Re: Beginners questions.

[Guest guest]

Shell wrote:

> What I've read so far says eat only local foods and then

>gives me a food list which has all kinds of Japanesey sounding names.

>

>

Japanesey??? Great word

..

I too stumbled for a long time by this phrase i.e. eat only foods

locally grown. It was simplified recently by something I read. Picture

yourself living in a small town in 1700. What do you eat? Certainly

not bananas in England. What would be available is " locally grown and

or produced foods " . Most of the earth is in temperate zones (usually 4

equal seasons). What Macrobiotic Diet means " eat what is appropriate

for the place where you live " .

Today in Markets you can get either fresh, frozen or canned any kind of

food from all parts of the world. This according to Michio Kushi is

part of the problem with health degradation.

I don't know anything about the seaweeds but don't like a strong flavour.

This does not answer the question I also had about sea vegetables vs.

locally grown vegetables. The answer of course is that sea vegetables

have minerals not readily found in land produced veggies.

If I ate only locally grown foods (literally) I would starve since I

live in Houston, Texas (on the same latitude as the Sahara Desert).

Good luck on your journey.

An almost newbie,

B.

[Guest guest]

Hmmm...if I were going to limit myself to five new things (assuming you have

a well stocked pantry of brown rices and other grains, beans, etc.) I would

get:

~top quality miso (miso soup for breakfast is a great, easy 1st change to

make when becoming macro)

~umeboshi paste (among other things, I use this on my sushi, spreading a

thin layer on the rice before adding veggies. yum!)

~Kombu (I use this almost daily when cooking beans and such) you can add in

other sea veggies each time you go. I don't go through them very fast and a

package will last you a while. YMMV, I'm not huge on sea veggies and use

them sparingly.

~shoyu or tamari

~sesame seeds and sea salt to make gomasio (or buy one, but fresh is better)

xoxo...

Beginners questions.

> Hi, I'm new to the group and have only been looking at macrobiotics for a

> couple of days. i'm a bit confused. i have been vegan for 15 years and

> all

> during that time and for a couple of years before, I've had a yoyoing

> weight

> problem, every diet going, and radically going up and down stones at a

> time.

> i have never had any health problems what so ever associated with this

> unhealthy eating until last Christmas. This time I went well into the

> obese

> catagory, where i've never been before and I'm almost 38. Too much I

> suppose. My health seemed to plummet rapidly and I felt terrible.

> Sleeping

> all the time, even when sitting up, carb bingings totally out of control,

> unbelievable back ache all day, and worrying sort of irregular heart beat.

> I felt really awful and that my body was trying to tell me that if I

> didn't

> do something very quickly, then I'd had warning enough.

> i radically reduced my carbs until I felt that I had the binges under

> control, but was just eating healthy carbs, rather than binging on

> muffins,

> potato cakes and crumpets etc. We have a program here in the UK called

> " You

> are what you eat " which I think is very similar to macrobiotics. Now I

> feel

> ready to have a look at macrobiotics and hoping to repair the damage I may

> have done. Although only 8 weeks, my back ache has gone completely and my

> funny heart thing seems about 70 per cent better too. I have lost a lot of

> weight already and starting to feel so much better, but I feel I really

> need

> to understand more about how to make this a life long change.

> my questions. What I've read so far says eat only local foods and then

> gives me a food list which has all kinds of Japanesey sounding names.

> I have in all the beans, wholegrains etc, already, but I'm visiting a

> health food shop tomorrow but don't have much money. if I just buy a few

> things, which would be the best to start with. I don't know anything about

> the seaweeds but don't like a strong flavour. Should I get the tamari,

> barley malt, seaweeds, miso, those plums or something else? if you could

> only buy about 5 of the more unusual ingredients, which would you go for.

> can anyone point me to a good beginners site.

> Thanks very much for having me here.

> Shell.

>

>

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[Guest guest]

Thanks Ilanit for the advice about salt. I am trying to lose weight and

have always been over fond of salt. i have had in the past a very strong

atraction to salt and would dip my finger in the salt pot in the same way

some people do with the sugar bowl. Now I have this herb and sea salt mix

called herbamare, which I think is much better.

thanks too for the link, I'll go and have a browse. We can't buy anything

locally here in Wales.

I have to admit that I have absolutely no idea what yin and yan are, but

perhaps once I understand and have under control the food part, I may have a

look to see what it is.

one step at a time.

Cheers,

Shell.

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