Macrobiotic Diet
 

Does anyone follow a macrobiotic diet?

Followers of the macrobiotic approach believe that food and food quality powerfully affect health, well-being, and happiness, and that a macrobiotic diet has more beneficial effects than others. The macrobiotic approach suggests choosing food that is less processed.

Re: Macrobiotic Diet
 

I agree with that. In theory...

Re: Macrobiotic Diet
 

But do you follow it? The diet I mean.

Re: Macrobiotic Diet
 

Face from the A-Team does/did follow one after he was diagnosed with cancer! I follow a pseudo, not really macrobiotic diet but slightly similar, one of my own. I do use some of it's principles like trying to eat local in season produce (more in the summer than the winter though), eating beans and whole grains and kind of following the seasonal cooking styles. Other than being diabetic it's keeping me in good health and is making it fairly simple to control my diabetes. Generally speaking a macrobiotic diet is really just eating in a healthy and sensible way for you, the environment and local farmers.

Re: Macrobiotic Diet
 

What like this?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090212/...xR.9DYDfPtiBIF

A hardline Hindu organization, known for its opposition to "corrupting" Western food imports, is planning to launch a new soft drink made from cow's urine, often seen as sacred in parts of India.

Re: Macrobiotic Diet
 

But I love those nightshade veggies. Seriously though, my husband was looking at it because of cancer and the like.....is it hard to source the food?

If my husband switched to this, he would be dead in two weeks, he doesn't like any of it :(

Re: Macrobiotic Diet
 

Food seems to have an effect on my happiness, and probably health and well being as well but I don't really follow the diet. For instance right now I'm happy because my coworker gave me the bowl of cheese she had leftover from the nachos she had for breakfast and I am currently dipping my Snyder's hard pretzels into it.:)

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ewwww you eat that for breakfast?

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It's easy to source the food really but that's only part of it. A lot is the way you cook it and how you combine ingredients. I'm sure he would like it, there is so much you can make that it isn't as restrictive or radical as you might think. I can't follow it 100% because I just can't eat a number of the staples it relies on but if you can there is a world of variety. Think brown rice and turkey and vegetable (like potato and carrots) chili in the winter. You have your whole grains, you have some meat, you have some beans, you have some veg, you have the seasonings and spice plus some other things. It may not be perfect but you can make it close to a decent macrobiotic meal.

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No, usually I just have coffee, and once in a while one of those cheese muffins. Today everything just kind of fell into place with the nacho cheese and I happened to have a bag of pretzels laying around...

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As a Hindu, I'm going to be first in line to buy a gallon of the stuff . . . NOT!!:eek:

Wonder if they will do an allsortment of flavours:huh:

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Yeah, Like asparagus-wee flavor.

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Probably be easier to try Yoga or learn about Dianetic's.

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The more I think about this.... are you talking about eating like our grandparents ate?

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It didn't work out very well for the lads on "Doctor In The House"...

I don't know why a healthy diet needs to have a label attached. We buy fresh meat, fresh produce, whole wheat pasta, etc. We don't buy frozen, packaged convenience foods. Pretty simple plan, but I wouldn't label it "macrobiotic".

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mmm - with flavours like that it could catch on. The pepsi and coke companies had better watch out, they could have some fierce competition on their hands:p

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I buy a lot of frozen veggies and use them in soups and casseroles as a sneaky way of getting my kids to eat more veggies.:)

http://www.chow.com/stories/10983

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I'm with you. However, I still can't haven't found a whole grain pasta that I can stomach.

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That's what I have to do with DH! The other night I made a "healthy" chicken pot pie and he just kind of snickered as I was cutting up the veggies. But once he tried it (the veggies )he decided they weren't too bad. He did suggest I make a bit of mash with it next time.

Re: Macrobiotic Diet
 

My wife has decided that her favorite food is kale. It's a bit like cabbage but less exciting. She's buys pounds and pounds of the stuff, boils it up, eats the kale & drinks the water it was boiled in. To me, the stuff tastes vile, but to each, his own..

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The one I like is Hodgson Mill wholewheat with flax. I don't know if the flax has anything to do with it but it doesn't taste as "cardboardy" as some others.

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I'll grab a box next time I'm at the grocery. I seem to forget about flaxseed in the winter but I do put the meal in our breakfast smoothies that I make in the summer. My cholesterol is a little high so I'm trying to get it down naturally (but I hate fish!).

