Meat in macrobiotics - Is there a place?

Is there room for meat in macrobiotics?

The standard macrobiotic dietary recommendation is usually to avoid meat, eggs and other animal products. The so-called Standard Macrobiotic Diet might be described as vegan plus occasional / optional fish and seafood. There is no meat, no eggs, no milk and dairy foods.

I used to subscribe strongly to this viewpoint, as shown in the article below, published in The Good Life in the mid-1990s. In fact, I was briefly vegetarian for about six months back then.

I have since changed my stance, after reading at The Weston Price Foundation about the goodness and importance of both saturated fats and cholesterol. More recently, I've also come across a discussion on a UK macrobiotics site, sparked by an article by Italian macrobiotic teacher Carlo Guglielmo, calling for reflections on the consumption of good quality meat in macrobiotics.

Still, I think most of the points in my original article are valid...

Meat for strength?

You must eat more meat, my Chinese sinseh (physician) used to tell me. “Eat more pork,” he urged.

I argued that pork was dirty; it has a high bacteria count. But he countered: “Actually the pig is a very clever animal.”

What could I say? That if the pig was so clever, why did it get eaten by the Chinese? We left the discussion at that.

My sinseh no longer tells me to eat meat. Maybe he sees that my health has improved. Or he has given up on me.

He is not the only one who recommends meat. An acupuncturist gave similar advice to one of my macrobiotic friends recently.

And I heard that one macrobiotic teacher in America who went to study Chinese medicine ended up recommending chicken soup. (Since then, as mentioned above, more macrobiotic teachers are rethinking about whether there should be a place for meat in macrobiotics.)

Deficiency symptoms

Yet modern health literature is filled with advice to eat les meat or even go vegetarian.
Who is right? Do the Chinese have some ancient wisdom about meat that we don’t know about?

Maybe. Since I have not studied traditional Chinese medicine, I cannot fully comment on their views about meat. But I roughly know why they consider meat to be so important.

Meat in macrobiotics and Chinese medicine

Meat, in Chinese medicine, is regarded as a tonic.

It is used for treating symptoms of deficiency where a person is frail, weak and withdrawn, with a weak pulse. A person who is “deficient” would also have a soft voice, pale or sickly complexion, and shallow breathing.

Without doubt, eating meat gives a sense of strength, vitality and energy. We readily absorb the nutrients and the energy of meat because the cell structure of meat is similar to ours.

The results are immediate. A “deficient” person fells stronger and warmer, which is another sign of vitality, soon after eating meat. So people are impressed with the results.

Also, eating meat makes a person crave stimulants like refined sugar, coffee or alcohol. These are the very foods that cause deficiency. In the long run, they make the person weak again.

Don’t the Chinese sinsehs know this?

They are supposed to. The teaching of Traditional Cinese Medicine is that deficiency symptoms should be treated gradually and gently, rather than through a quick fix. (Perhaps meat does not give that quick a fix after all.)

But I think many Chinese physicians today are caught up with the constant demands for quick cures. That is why, for example, they use herbs and acupuncture as a first course of treatment, although Chinese medicine teaches that illness should first be treated through a diet of whole grains, beans and sweet root vegetables.

These foods are said to be “full sweets”, unlike refined sugar or juicy, watery fruits which are “empty sweets”. Building strength through grains, beans and vegetables certainly takes time.

It is particularly difficult for people like me, who had eaten a lot of meat in the past, because the body is not used to extracting nutrients from plant foods.

Meat in macrobiotics - transition stage

So during the transition stage, we may need to eat a bit of meat, to avoid becoming too “deficient”. In this case, it is better to at fish, eggs or poultry rather than the meat of mammals. But only very small amounts once or twice a week or less often.

The way to truly strengthen the body is to make it so strong that it, can extract energy from plants and not rely on meat at all. Then the results are longer lasting.

In temperate climates, people who adopt a macrobiotic diet often find themselves feeling very cold during their winter without meat.

But by the second winter, they feel warmer than before. Because they have become stronger and the body generates its own warmth.

Also, I think most Chinese physicians do not fully realise how poor the quality of meat is today. They don’t realise the extent to which animals are raised on chemicals feed, antibiotics and growth hormones.

We must understand that Chinese medicine arose out of a rural society where people were generally poor and they ate mainly vegetables. Deficiency symptoms were thus more likely to arise.

Meat in macrobiotics - excesses vs deficiency

In modern societies, people are more likely to suffer from symptoms of excesses instead.

This is not to say that we do not have deficiency symptoms. I did. And still do, although the symptoms have reduced.

But I was deficient not because I did not eat enough meat. Until I was 30 years old, my typical meal used to consist of rice with three or four types of meat, plus very little vegetables. I must have eaten enough meat to last several lifetimes.

In my case, I think became deficient because I grew up taking large amounts of sugar, fruits and medicinal drugs.

Meat in macrobiotics - herbal tonics

For people like me, meat is not the answer. I think the answer for me is a wholesome macrobiotic diet of mainly grains and vegetables – mainly “full sweets”.

I will probably benefit from taking some tonic herbal soups – just the herbs, no need for black chicken or pork bones. (Perhaps I was being arrogant when I wrote this article about meat in macrobiotics to think that I know better than to go against tradition and brew tonic soups without meat, which is also considered a tonic.)

I also need to build up my strength through exercise and hard physical work.

And to be patient.