Zen Macrobiotics for Americans

[Guest guest]

A Practical and Delicious Way to Eat Your Way to Health

by

Mason

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the

written consent of the publisher.

ISBN 1-884820-70-0

Library of Congress Catalog Card #2002106957

Categories:

Printed in the U.S.A.

1st Printing July 2002

Zen Macrobiotics for Americans is not intended as medical

advice. It is written solely for informational and educational

purposes. Please consult a health professional should the need for

one be indicated. Because there are always some risks involved, the

author and publisher are not responsible for any adverse affects or

consequences resulting from the use of any of the suggestions,

preparations or methods described in this book. The publisher does

not advocate the use of any particular diet or health program, but

believes the information presented in this book should be available

to the public.

All listed addresses, phone numbers, and fees have been

reviewed and updated during production. However, the data is subject

to change.

Published by Safe Goods

Contents

Chapter 1: What is Macrobiotics?…………… 9-12

Chapter 2: Yin and Yang…………………… 13-14

Chapter 3: Whole Grains……………………. 15-20

Chapter 4: Beans Are Good Food ………… 21-

22

Chapter 5: Vegetables …………………….. 23-26

Chapter 6: Seafood, Meat, Poultry and Dairy.. 27-32

Chapter 7: Fruits and Sugars …………….. 33-36

Chapter 8: Other Diets …………………… 37-40

Chapter 9: Your Hormones ………………. 41-46

Chapter 10: Home Hormone Testing……… 47-48

Chapter 11: Effective Natural Supplements .. 49-56

Chapter 12: Tropical and Nightshade Foods .. 57-60

Chapter 13: Exercise ……………………….. 61-62

Chapter 14: Fats and Oils …………………. 63-66

Chapter 15: Curing the Incurable …………. 67-70

Chapter 16: What to Drink …………………. 71-74

Chapter 17: Daily Menus and Cookbooks… 75-78

Chapter 18: Condiments and Seasonings .. 79-80

Chapter 19: Calorie Restriction and Fasting .. 81-84

Chapter 20: Calorie Density …………………. 85-86

Chapter 21: Feed Your Pets Well …………… 87-88

Chapter 22: Meditation ………………………. 89-90

Chapter 23: Books to Read ……………….. 91-92

The information contained in this book should not be considered

medical advice. The ideas, thoughts and opinions expressed herein

belong solely to the author, who is not a medical doctor. Except as

otherwise noted, no statement in this book has been reviewed or

approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

About This Book

Back in the late sixties most of the middle class youth of

America seem to have joined the psychedelic generation and looked for

new horizons to expand their lives. Most all of these young people

had grown up on meat, potatoes, white bread and sugar as this is all

they knew.

Along came very conservative Ohsawa and talked about a way of

health and longevity that expanded your mind naturally by being in

tune with the universal order. This was appealing to many people and

became rather popular along with the general interest in natural food

and herbal healing. Now over three decades macrobiotics is still

popular and well known.

As I got older and had practiced this way of eating for over thirty

years I noticed that all the books were, in fact, on JAPANESE

macrobiotics written by Japanese people (or with their outlook) with

Japanese cooking. Someone needed to write a book making macrobiotics

more PRACTICAL, more down to earth, more fun, tastier, more creative,

less restrictive, and just plain more American without watering it

down or weakening it at all. There were just too many unneeded

limitations and too much cultural influence that simply did not

translate here. Why expensive, hard to find Japanese vegetables,

only 5% soups, tea with caffeine, buckwheat noodles with white flour,

refined cous cous, very limited seasonings and condiments, few fresh

green and yellow vegetables, all that salt, no supplements or natural

hormones, almost no raw foods, sprouts or fresh salads, and no

fasting?

All the books on macrobiotics followed this same Japanese path

without deviating, so someone needed to write a book that would keep

the integrity and effectiveness while expanding the scope of it. This

will not be a long book nor filled with recipes and personal stories.

At first this may seem like too austere a way to eat everyday, but

more and more it becomes your natural way of life and you enjoy it.

You no longer want to eat meat, dairy, desserts or tropical foods

except very occasionally if at all. After more than 30 years of

personally doing this you can believe that this is a wonderful,

fulfilling and rewarding way to live as well as the best way to

cure " incurable " illnesses.

Overview

There are so many natural health books today about the right

foods to eat and so many contradictory philosophies. How can one know

what is valid and what is not? So many authors are very convincing.

The answer is very simple - RESULTS. The macrobiotic way of eating is

the only means I've seen for curing " incurable " illnesses like

cancers, diabetes, heart and artery problems, epilepsy and the wide

variety of illnesses that plague modern society especially the

developed nations.

You have to experience this for yourself. Nature is the greatest

healer and our lifestyle allows Nature to heal us. If we are in

harmony with the Natural Order we will be healthy and happy. If we

are ignorant of the Natural Order we will be sickly and unhap-py.

Buddha said ignore-ance (to ignore), not sin, is the root cause of

suffering. This is simple, clear, practical and realistic.

Most people simply do not realize that we are literally what we eat.

If we eat large amounts of animal foods, refined foods, sugars of

various kinds, preservatives, chemicals and colorings we will suffer

from an endless list of illnesses. The idea that diet can cure

illness is not accepted by the mainstream at all.

We must take responsibility for our health, and our very destiny. We

must treat the CAUSE of our illnesses whether they be mental,

emotional, physical or spiritual and not just try to re-move the

symptom. Today nearly everyone goes to the medical priests we

call " doctors " and puts all responsibility on them in-stead of

ourselves. We try to obliterate the symptom of our problem with

surgery, drugs, radiation and now microwaves and lasers instead of

looking at the cause of our suffering. It is only by dealing with the

cause that we can be well again. You cannot be well by treating the

symptom and not knowing what caused this symptom to manifest. You

cannot be well by giving the respon-sibility to any health

professional whether traditional allopathic or naturopathic. You

cannot get well by throwing money at your problems no matter how

wealthy you are. You cannot get well by being butchered, poisoned and

irradiated and now microwaved and lasered.

You can get well by aligning yourself with the Infinite Order and

making better food choices, taking supplements that work, balancing

your hormones, fasting regularly and by getting regular exercise.

This is what natural health is all about.

Chapter 1: What is Macrobiotics?

____________________________________________________

The word " macrobiotic " comes from the Greek words " macro " or

great and " bios " or life. Hippocrates (the Father of Medicine) and

Herodotus used this way of eating natural foods to regain health and

to treat their patients. This way of eating was popularized in Europe

and America in the 1960's during the Psychedelic Era among the young

people at the time. Ohsawa was the main source of information

with his books " Zen Macrobiotics " and " You Are All Sanpaku " .

