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What is macrobiotics?Macrobiotics is commonly regarded as a diet programme, a way to treat cancer and other serious illnesses by making dietary changes. It is much more than this, however. It is a whole way of understanding the universe and applying this understanding in our lives. I sometimes describe it as a way of understanding "how everything affects everything". Macrobiotics is about how how food, lifestyle, relationships, the environment, the cosmos. . . affect our health, our thinking, our attitudes, our behaviour, our actions. . . and how these, in turn, affect our food, lifestyle, relationships, the environment, the cosmos. . . YIN and YANG The way to understand so many complex issues is simple – by reducing everything to yin and yang, or expansion and contraction energy. Everything can be viewed as either more expanded / expanding or more contracted / contracting.
This classification, by the way, is different from the Chinese classification of yin and yang. To avoid confusion, forget about yin and yang, and just think in terms of expansion and contractioin. A few examples will make this clearer. Alcohol - expanding Alcohol, for example, has strong smell. We can say its smell expands. It also evaporates easily. It changes from liquid to vapour and vapour is a more expanded state compared with liquid. Alcohol is made by a process of fermentation, during while the original substance - rice, barley, grapes, etc - breaks apart. Again, this is an expanding process. So in macrobiotics, alcohol is said to have a strong expanding energy. The effect of drinking alcohol is to make us more "expanded" - for example, more relaxed. When a person drinks excessive amounts of alcohol, that person becomes expanded in several ways. The mind becomes so expanded that the person is unable to focus and think properly. Speech, too, becomes expanded and people are known to talk more freely after a few drinks. The face and eyes turn red because blood vessels become expanded and blood becomes more clearly visible. And so on. Salt - contracting Salt, in contrast, is very contracted. It will not rot, ferment or break apart in other ways even in a million years. When salt is applied to meat, fish or vegetables, these foods become more hard and dry, that is, more contracted. Macrobiotics therefore classifies salt as having strong, contracted energy. From the viewpoint of macrobiotics, it makes perfect sense to serve salty snacks with alcohol. The more of such snacks a person eats, the more alcohol he or she will drink – because the contracting energy of the salt creates a craving for the expanding energy of the alcohol. Some of the early practitioners of macrobiotics learnt this in an interesting way... In the 1960s, some who learnt macrobiotics were told to cook brown rice with plenty of sea salt, as much as one teaspoon of salt per cup of brown rice. After eating rice cooked this way, the early practitioners of macrobiotics could drink a whole bottle of sake (Japanese rice wine) and not feel drunk, not even tipsy or high!
People who consume large amounts of salt will, over time, become overly contracted. A common problem is hardening and narrowing of the blood vessels, which raises blood pressure and can lead to heart attacks. In the study of macrobiotics, you will also learn that heavy salt eaters may develop white or grey hair. This is because the hair follicles contract. This prevents nutrients from reaching the hair and the hair turns white. The mind of such people become contracted as well. On the one hand, they are highly focused. On the other hand, they can also be narrow-minded and stubborn. And so on. YIN and YANG in everyday life Yin & Yang applies not only to food, but to other aspects of life as well. Music Slow music with long, sustained notes is more expanding and, therefore, more relaxing. Fast music with lots of short notes is more contracting. It can be energising, it can also be stressful. Speech A person who drags and prolongs his words while speaking is more expanded: “Helloooooo......” Stress Stress itself is, from the perspective of macrobiotics, a contracted condition. A person who is stressed feels tight and tensed, that is contracted. The person may feel the whole world coming down on him, that is, contracting towards him. A person who is stressed automatically reaches out for alcohol, chocolate and sweets, soft music, soft cushion and other things that are expanded / expanding. Posture Some people stand with their arms folded, sit with their legs crossed or closed tightly. Some even sleep in a curled up posture. Macrobiotics considers all these to be contracted conditions. On other other hand, some people stand, sit and sleep with their arms and legs sprawled wide open. In macrobiotics, these are considered signs of an expanded condition.
