Macrobiotic diet - not strict, not a diet

The macrobiotic diet is widely seen as a "strict" or restrictive diet.

No. No. No. It is not even a fixed diet to begin with, but merely a set of dietary guidelines.

As for it being "strict", my friends and I started eating a much wider variety of foods after we learned about macrobiotic philosophy and the macrobiotic diet.

Sure, there are certain foods that we are advised to minimise or avoid - like meat, milk, sugar and processed foods containing food chemicals. Because these are commonly eaten foods, it seems at first that there is "nothing" left to eat.

But we are introduced to much much more and our food choices widen considerably. For example, instead of just eating rice, we eat other grains like barley, millet, wheat, etc.

Even when it comes to rice, we are introduced to lots more varieties of rice - long, medium and short grain, brown rice, red rice, black rice, glutinous or sweet / sticky rice, etc. How can a diet be "strict" when there are so many foods to eat?

In any case, those foods on the "avoid" list are for people who wish to recover from serious diseases like cancer. If you are a healthy person, you need not follow the macrobiotic diet too strictly.

What you will discover, however, is that when you get used to eating good quality, healthy and natural foods, you will not enjoy the common "junk" foods anyway.

Eating healthily then becomes a positive lifestyle choice - something you want to do, not something you have to force yourself to do.

Macrobiotic dietary guidelines

The macrobiotic diet might be presented as follows:

• 50 - 60% whole grains
• 5% soup
• 25 - 30% vegetables
• 10 - 15% beans, bean products and sea vegetables
• small amounts of other foods, such as
• pickles
• seeds and nuts
• seasonings and condiments
• herbs and spices
• natural, non-stimulating beverages.

For example, some people should eat more grains, others should eat more vegetables. Some should eat more green, leafy vegetables, some should eat more "round" vegetables that grow near the ground, or root vegetables that grow straight downwards.

Some should eat more well-cooked foods, others should eat more lightly-cooked and raw foods. Some need a stronger salty taste, some need a lighter taste.

And so on... Within these very general guidelines, there are endless variations to suit different people faced with different circumstances.

This is the chief reason why the marobiotic diet is healthy. Macrobiotics does not recommend that everyone eats the same things but that we should adapt our diets to what suits us.

In contrast, practically all other diet plans recommend that all people eat the same foods. Or, at best, they recommend that different groups of people eat different types of food - eg we are to eat according to our blood types, or, in the Ayurvedic tradition, according to whether our body type is Pitta, Kappa or Vata.

These diet plans do not consider, for example, that a person with Blood Type A living in the tropics might have to eat differently from another Blood Type A person living in a cold, temperate climate.

Or that a person might have to change his diet if his condition or environment changes. According to macrobiotic diet guidelines, the foods that are good for you today may not be good for you next week, next month or next year. We need to keep adapting.

Adapting the macrobiotic diet

Unfortunately, the need for constant adaption also makes the diet somewhat difficult.

Beginners would do well to seek the advice of a macrobiotic counsellor. At the same time, they need to deeply study the principles of yin and yang so that they know how to adjust their diets accordingly. Once a person has been eating well for some years, however, that person will also develop good intuition. Eating healthily then becomes more of an automatic response rather than having to study, think and plan.

Broad principles

The good news, however, is that even if you do not get your "macrobiotic diet" 100 percent right, you can expect some major improvements in your health simply by following the broad principles of macrobiotic eating. The principles may be summarised as follows:

• PATTERN OF EATING: Observe the pattern of eating described above - Eat whole grains as your main food, with plenty of vegetables. No need to be vegetarian but any meat or seafood should be minimised. Even though meat is not normally recommended in the macrobiotic diet, there has been some discussion among macrobiotic teachers about whether healthy persons should include some meat. Click here to read about meat in the macrobootic diet.
  
  
  
• FOOD QUALITY: As far as possible, eat high quality foods that are naturally produced. This means not just eating organic foods, but also foods that are naturally processed without the use of chemicals or modern, high-technology methods. Examples include:
  • Sea salt that has been sun / air dried rather than dried in super hot kilns
  • Miso / soy sauce produced by natural fermentation
  • Cold pressed cooking oils
  • Natural pickles made without artificial vinegar, chemical preservaties. etc.
    
    
    
• VARIETY: Eat a wide variety of foods - different types of grains, vegetables, beans, etc. For example, if only a few types of organic vegetables are avaialble, it does not mean that you should only eat those few types and avoid those that are not organic. Variety is important because different foods nourish the body differently.
  
  Variety also means different ways of cooking and food preparation - steaming, stir fries, saute, blanching, stewing, etc. Cooking with electricity is not recommended in the macrobiotic diet. Microwave cooking is especially discouraged. So is induction cooking, which usesm , magenetic fields to generate heat.
  
  
  
• CLIMATIC ADJUSTMENTS - EAT LOCAL: Do not go overboard, however, with variety. It is not a good idea for people in cold temperate climates to constantly eat tropical fruits like bananas and mangoes, or hot spicy foods. Likewise, it is not advisable for people in hot tropical climates to cold climate grains like rye and buckwheat. So another important principle of the macrobiotic diet is to eat mainly "local" foods. Fruits and vegetables should be as local as possible - or at least from the same climatic zone - whereas less perishable foods like grains or seaweed can come from farther away.
  
  
  
• PERSONAL ADJUSTMENTS: Most importantly, the macrobiotic diet needs to be adjusted to personal needs. In some instances, this might mean "breaking the guideline" above about climatic adjustments. For example, a person who is living in the tropics and weak from illness would benefit from eating some temperature climate foods like short grain brown rice, or from minimizing / avoiding tropical fruits and vegetables. And when the person recovers, he or she should adjust the diet accordingly.

Theory and practice

Following a macrobiotic diet, then, requires a good understanding of macrobiotic theory and philosophy as well as daily practice. Click here to read more about marcobiotics and the macrobiotic diet.

New! Comments Have your say about what you just read! Kindly leave a comment in the box below.