Dufty and his " Sugar Blues " also was popular. Then along came Michio

Kushi, Herman Aihara and other writers. These few books had an

immense influence- which is still very strong today - simply because

this means of healing works. Their claims that you could cure cancer

and other terminal illnesses proved to be true.

One can certainly wonder how a man Ohsawa showed up

here in America with no money, no credentials or anything but his

dream and has had such a tremendous influence on American society

over three decades later and long after his death. There is an old

saying, " one man plus truth equals an army " . This is how did

it; he was merely a messenger for a very important message that

people here were ready to receive. His unsophisticated little

paperback books became more and more popular as people found they

made sense and the advice really worked. The people who changed their

way of life got the results he promised and the ones with illnesses

were cured by changing their direction.

The underlying theory is really very simple. The essence of

all this is simplicity. Thoreau said, " simplify, simplify,

simplify. " One eats whole grains as their main, principal food. Most

green and yellow vegetables are eaten. Beans are an important staple.

Soups, salads, local fruit, and seafood all in moderation. Tropical

foods from hot climates like bananas, citrus fruit, mangoes and the

like are avoided. Nightshade family vegetables like potatoes,

tomatoes (tomatoes are botanically classed as fruits), peppers and

eggplants are avoided as well as vegetables high in oxalic acid.

Basically no sweeteners are used including honey and maple syrup.

Just because a food is palatable this does not mean it is suited for

us to eat. There are many foods that do not support a long and

healthy life. One drinks good water or herb tea and eats only two

meals a day. There is no meat, dairy, milk, poultry or eggs eaten. If

one wants to be a vegetarian the seafood is left out. You always

adapt to your genetics, the climate and the seasons This in a few

sentences is what comprises the macrobiotic way of eating and always

adaptable and flexible for each person.

In current Western religions dietetic principles are almost

ignored completely except a few like the Seven Day Adventists. Even

the Catholics have given up not eating meat on Fridays. In original

Christianity and with some modern Buddhists and Hindus such

principles are integral. In Japan today this type of eating is called

shojin ryori and is still popular in the countryside (but not the

city) culture. Our biology and physiology are ignored instead of

cared for. The teachings of the ancient religions always taught the

body is a holy temple of the spirit and the importance of healthful

eating and drinking and avoiding harmful habits like coffee and

alcohol. The Code of Manu, the Bible, the Canon of the Yellow

Emperor, I Ching, Tao te Ching, Bhagavad Gita and Charak Samita all

spoke of taking care of our earthly abode of consciousness, our

physical body. You must be your own doctor, you must take

responsibility for your health and happiness, you must heal yourself

when ill. Be responsible for your life.

Happy societies are based on millions of happy individuals.

Imagine if the 6 billion people on this earth ate and drank and lived

in harmony with the Divine Order. This planet would be all we have

dreamed it could be. Our health and happiness are determined by our

judgment, by our awareness and our faith in the Infinite. With good

judgment we are happy and healthy. Macrobiotics is an art and there

are no rules to follow. There are principles to lead us but no rules

we must obey. Instead of structure there is flow. As the Zen master

Lin Chi said, " At one stroke I forgot all my knowledge! There is no

need for any discipline; for, move as I will, I always manifest the

Tao. " Macrobiotics is a deep understanding of the Ultimate Ground of

Being that underlies all of existence. Above all, this is practical,

pragmatic, logical, rational, sensible, based on common sense and

relates to the most everyday and mundane aspects of our lives

including washing the dishes and driving to work. The more we

understand the Order of the Universe the more we harmonize with it

and eat the foods that are best for us. As artists we create our own

lives and design our own lifestyles by living in harmony with

universal laws. We become our own doctors and follow the

admonition, " physician, heal thyself. " As we become more aware we

gain freedom, health, happiness, creativity and spiritual

realization. We take full and total responsibility for our lives and

do not blame conditions, circumstances or people for our faults,

limitations, problems and unhappiness. Look at your life….are you

happy with it? Your life is exactly the way you made it and you are

free to change it any way you choose in your heart. In your innermost

being you do not really want to be a famous actor or actress, a

powerful and influential politician, a billionaire business magnate,

a legendary sports figure or other such fantasy.

Our overall attitude should be one of THANKFULNESS and being

grateful for all we have been given not taking anything for granted.

We should always be thankful just for being incarnated in physical

bodies and being alive on this earth. It is very rare to be given the

gift of being alive in human form. Life is a brief flash of light in

the cosmos and we have been given this chance to live anyway we want

to and be anything we want to be. Always be thankful simply for being

alive on this earth as a senient, aware being.

The traditional way to talk about the whole grain based diet is the

ten levels of eating with 100% whole grains at the top and 10% whole

grains at the bottom. Let's try another way:

# grains/beans vegs/soup salad/fruit animal

7 100%

6 90% 10%

5 80% 20%

4 70% 30%

3 60% 40%

3 60% 30% 10% or 10%

2 50% 50%

2 50% 40% 10% or 10%

2 50% 30% 20%

2 50% 30% 10% 10%

1 40% 30% 20%

10%

Looking at this one could get the idea that we should eat diet #7

with 100% whole grains for ideal health when, in truth, we could only

eat such a diet temporarily to heal and cleanse. Such a regimen is

seriously lacking in vitamins such as A and C and many B vitamins,

minerals, and plant nutrients such as sterols, lignans, etc. Only 50-

60% of our diet should be whole grains as our principal food. Diet #6

is also a temporary cleansing diet. Diet #5 is getting more practical

but still far too limited except for temporary healing and cleansing.

Diet #4 is a healthful, although very austere, diet that is more

suited for people in monasteries or retreats. Dried beans are

included with grains for simplicity and because they are so close as

principal foods. Soup should consist of vegetables along with grains

and beans in any combination. In Japanese macrobiotics only 5% soup

was allowed but no reasons given. A daily bowl of hot flavorful soup

before dinner (and lunch as well) every day allows you to eat less

food and feel full on less calories. Soups are no different from

regular food as long as you CHEW the solids in your soup and do not

swallow unchewed vegetables, grains and beans. Diet #3 is a

practical diet for the vegetarian with 60% grains, 30% vegetables and

beans and 10% salads and fruits. Diet #2 is a practical diet for one

who eats seafood. Actually diets #3 and #2 are the ideal way to eat

every day and will, in fact, cure so called " incurable " illnesses

such as cancer. Yes, you can cure disease while eating Diet #2 with

10% seafood. When we get to Diet #1 this is a less than ideal way to

eat although certainly much superior to what the average person in

America eats generally. Seafood should be limited to 10%. You can eat

fresh salad regularly as long as you use a light and healthy

dressing. You can eat up to 10% local fruit especially in the summer,

but you really don't need fruit at all especially in winter. You'll

see why this is true in Chapter 7 on Fruits and Sugars. Desserts are

a temporary transition to healthy eating and are not part of your

meal. Desserts are mostly an unnecessary Western custom and not part

of a healthy lifestyle even if made with honey, fruit syrup, amazake

or other natural sweetener.

