbage (with green leafs), onion, wakame, miso, wheat
flakes, sunflower oil = dense porridge

14:30 – 16:00 dense miso porridge again; freshly cooked adzuki with barley malt and mixed
18:15 – 20:30 overeating, at the end lot of yin (barley malt, oat milk dry); i began with fresh pastas + water deep fried
broccoli + ume vinegar with water; continued with pastas + oat milk (dry) – overeaten a lot; then finished the adzuki +
barley malt (so it means I have eaten 500 ml of the adzuki today); then eaten simple barley malt (1/4 of the jar); then
drinked kuzu + shoyu drink

I was watching samurai movie – Sword of Doom (highly recommend, one of the best samurai movies ever) – while eating
Today I have learned/watched some chi kung videos – I have learned and practiced Wuji Swimming Dragon
Also watched the Wudang Kungu 5 part document at youtube. It’s a beautiful document full of taoist inspiration, 103 year old women that practice taichi 3 hours a day and have really long nails, 10 year old girl with a bear and a sword in their hands and masters that are going for immortality it left me with a strong fascination to learn more of the tai chi, chi kung, kungfu, for the chi energy reasons, not for the physical fighting; if I would know any temple where I can stay for free and eat macrobioticaly and train, I would pack my things and rush there Please let me know if any exist.

Breakfast

I have whole grains leftover from the previous day. It was 70% rice + 30% millet cooked with piece of kombu and 2x of natural spring water in the pressure cooker for 50 minutes.
I simply modeled balls from the grains by hand (wet your hands), just for the decorative reason.
And the vegetable is very simply boiled too. I have choose to quick boil it in the big amount of water (can’t remember the cooking style of this). It’s just different than steaming the vegetable in a pot with little water in the bottom. Because you need to pick narrow smaller pot and fill it 1/2 or 3/4 with water, let the water boil and bubble and put one type of vegetable in it. Cook the vegetable types separately. The cooking time is short, to let the veggies be crunchy and nicely coloured with strong flavour. For the green veggies, 1-3 minutes is enough. For the root vegetables let them boil a little longer. You will learn by practice, just experiment. Pick the veggies out with a strainer. I usually put my grain balls at the end to the hot water too, to get them warm, because I usually use leftovers from fridge for breakfast.

Lunch

For the lunch I have spent a little longer time today. It was about 40 minutes for preparation.

Whole grains
I prepared these whole grains today: 70% rice and %30 emmer grain (it’s one of the oldest grains used for cooking on this planet – Paleolithic Age 17,000 BC), kombu, 2 times of water, cooked in pressure cooker for 50 minutes.

Vegetables
I have used the water from the morning breakfast and for the veggies choose mostly full pot of kale and 1 piece of onion. I am repeating again, these are not hardstone written recipes. I am thinking them up daily, according to my tastes, but very often my tastes are out of range of my stores, so I cook whatever is eatable at my house at that moment Let your intuition guide you and mix any sorts of vegetables together as long as they are macrobiotic sorts of veggies (you know the prohibited ones are night shades – capsicum, tomato, potatoes, eggplant etc. and use only the ones from your climatic zone). I have sidetracked a little…
I also add to the kale+onion+water these other things: red lentils (like 3-4 tsp), wakame (3-4 cm), pumpkin+sunflower seeds (1-2 tsp).
Let it boil for 12 minutes and put 1 tesp of barley miso and squeezed 1 tesp of ginger. Rest for 2 minutes and ready to serve. But I had to postpone my lunch a little because I wanted delicious, crunchy, fatty tempura with a lot of protein.

Tempura
I have decided to deep-fry small pieces of seitan, tempeh and nori. I use white flour for deep-frying, something that I have learned at Kushi Institute in Holland. They teach us, that white flour absorbs very little of fat in comparison to whole grain flour. And it’s really true from my experience. We have very good electrical grain-mill at home. It was bought at Vienna, but I don’t know where exactly, it was a gift. But it’s really superb grinder, all the others I have seen here are very small and very costly. This one is big and precisely made and according to the man who bought it, it was cheap, but I am not sure about the exact price. Just let me know in comments if you want to get more info or to see a picture, I will gladly help. So if you have your own grinder it’s very good, because you can always prepare the very fresh flour, that’s not in the rancid process. I made white flour by milling the white rice. Then I just mix with a little of water and make thin paste. In the small narrow pot pour enough oil so your tempuras can be deep-fried easily and be covered by oil from all sides. I am using sunflower oil, but I am not sure if it’s the best one for frying. I have read about big advantages of rice bran oil for the deep-frying. The Ilanit Tof article about oils – Reflections on oil consumption – is very good reading in general. Back to the tempura making. Simply cover the seitan, tempeh, nori pieces in the white flour paste and let it deep-fry for 2-4 minutes in the hot oil from both sides. Place on a plate with spongy napkins to absorb the excess of oil. And you can see my Wednesday result at the pictures.

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.