Health conditions, too, are viewed in macrobiotics as either expanded or contracted contidions. Let's say you have a runny nose... mucus is flowing freely out of your body... this is, of course, expanding energy. It's the same if you have, for example, frequent urination, diarrhea, excessive perspiration or, if you are a woman, excessive and prolonged menstruation. The opposite is when you have constipation, very little urine (which is dark yellow or even brown), or if you are a woman who experiences little or no meanstruation. Macrobiotics considers these all to be contracted conditions. Some diseases and illnesses tend to manifest outwards, eg skin rash. Or, they affect the outer and upper parts of the body, migraine headache felt at the front of the head. Again, these are viewed in macrobiotics as being expanded conditions. Some diseases manifest deep in the body, eg problems inside the bone. Or migraine felt at the back of the head. Macrobiotics consider these are contracted conditions. YIN & YANG cancers Cancer cells, compared with normal, healthy cells, are more expanded, since cancer is a condition where the cells grow (expand) in an uncontrolled manner. But among cancers, there are some that grow and spread quickly, and also appear on the outer parts of the body, eg breast cancer, or tunours on the surface of the brain. Such tunours tend to be soft. These cancers are more expanded types. There are also cancerous tumours that grow very slowly and they form deep inside the body, eg pancreatic cancer, liver cancer and tumours deep inside the brain. These tumours tend to be hard, These are viewed in macrobiotics are contracted cancers. Applying YIN & YANG And so on. It may not always be obvious what is more expanded and what is more contracted. But when you put some thought to it, and when you have enough experience, you will know. I remember, when I started teaching macrobiotics, I was asked whether stomach ulcers were expanded or contracted. I did not know the answer at first. But when I thought about it, I could see that ulcers are due to tissues opening up into sores.... they are due to an expanded condition. This understanding of expanding and contracting energies, of yin and yang, can be applied to make your life more balanced and steady. It can also lead to recovery from serious illnesses such as cancer. Put simply, when you have an expanded condition, you take foods and adopt lifestyles that make you more contracted. For example, you might eat more hard, root vegetables, or food that is cooked for a longer time (since cooking makes food contract), or your diet could be a bit more salty. You might also do more physical work and physically demanding exercises. When you have a contracted condition, you would take more expanded foods, such as green leafy vegetables, either lightly cooked, or raw. And you would benefit from relaxing more. Complications of YIN and YANG The application of macrobiotics is not so straightforwad, of course. To begin with, nobody is just expanded or contracted, but all people have a mix of both conditions. Many people, for example, are soft and expanded outside, but hard and contracted inside. Trying to make balance is also an art. You have to be careful not to overdo it. Just because you have an expanded condition, for example, it does not mean you should take plenty of salt, meat, burnt food and other contracted foods. If you do that, you might develop new, contracted problems instead. Likewise, just because you have an contracted condition, it does not mean you should take plenty of salads and fruit juices or, worse still, sugar, food chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs. These might, again, cause a new set of expanded problems. Balancing YIN and YANG Fortunately, there is an easy way to get your yin and yang balance more or less right – aim for the middle. Avoid foods and lifestyles that are extreme, aim for those with more moderate energies. In practical terms, this means that you avoid or minimise
What's left to eat? Plenty, if you study and discover macrobiotics. Foods that have more balanced energy include:
To learn more about the macrobitic diet, click here. YIN and YANG beyond food As mentioned above, macrobiotics is not just about food, but an entire lifestyle and philosophy. However, food is emphasised because it is the one thing that we can change immediately and most easily. Also, we are made of food. Our blood, our body cells... they all come from the food we eat. Thus, when we change our food, we change ourselves at a very deep level. We change the nature of the cells that make up our body. Changing your diet may seem difficult, yet it is easier than, for example, changing your environment (by moving to a different country), changing your daily routine of exercise and activity, or even changing your job or your boss. There is much to learn and discover in macrobiotics. It is an exciting journey, one that can lead you to discover health, healing and joy in life.
Apart from this website, you might also wish to visit the following: Macrobiotics takes you on an exciting journey, one that can lead you to discover health, healing and joy in life. |
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