Chapter 2: Yin and Yang

____________________________________________________

No book on macrobiotics would be complete without talking about yin

and yang. Ohsawa called this " our guiding compass " as using this

principle showed us right direction in our daily lives. In Oriental

philosophy this is the unifying principle where the interplay of

opposites is central. Yin is the feminine, cold, contracting violet

energy while yang is the masculine, hot and expanding red energy.

Together the universe and everything in it is made, preserved and

dissolved. The universe we live in is not solid at all like we

think, but rather an energy dance of vibrations. Existence is without

beginning or end and beyond space and time and ever changing. Yin and

yang are relative terms and not absolutes. Everything has both forces

in it and nothing is purely yin or purely yang. The most yang

substance has yin at its heart while the most yin substance has yang

at its heart.

This is a very good way to look at the foods we eat in that a

balance of yin and yang forces should prevail. Too much yin or too

much yang ends up in sickness and ill health. You cannot balance yin

and yang by going to extremes such as eating a very yin food like

candy and then eating a very yang food like beef. You cannot cook

tomatoes with salt for a long time to make them yang as the chemical

constitution will remain the same basically. Balance means to eat

proper foods in the right amounts so that a natural equilibrium

prevails.

To get an idea of how this applies to what we eat the most

yin to yang goes from yin drugs - sugars - alcohol - yeast - oil –-

fruit – yin dairy - nuts - water - sea vegetables - green and yellow

vegetables – beans - grains – seafood – yang dairy - poultry - meat –

eggs – salt - yang drugs. (Dairy products can be yang like hard

cheese or yin like yogurt, and drugs can be yin like stimulants or

yang like opiates). Please look at this chain of food from yin to

yang very carefully and memorize it. It is obvious that vegetables,

beans and grains are the basis of our diet. This gives you an idea of

how to avoid the extremes to balance your body, mind, health and

life. You cannot balance yourself by eating, for example, yogurt and

fish and expecting them to cancel each other out. You can see in our

present society where ill health comes from extreme intake of

sweeteners of various type and animal products as the main staples.

Colors go from yin ultraviolet – violet – indigo – blue – green –

yellow – brown – orange – red - yang infrared.

You can take this too far however and the originators

certainly did. In the real world this only goes so far and then

becomes too complex for it to be practical anymore. A perfect example

is cherry tomatoes. These are small (yang), round (yang) and red

(yang) but are one of the top ten allergenic foods on earth and

chemically very yin. Whether you eat big, pear shaped yellow

tomatoes or cherry tomatoes makes very little difference in that most

people simply are biologically incompatible with them and will react

negatively to their regular intake. Too much concern about what is

yin and what is yang and how to make yin foods more yang and yang

foods more yin becomes more like arguing about how many angels can

dance on the head of a pin than eating a balanced diet.

Yin and yang are always relative.

Whatever has a beginning has an end.

No two things are identical.

Oneness always manifests itself at all times as two forces we can all

yin and yang.

Yin and yang are always changing into each other.

Yin attracts yang and yang attracts yin.

Yin repels yin and yang repels yang.

Nothing is only yin or only yang; everything is composed of both yin

and yang together.

Nothing is balanced and static; everything is made up of dynamic and

unequal portions of yin and yang

The bigger the front the bigger the back.

All antagonisms are, in reality, complimentary.

The entire universe is unchanging, limitless, infinite, constant and

omnipotent.

Your worst enemy is your best friend and will teach you more than

anyone else.

Every experience in your life is exactly what you need at that moment

and must be learned or it will be repeated.

Chapter 3: Whole Grains

____________________________________________________

Whole grains are literally the staff of life. Whole grains

have been the staple of most civilizations since man mastered the art

of agriculture over ten thousand years ago. The word " cereal " comes

from the goddess Ceres. When man learned how to grow his own food,

and not merely hunt and gather, he gained freedom for the first time.

This was the major defining difference between cave people at the

mercy of natural forces and people who forged their own destiny.

People in America and Europe today no longer eat many whole grains,

however, and haven't for a long time. The rice is white, the bread is

white, the cornmeal is de-germed, the cold cereal is refined, the

flour is white and we have all but forgotten about oats, barley,

buckwheat, millet and rye.

Why base your diet on whole grains? This has been the staple

food for mankind for thousands of years and rightly so. Let's use

extremes to make a point. If you ate nothing but red meat for a month

what effects would it have? Ketosis, high cholesterol and

triglycerides, bad body and mouth odor, a general feeling of malaise,

physical weakness and other problems. If you ate only fruit for one

month? Extremely disrupted blood glucose metabolism, severe lack of

nutrition and a dangerous sugar overload. Eggs and poultry? Very

similar to meat, but worse since so many people have allergies to

poultry and eggs. Green and yellow vegetables? You would lose weight

and lack protein and other nutrients, but would certainly feel great

and look better; but you cannot continue on such a regimen. Whole

grains? You would feel and look wonderful, your mind would be clear,

you would be full of energy and sharp, your body would be cleansed,

your body fat would fall, many illnesses and conditions would be

healed, but long term, you would lack vitamin A and certain other

vitamins and minerals and other nutrients that are found in beans

and green and yellow vegetables. Clearly whole grains are our

principal food.

We eat twice the protein we need every day, five times the

fat, as well as twice the calories. The idea of " protein deficiency "

rarely exists and the actual reality is protein overload. The

average whole grain contains about 8% high quality protein which is

readily bioavailable, of high quality with a wide variety of amino

acids. When you eat beans regularly you will have an even wider

variety of amino acids. The idea of lacking certain amino acids and

having " incomplete " proteins is not based on science at all. You will

get plenty of complete protein on a macrobiotic diet even if you

choose to be a vegetarian and eat no seafood.

Let's start with wheat. Nearly all the wheat eaten in America

is in the form of white flour. Even the whole wheat bread in the

grocery stores is often filled with preservatives and is too fluffy.