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Try going against common wisdom. Reduce the carbohydrate you eat, especially processed carbohydrate, and increase the amount of fat you eat, specifically unsaturated fat. You may be quite surprised at what happens.

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something like that, though you are not supposed to eat what they call nightshade veggies such as potatoes, peppers, avocado, and limited fruit too as apparently these contain some funky toxin and nicotine.

Unfortunately my DH is more like Dan Connor in that he likes 'man food' brightly coloured snacks and food on sticks, not a veggie in sight....not that I give him that kind of food.

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These diets might be better if they gave them a better label. Every time I see "Macrobiotic Diet" I imagine somebody cooking up a hamburger made from a clump of E. coli.

Re: Macrobiotic Diet
 

If you follow it strictly, keep an eye on yourselves. I swear, the sickest *looking* clients I had were the strictest MBs.
You should def. read the part of the wiki on cancer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet

You also need to take the philosophical part in, and eat a lot of unfamiliar (but not bad) things.. just thinking about those pickled plums makes my mouth water now! OK, some of them are bad. I never got on well with all the seaweeds.

I personally think Duncan Roberts is on top of it. :thumbup:
If I could get HIM to cook for me, I would!

Re: Macrobiotic Diet
 

I don't follow a macrobiotic diet but I rarely red meat, nor chicken (unless it is hormone or antibiotic free). I do eat lamb and pork but perhaps once a week. I consume whole grains and unrefined grains. I love fruit and veggies and try to eat produce when it's in season.

I try to avoid cow's milk products (cheese, yoghurt, etc.) and consume rice milk and goat and sheep cheese.

I make vegetarian and/or vegan meals at least twice a week. I consume soy too.

Re: Macrobiotic Diet
 

IMHO I think its just common sense.

I know people who only ate food that was grown within 20 miles of where they lived. Thats all well and good if you can live like that but the world is too commercial and we're all to contempt with sliced bread.

It all went down the pan after WW2, everything was mechanized including how food was produced and delivered to the people.

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When I was growing up we rarely had storebought fruit/veggies. We had a large garden and my papaw grew things that we didn't (usually things that took up more space but were fun for the grandkids) and we shared. We also always bought our beef from someone we knew in the area that raised it on their farm....no antibiotics back then.

I can remember many a summer day helping my mom prepare fresh produce for the freezer or cupboard...happy days. I eve

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Thats how I grew up too. Dad grew all the veg and there was an orchard just down the road for the fruit.

There is so much junk in food nowadays. I know I fourght a long battle with my step kids cuz I threw out all the cereal that was coloured or frosted. Unfortunately they tend not to eat cereal now and I think it's because they actually have to chew it. Same deal with bread. I stopped buying the sliced white bread (because to me it was basically sweet fluff) and started buying wheat bread from the bakery....costs a lot more but they don't eat nearly as much cuz it actually fills them up. Then I have a juicer, but I could go broke buying all the fruit I need to make juice for my lot even though its only one glass a day.

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My dad used to buy anything but white bread, not because white was crap but because it had no flavor. I still like PB&J on Cincinnati rye (very dark rye made by Klostermans' in Cinci) or Russian rye.

We did get a sweet cereal about once a month (capt crunch..yum) but after it was gone then we had to eat oats or cream or wheat or rice w/milk & sugar. I tried to do as much of that with my kids but my garden was never as large. This year will be first year in almost 10 that I've planted anything. I can't wait! I'll be on here seeking advice ways to keep the varmits out it.

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Same here, my mum still does. Funnily enough she was visiting last week and was going through the catalogue of seeds deciding what she was going to order this year. We used to have 4 apple trees but due to some bad fungus (honey fungus I think) they are gone. I still remember climbing the trees in autumn to pick the apples, digging up potatoes for dinner, cutting lettuce for salads and stuff like that. Our neighbour used to grow a bunch of fruits and veg too so we traded with them, home made pies, baskets of fruits and veg and flowers. Sadly the neighbours are now dead and the apple trees are gone but the vegetable plot is still there and going well.

My sister has also found herself in quite a good food situation in London. She works as part of Prince Charles' household so sometimes gets some of the Duchy stuff and a couple of the people she works with have farms so she often gets offered various pieces of organic or close to it meat and produce.

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The problem with where I live is that almost my entire 1/2 acre is shaded. There is a small area next to the partial fence that gets sun so I'm going to try and plant some of the more compact veggies/herbs and leave the sweet corn and squash family to the local farmers. I can taste my farmer's market gazpacho now.