Most bakeries do not sell real whole wheat bread, but rather " wheat

bread " with white flour in it. You should be able to find a natural

foods store or bakery that sells the real thing. Whole wheat breads

vary quite a bit according to weight, water content, slice thickness

and amount of oil added, but a typical slice has about 70 calories

and 13% fat calories. You can find very good whole wheat breads or

bake them yourself if you have the time. Most all the various pastas

are made from white flour or a mixture of white and whole wheat

flours, but you can readily find whole wheat pasta now in most chain

grocery stores in a wide variety of types. Two ounces of dry whole

wheat spaghetti is about 200 calories and when cooked only about 5%

fat calories and will weigh about six ounces when drained al dente.

Bulgur wheat is whole wheat that has been soaked to expand it and

then dried so it cooks more quickly. This retains most of the whole

grain nutrition, contains only about 152 calories per cup cooked and

a mere 3% fat calories, but it is not well known here. Couscous is

nearly always a refined grain and not a good choice and should only

be eaten occasionally in Mideastern restaurants. Look for whole wheat

couscous in natural health stores for regular use. Whole wheat

tortillas are best made at home with a simple ten dollar tortilla

press since they are so difficult to find even in Latin grocery

stores. Commercial cold cereals are rarely made with whole wheat and

the few that are have sugar added to them. Fortunately it is easy to

find good whole grain cold cereals now even in chain groceries and

not just natural food stores. A typical one has only about 120

calories per cup (30 g) dry. You'll rarely find whole wheat products

when you go out to eat however. Yes, there are occasional uses for

unbleached white flour at times as a thickener in white sauces and

soups but not to replace whole wheat flour in breads and such.

It is true you should eat more steamed grains rather than

flour products like bread and noodles. Traditional macrobiotics

recommends sour dough bread as if this is somehow not leavened with

yeast. All risen bread is still based on yeast wild or otherwise. The

only unleavened " bread " is really a matzoh cracker. Yes, yeast is

very yin, but it is completely dead after baking and you are getting

very little cooked yeast proteins in a slice of bread. You should

find heavy dense loaves that weigh about two pounds for a loaf that

is about eight inches long and four inches high.

Whole unprocessed grains have a long shelf life while

retaining their nutrition. Once ground into flour, however, they

oxidize and lose their valuable nutrients. Ideally one should grind

their own flour, but this is not practical for most people. It is

best to buy refrigerated, fresh ground bread or pastry (without the

gluten) flour in a natural food store if possible. If not, buy your

flour in the grocery store and keep it refrigerated. The reason white

flour does not need to be refrigerated is that the oils and nutrients

have been basically refined out of it and there is little else to

lose. Definitely you want to eat more steamed grains than flour

products such as noodles and bread as a general rule.

Brown rice is sold in most any grocery and Oriental grocery

store now. Some Chinese restaurants offer brown rice with your meal

if you request it. It is worthwhile buying 25 pound bags of

organically grown brown rice since many chemicals are used to raise

regular rice. You can buy exotic brown rice like jasmine and basmati

if you're willing to pay up for them. A big deal was made of eating

the short grain variety rather than the long grain variety since the

short grain is supposedly more yang. Most people who eat natural

foods seem to prefer the short grain variety, but it really doesn't

make much difference if you buy a good organically grown rice. You

can also find short grain " sweet rice " but this is a pain in the rear

to cook correctly and takes a long time. The taste is very different

and the best use for it is in desserts. Brown rice pasta is popular

now but you have to cook it carefully and never too long and cool it

off once it is cooked. Brown rice flour is available and mostly used

for baking. You can find brown rice cold cereals and cold cereals

that use brown rice in the mix of whole grains. Rice is most

versatile and can be used in many ways in very different types of

dishes. A lot of people choose to eat brown rice as their staple food

as they feel it simply tastes better than the other grains. One cup

of cooked brown rice has about 173 calories and 5% fat calories.

Urban people in Japan, Thailand, Viet Nam, China, Korea and other

Asian countries eat white rice as a tradition and it can be very

difficult to find brown rice in city restaurants.

Wild rice, by the way, like buckwheat is not botanically a

grain. Wild rice is really a grass with a strong flavor and is pricey

compared with brown rice. This is a perfectly good food, but you may

want to use it to flavor your brown rice and other grains rather than

eat it by itself as the taste is simply too assertive and strong.

This makes a good addition to your other grains and adds variety and

flavor. It has even less calories than brown rice as it is only 3%

fat calories.

Corn is still eaten whole as a vegetable as corn on the cob.

Frozen corn is acceptable out of season. Whole cornmeal white or

yellow is popular, but make sure it is whole and not " de-germed " with

the nutrition removed. A fancy word for corn meal mush is " polenta "

which is served in some of the finest restaurants especially Northern

Italian ones. If you have never had polenta it is very easy and quick

to fix and quite good as well as inexpensive. Just take 1 cup of corn

meal and three cups of water or vegetable stock and cook for about

ten minutes. You can use one cup of non-dairy milk to make it creamy.

Corn grits are a Southern staple but have been degermed and are not a

whole grain. I have never been able to find whole corn grits and

cannot verify they really exist. Anything labled " hominy " is degermed

unfortunately. Good corn chips that are baked rather than fried are

an excellent whole grain food. Latins use harina masa or finely

ground corn flour rather than coarse meal, but be sure this is ground

from whole corn and not degermed. An ear of corn has about 89

calories and 10% fat calories and is equal to a half cup of fresh or

frozen corn kernels. A quarter cup of corn meal (30 grams) has 100

calories and 10% fat calories and cooked with three quarters of a cup

of water or stock would make a large serving of polenta.

Oats are rarely eaten now except as oatmeal for breakfast. Too

often this is instant or quick cooking. Be sure to buy the " old

fashioned " oatmeal as it cooks in a few minutes. Oat groats and steel

cut oats are other choices. Very few people use oat flour, but it

goes well in breads and baking. Oat flakes go very well in baking.

Some whole grain cold cereals include oats in them. This is a very

yang cereal with a high oil content that grows in cold regions and

very good for cold climates and in winter time. A cup of cooked

oatmeal has 145 calories and 12% fat calories so it is especially

good for cold weather. It's a shame such a fine flavorful grain is

generally limited only to breakfast cereal.

Buckwheat is not botanically a grain but certainly is rightly

considered a grain for practical purposes. You can buy buckwheat

groats in the grocery store. Very few people eat buckwheat groats

anymore, but they are quite good and mix well with other grains. Try

half buckwheat and half brown rice for a change. Buckwheat cooks very

quickly. You can find hot cereals made of buckwheat as well. An

emphasis was made in macrobiotics about eating buckwheat noodles

or " soba " . Go to an Oriental store and you will find all the

buckwheat noodles to be filled with white flour. Buckwheat lacks

gluten to hold it together and must be mixed with wheat flour. I have

never found buckwheat noodles made with whole wheat flour for some

reason. They are very expensive anyway and simply have no advantage

over whole wheat pastas. Buckwheat groats are delicious, can be mixed

with other grains and very nutritious especially in winter as they

are very yang and grown in cold climates such as Canada.

Rye is not commonly eaten today except mixed with white flour

in rye bread. Nearly all rye is used to make whiskey. Rye has a

strong and distinctive flavor with no gluten and cannot stand alone

in bread. There are a few hot cereals made with rye, but they are not

very widely sold. When you make your own whole grain bread be sure to

make some rye bread with one third rye and two thirds whole wheat

flour along with caraway seeds and cornmeal.

Millet is a popular staple in some African countries but not

very popular here. You can buy whole millet and try it and discover a

whole new grain to eat as it is easy to find and inexpensive. It is

very easy to steam millet and it can be mixed with your rice for

variety. You can add millet flour to homemade bread as well. You'll

find this in multi-grain breads often. A cup of cooked millet

contains about 287 calories and 6% fat calories. This seems high

because cooked millet does not contain much water and is very

filling. This is a staple food in some countries yet not popular here

in America. This is a fine grain to eat with a lot of nutrition.

What about spelt, teff and quinoa (KEEN-wa)? These are

ancient grains, can be hard to find and rather expensive compared to

other grains. Try these for variety as they do differ in taste. You

will find baked goods and pastas containing these. As they become

more common the price will come down.

If you could eat only one food to stay alive your best choice

would be to pick a whole grain as you could thrive on this for a

long time. Whole grains are the ideal food and should be the basis

of your diet, your principle food. Whole grains are easily digested

and leave no toxins in the body during their metabolism. They contain

all the protein you need, are very low in fat, high in fiber, low in

calories and very concentrated in nutrition. Whole grains are also

the best food to regulate your blood sugar. Blood sugar

dysmetabolism - both low and high - is epidemic in Western societies

largely because we have forgotten whole grains as our main source of

nutrition. This is the central food of the macrobiotic way of eating.

Some grains can be successfully sprouted including barley,

buckwheat, rice, wheat, millet, oats and triticale. You can find

these in natural food stores or easily sprout them at home. Try these

for variety and taste.

Get some cookbooks on how to cook grains in a variety of

international styles and you'll find they quickly become an immensely

enjoyable principal food you look forward to every day. It can be

difficult at first to use whole grains as your principle food when

you haven't been used to them. Once you learn to cook them they will

become the center of your every meal. You'll come to love whole

grains as the center of every meal and look forward to enjoying them

in a variety of ways.

Chapter 4: Beans

____________________________________________________

Beans are a wonderful food that feed much of the world. Dried

beans should be a staple in your diet. You will come to enjoy them

very much as you learn to cook and flavor them in international

styles. In affluent societies such as ours they are often looked at

as food for poor people. Go to the store and buy some pintos,

lentils, black-eyed peas, chili beans, black beans, northern, pink,

chickpeas, kidney, limas, navy and cannelloni beans. Now go to a

Latin market and you'll find beans you've probably never heard of.

Buy one of each variety like pigeon peas and favas and go home and

try them. Go to a gourmet store or search the internet and you'll

really find some interesting ones like appaloosa, calypso, Christmas

limas, cranberry, European soldiers, yellow eyed peas, white emergo,

trout, tongues of fire, Swedish brown beans, snowcaps, scarlet

runners, Spanish Tolosanas, French flageolets, French navy,

wonders, piebald, provence, rattlesnake and rice beans.

Go to the library and get some international cookbooks and

see how the cooks of the world prepare their beans. Bean soups,

refried beans, pasta and beans, bean dips, bean salads, and bean

spreads like hummus show their versatility. Some beans can be

sprouted especially soy, mung, lentil, green and yellow peas,

chickpeas and adzuki beans. Try adding bean thread to your soups and

stir frys. Well cooked beans are anything but food for Third World

and poor people. The early macrobiotic teachers emphasized adzuki

beans only because the Japanese actually eat very few beans in their

diet. Enjoy all varieties of beans cooked in various international

styles with good herbal flavorings.

Beans are very high in protein, vitamins, minerals and plant

nutrients like lignans and sterols, but without the calories or the

fat. People who start eating beans sometimes have excess gas, but

this basically goes away as the body gets acclimated to eating them

and your intestines become healthier. There are digestive enzymes

such as BeanoÒ available if you want to take them but it isn't

necessary. To give you an idea of the nutritional profile of common

beans here are some basic facts (per half cup cooked):

Bean (half cup cooked) Cal. %Fat

Calories %Protein

Chick peas 120

4 20

Kidney 112

1 20

Lentils 115

1 26

Pinto/Calico 117

1 19

Lima 111

1 20 Blackeyed

100 2 17

Yellow Soybeans 139 14

29

Red beans 100

1 20

Black beans 113

4 23

Navy bean 129

1 21 Northern beans

104 1 19

Pink beans 125

1 20

Cannellini 125

1 20

Fava (Broad) 100

2 30

Split Peas 115

1 24

It can take 2 to 3 hours to cook beans so you can cook up a

pound bag and freeze half of them if you want to. Remember to bring

them to a boil, turn off the heat and let them hotsoak for a few

hours before cooking. Do not add salt until after they have soaked.

Never add baking soda to make them cook quicker as some cookbooks

suggest. Adding vegetables such as garlic, carrots, onions, leeks and

celery makes them more colorful and interesting. Be sure to use your

favorite herbs, spices and flavorings to make them even more

delicious.

What about tofu, which is so popular? This is a very

versatile food, but a very refined one missing most of the nutrition

and is over 50% fat calories. It cannot be sautéed as it absorbs oil

like a sponge. It certainly does have uses but this is just not a

staple food. Tempeh as a whole food is a much better choice as it is

a whole food with all the nutrition of the soybean.

When you learn to use and cook beans in new and creative ways

you'll come to enjoy them as a regular part of your diet. Beans are

next to grains as a principal food due to their high nutrition,

good protein, high fiber, low fat content and low calories.

Chapter 5: Vegetables

____________________________________________________

It seems most Americans are rather bored by green and yellow

vegetables. This is really due to the poor cooking methods used to

prepare them. Most restaurants barely serve any except homestyle

restaurants in the South. Fast food restaurants serve almost none.

Even gourmet restaurants often only offer one single vegetable du

jour. The way green and yellow vegetables are cooked and served is a

very good reason more people aren't attracted to them. Many people

still buy vegetables including leafy ones in cans. Some frozen

vegetables are very tasty and full of nutrition and can be acceptable

in winter when they are out of season. Fortunately we have a wide

variety of fresh vegetables available all year round here in America.

Most people eat their vegetables boiled until they're soggy and then

flavored with butter, salt and pepper. The Asians are the premier

vegetable cooks and the usual preparation is a stir fry with lots of

good flavors added such as ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sherry, oyster

sauce, dark sesame oil, black bean sauce, chili sauce and others. Get

some Chinese, Viet Namese and Thai cookbooks for interesting ways to

flavor your favorite vegetables.

One could easily get the idea from reading the early

macrobiotic books that Diet #7 is the ideal and the more grains you

eat and the less vegetables you eat the better. This is a big

misunderstanding and eating only whole grains is a very temporary

regimen for people with serious illness. It is important to eat lots

of fresh green and yellow vegetables with your grains and beans. You

can eat as much as fifty per cent fresh vegetables and should eat at

least twenty five per cent. You'll eat more vegetables in the summer

when you need lighter food and fewer calories and more in the winter

when you need heavier food and more calories.

Let's take a look at some of the many good vegetables we can

eat. Asparagus, artichoke, bok choy, bush and pole beans, bean

sprouts, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, red and green cabbage,

Chinese cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, Swiss chard

(occasionally), cucumbers, garlic, edible gourds, endive, collard

and mustard greens, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce (many varieties

other than iceberg), lotus root, many types of mushrooms, okra,

onions, parsnips, peas, snow peas, various pumpkins, radish, daikon

radish, rutabaga, salsify, Malabar spinach and New Zealand spinach

(Tetragonia not Spinacia), green and yellow squashes, various winter

squashes, green beans, sweet potatoes (which are not yams), turnips

and watercress.

The older macrobiotic books also kept recommending such hard

to obtain and expensive vegetables like adzuki beans, burdock root,

Hokkaido pumpkin, mountain potatoes (jijeno) and other such Japanese

foods that just don't translate here very well. These have no

advantage over the vegetables we have here and can be very hard to

find even in Asian food stores.

A word about onions and garlic. Onions and garlic must always be

cooked to evaporate the irritating volatile oils and must never be

eaten raw. Raw garlic and onions are used as natural insecticides due

to their irritating nature. Certain yogic systems do not allow onions

and garlic as they are considered to " rajastic " and stimulating and

disturbing to the body. Some people will be allergic and biologically

incompatible with these vegetables and should not eat them. If you

get indigestion from eating either of these please drop both of them

from your diet. It is true that the substances in garlic have been

shown in countless clinical studies to have healing properties for

most people and this has been verified over the years, but some

people will be allergic.

You rarely see raw vegetables recommended or even raw salads in

traditional macrobiotics. It is true that people on an all raw food

diet quickly become very sickly and have to stop such a regimen, but

raw foods are part of eating well especially in the summer when

lighter fare is needed. Most vegetables are simply inedible when

eaten raw and need light cooking to make them palatable. The idea

of " pressing " and salting your salad greens before eating them is

very unnecessary and ruins crisp lettuce and other raw vegetables. A

small salad makes a wonderful and colorful addition to a meal

especially in summer when lighter fare is eaten. The real concern is

finding a low fat or no fat dressing to go on it. Many Latins have a

custom of simply squeezing lime juice over their salad and do not use

creamy dressings at all. Asians flavor their salad greens with such

things as vinegar and sesame seeds.

We also need to discuss salted and salt pickled vegetables. These are

popular in cold remote areas where some monasteries are located as

this is the about the only way they can eat vegetables in winter

since they have no access to fresh vegetables. The salt overload from

such foods is just not ne-cessary. Pickled vegetables are still

popular in Asian areas where there is no refrigeration. There is just

no reason to eat pickled vegetables including the popular preserved

daikon radish. It is far preferable to eat fresh vegetables

especially since a wide variety o are available all year round. There

are times when frozen vegetables are fine in winter, but there is a

loss of texture in these but no loss of nutrition.

And we must discuss sea vegetables, which are commonly referred to

as " seaweeds " . Traditional macrobiotics recommends we eat these very

nutritious vegetables from the ocean such as nori, kombu and hiziki.

These are the best source of minerals we can eat and can be found at

oriental grocery stores. Unfortunately Americans have never

cultivated much of a taste for these and most people refuse to eat

them except maybe when they eat nori wrapped sushi. Buy some of the

various sea vegetables and at least try them in small amounts. You

only need a tablespoonful at meals and it makes an elegant garnish.

To change your view of vegetables so you can see how delicious they

are go get some international cookbooks and see how the chefs of the

world prepare different vegetables. Modify any recipes if possible

that sound good but don't use the ingredients you want. Most recipes

can be adapted to be healthful.

Tempura vegetables are popular in Japanese restaurants, but

are very high in oil content no matter how skillfully cooked. This

certainly tastes good but is not a good way to eat vegetables

regularly. Tempura should be reserved for special occasions.

You can use a pressure cooked if you choose to but very few

people do. The idea that this makes food more yang is technically

true but rather unimportant. If you want to cook your grains and

certain dishes in a pressure cooker they are very safe and easy to

use and cook your food more quickly.

Notice that sprouts weren't included in traditional Japanese

macrobiotics? There are many seeds that can be sprouted to add taste

and variety to your vegetables, salads and sandwiches. Many sprouts

are available in grocery stores now and making sprouts at home is

easy and fun. Just some of the vegetable seeds that can be

successfully sprouted are alfalfa, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels

sprouts, cauliflower, kale, chia, cress, radish, and fenugreek.

If you want to lose weight and eat less calories simply eat

more good green and yellow vegetables temporarily. You should eat

fifty per cent whole grains as your principal food, but to lose

weight you can temporarily eat less grain, less beans and more green

and yellow vegetables and no seafood and no more than ten per cent

local fruits. If you don't feel like fasting you can also go on a

vegetable soup diet for up to a week to lose an impressive amount of

weight while never being hungry. Just make soups from your favorite

vegetables with no grains or beans and flavor these fully. Vegetables

have less calories than any other food group. This is a partial fast

and will also benefit your health from the very low calorie intake.

Calorie Content of Common Vegetables (100 grams)

Artichoke 26

Asparagus 26

Beets 31

Broccoli 18

Brussels sprouts 32

Cabbage 27

Carrots 52

Cauliflower 27

Celery 14

Cucumber 9

Kale 33

Leeks 52

Lettuce 35

Mushrooms 40

Onions 24

Radishes 17

Squash, Summer 14

Squash, Winter 25

Turnip Greens 24

Chapter 6: Seafood, Meat, Poultry and Dairy

____________________________________________________

You can be a vegetarian if you choose to for health or for ethical

reasons. The macrobiotic diet can include seafood of most any type in

moderation especially in winter and in cold climates. Moderation

would mean four to six ounce portions several times a week. Or you

can choose to eat only plant based foods. It is best to eat lower

calorie, lower fat white fleshed fish like cod, perch, flounder,

grouper, sole, halibut, haddock and other varieties. Shellfish such

as crab, shrimp, scallops, clams, oysters and lobster are also good

choices. It is best to minimize or avoid the high fat white fish like

catfish, orange roughy and turbot. The same applies to red fleshed

fish like tuna, mackerel, salmon and swordfish. It is a biological

and physiological fact that our teeth and digestive systems are

designed to eat small amounts of animal food, and seafood is the

healthiest animal food to eat. You can see that fat content varies

dramatically from 7% to 52%. You can eat a three and a third ounce

(100 g) portion of seafood and generally get less than 100 calories,

plus it is very filling on a caloric basis.

There is no reason to eat red meat such as beef, pork and

lamb or wild meats such as venison, rabbit and squirrel for many

reasons. Americans eat twice the protein they need in the first place

which causes very negative conditions in the body such as high blood

urea and other negative parameters of our bloodstream. Excess protein

creates a toxic environment in our intestines. Animal proteins are

very different from vegetable proteins and like animal fats are

highly correlated with many diseases such as diabetes, arthritis and

cancers of various types. Protein is not a good energy source as they

have to be broken down in steps and leave toxic byproducts in our

blood. Complex carbohydrates are a direct energy source on the other

hand and do not leave unwanted byproducts as they are digested. We

only need about 0.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight so

even a 154 pound person only needs about 42 grams of protein daily.

You get all the protein you need by eating a variety of whole grains,

beans and vegetables and we do not need animal foods as a source of

protein at all.

Poultry and eggs are two of the top ten allergenic foods

known and these should be avoided. Trying not to eat poultry and eggs

in western society can be very difficult because they are almost

everywhere, inexpensive and served in a variety of tasty ways. Some

people eat eggs yet call themselves " vegetarians " . It makes no

difference whether an egg is organically produced or not or whether

it is fertile or not as they are still eggs and should not be eaten.

Whole eggs are 64% fat calories and contain a whopping 250 mg of

cholesterol. Some people eat egg whites but these are just as

allergenic as the yolks and still made up of animal proteins. Poultry

even steamed or broiled without the skin is neither a healthy food

nor even a low fat food.

Milk is the number one worst food allergen of all known

foods. No other food is a universal allergen like milk and the

products derived from milk. Whole milk is an amazing 48% fat

calories. To learn more about the many reasons not to drink milk or

eat dairy products go to www.notmilk.com or www.milksucks.com and

read what they have to say. Cow milk is meant for calves not human

babies much less human adults.

Dairy products are eaten by some people who call

themselves " vegetarians " . Whether the milk and dairy products are

organically produced or not is beside the point and does not change

the basic nature of them. Since dairy is not made out of vegetables

this is certainly not an accurate description. What is wrong with

dairy products? They contain lactose and all adults of all races are

lactose intolerant. Any biologist knows that all mammals lose the

ability to produce the enzyme lactase soon after birth and weaning.

Lactose (milk sugar) does not just pass thru your digestive system

like fiber but causes allergic reactions. There are a lot of other

reasons not to eat dairy products even if you go to the trouble and

expense of buying organic and low fat products. There are now soy,

rice and almond non-dairy alternatives to most regular dairy products

there is no reason to eat them. You can buy soy sour cream, soy

yogurt, many flavors of meltable soy cheese and can make your own soy

cream cheese by draining soy yogurt.

Yogurt is considered a " health food " by many people but is

anything but healthy. Yogurt contains twice the lactose of regular

milk because milk powder is added to thicken it. Soy yogurts are

available but do not taste as good, can be hard to find, are

expensive and are usually full of sugar. Hard cheeses contain little

lactose (it is drawn off in the whey during processing) but it so

full of saturated fat (over 70% in most varieties) and calories to

make it a poor food choice. Soy cheese is meltable, tastes like dairy

cheese but is full of fat and should not be used regularly Sour

cream, cream, cream cheese and all the rest are very unhealthy foods

to eat. Probably the least objectionable is low fat cottage cheese as

it has a minimum of lactose and fat but has a lot of animal protein

so there is really no excuse to eat it. Many people have been

buying the low fat and no fat dairy products thinking these

were " good for them " .

Seafood is the best animal food to eat if you choose not to

be a vegetarian. Seafood is best for men rather than women, for hard

working people or those who exercise a lot and are physically active,

in colder climates and in the colder seasons as it is very yang.

Seafood should be limited in hotter climates and in summertime. A

small percent of people have a generalized allergy to fish and/or

shellfish and this should be obvious if it exists. There are hidden

allergies though. It is best to choose shellfish and light fleshed,

low fat fish such as cod, flounder, sole and others over dark

fleshed, high fat fish such as tuna, swordfish and salmon.

Regarding red meat there are two reasons not to eat cows,

pigs, sheep, deer, chickens, turkeys and other animals. In

Buddhism " ahimsa " or doing no harm is a basic tenet. We do not need

to kill any animals to be healthy and we do this only for sensory

pleasure. If you are going to eat meat or poultry be honest with

yourself about the life you are taking. If you had to personally kill

and butcher a cow, a pig, some chickens and turkeys and especially a

veal calf or a young lamb would you still be eating them? If you were

directly responsible for their death how much meat and poultry would

you be eating? The second reason is biological. In macrobiotics fish

and shellfish are eaten in moderation if one chooses to do so as we

are biologically equipped to eat about one tenth animal foods. We

have long digestive systems designed to eat grains, beans, vegetables

and fruit and teeth to match this system.

There is no doubt that eating meat and poultry results in far

more disease of every kind, less quality of life and a shorter

lifespan. The longest lived people on earth are the Okinawans and

besides fish they do eat a very small amount of animal foods such as

chicken and eggs, but their basic diet is excellent and they work

physically even in old age.

Calories and Fat Calories in Common Seafoods (raw)

100 gram portions

Fish cal. fat cal. Fish

cal. fat cal.

Catfish 110 33 Halibut 103

19

Turbot 90 28 Flounder 84 7

Perch 89 11 Snapper

94 11

Cod 79 7 King Crab

78 13

Swordfish 114 26 Blue Crab 82

11

Salmon 135 31 Clams 70

11

Mackerel 131 38 Mussels 81 23

Scallops 83 7 Mahi

80 7

Seatrout 97 31 Grouper 86

10

Lobster 106 10 Oysters

76 25

Sole 64 8 Ocean

Perch 94 11

Tuna 135 30 Squid 86

12

Rockfish 89 11 Shrimp

100 10

Kingfish 100 26 Carp 119

40

Haddock 110 7 Herring 149 52

Monkfish 71 14 Pollack 86

10

Sea Bass 90 19 Orng Roughy 119

49

Shark 123 31 Croaker

99 27

A study was done at the Oregon Health Sciences University and

published in Circulation in 1993 (vol. 88, p. 2771-9) on milk intake

and the death from coronary heart disease- the largest killer of all

of both men and women. The populations of 40 different countries were

studied. You can see the death rate approaches zero per thousand in

people who drink no or almost no milk. The people who drink the most

milk had the highest death rate. Finland had literally one thousand

people fall over dead from heart disease every single year who drank

only one cup of milk per 1,000 calories of food intake. This chart is

based on millions of people in forty different countries and simply

cannot be disputed.

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

140 160 180 200 220 240

260 280 300

Serum Cholesterol, mg/dL

The MRFIT Study was one of the largest and longest of all

human studies on heart and artery health. This chart is based on

361,662 people 35 to 57 years old studied for a period of 6 years.

You can see by the two round dots that people who eat macrobiotically

and have an average total cholesterol level of about 150 have the

fewest deaths of all from heart and artery disease. The average

American has a cholesterol level of 250 and suffers about 250% more

deaths every year. The lower your choleseterol the better and the

only source of cholesterol is animal products like meat, poultry,

eggs and dairy products. Seafood in moderation does not raise your

cholesterol level.

Chapter 7: Fruits and Sugars

_______________________________________________

People are usually very surprised to find that eating fruit is not

recommended in macrobiotics except in small amounts and only locally

grown fruits. If you study a nutrition profile of most any fruit you

will find it is basically just water, sugar and one or two vitamins

with a little fiber. Fruits are a particularly poor source of

nutrients and contain far too much sugar. If you will look at the two

charts on the following pages this is scientifically validated.

Fruits generally have very little vitamins and almost no minerals in

addition to being full of simple sugars. Please look at the two

nutrition charts for common fruits. Since you need 1,000 mg of

calcium, 400 mg of magnesium, 18 mg of iron, 5 mg of coper, 2 mg of

manganese, 15 mg of zinc, 120 mcg of chromium and 70 mcg of selenium

daily you are getting biologically insignificant amounts of any

minerals no matter how much fruit you eat or which fruits.

The situation is hardly any better with vitamins as you are getting

no realistic amounts at all of vitamins E, K, thiamine, riboflavin,

niacin, B-6, folic acid, B-12, pantothenic acid and biotin. In a few

fruits you will get some vitamins A or C and that's all.

Definitely fruit juice, fruit concentrate and dried fruits should

be avoided as these are concentrated sugars. Remember that all sugar

is sugar and all sugar is " natural " . Whether you use white sugar,

brown sugar, raw sugar, molasses, honey, maple syrup, date sugar,

fructose, corn syrup, cane sugar, maltose, or amazake you are still

eating simple sugars and these are all basically the same. You need

no fruit in your diet at all actually and the only reason to eat it

is for variety and taste as this is the least nutrient dense group of

foods.

If you choose to include fruit in your diet pick temperate

ones like plums, berries, peaches, cherries, apples, grapes and such.

Do not eat tropical fruits like coconuts, guavas, mangoes, papayas,

bananas, avocadoes and others. This is discussed in the chapter

on " Tropical and Nightshade Foods " . The best time to include one

serving of fruit a day in your diet is summer time when it is

naturally available. Fruits are very yin and more appropriate in the

yang summer time. The worst time is in the winter when they are not

naturally available at all. If you live in hot, yang sunny area like

Southern Florida or Southern California please do not rationalize

this as a reason to eat a lot of fruit especially tropical fruit.

Most vegetarians, especially vegans, are addicted to simple

sugars and eat lots of honey, dried fruits, fruit juices, raw sugar,

maple syrup, tropical fruits, desserts, sodas and other sweets. They

rationalize this by saying these are " natural sugars " . There is no

reason at all to eat desserts at the end of a meal. You'll be better

off if you take the concept of " dessert " out of your dietary regimen.

At first you may want some sweets, so get a natural dessert cookbook

and learn how to make desserts out of whole grains and unsweetened

fruit. Remember this is a temporary stage and not something to

continue. Have you noticed that cultures like the Chinese, Thai,

Koreans and Japanese do not understand the idea of having desserts at

the end of the meal? This is a very good concept to adopt in your own

life.

Diabetes (hyperglycemia), insulin resistance and other blood

sugar disorders like hypoglycemia are epidemic here. One big reason

is the inordinate intake of about 125 pounds of various sugars per

year in our diets. Imagine scarfing down more than two pounds of

different sugars every week. Refined carbohydrates and excessive fat

intake are two other reasons for this. Eating whole grains slowly

releases glucose into our blood as it is needed. Doctors are still

recommending harmful high protein diets for such people which, of

course, ends up with them being on insulin and other prescription

drugs to cover up the symptom. To eat a high protein diet you have to

also eat a lot of saturated fat and cholesterol. Adult onset

diabetes is now widespread along with insulin resistance. Insulin

resistance means the body produces enough insulin but the cells don't

metabolize it well. Get a glucose tolerance test (GTT) if you feel

this may be affecting you as the blood glucose may be normal. Others

have low blood sugar or hypoglycemia, and some symptoms of

hypoglycemia are constant hunger even after eating, weakness and

fatigue, perspiring too much, yawning inappropriately and emotional

swings.

VITAMIN CONTENT OF COMMON FRUITS

FRUIT gr A C E K Thia. Rib.

Nia B6 Fol. B12 Pant. Bio.

Apple 150 52 6 .90 0 .02 .01

.08 .05 3 0 .06 .90

Apricot 40 2612 10 .75 0 .03 .04

.60 .05 9 0 .24 0

Banana 150 81 9 .40 2 .05 .10 .50

.58 19 9 .26 4.40

Blueberry 140 100 13 0 0 .05 .05

.40 .04 64 0 .09 0

Cantaloupe 400 3220 42 .20 0 .04 .02

.60 .12 17 0 1.13 3.0

Grapes 150 100 4 0 0 .09 .06 .30

.11 4 0 .02 1.60

Oranges 180 200 53 .36 1 .09 .04 .30

.06 30 0 .25 1.90

Peaches 100 535 7 .90 8 .02 .04 1.0

.02 3 0 .17 1.70

Pears 75 20 4 .80 0 .02 .04

.10 .20 7 0 .07 .10

Pineapple 140 25 15 .15 0 .09 .04

.40 .08 11 0 .16 0

Plums 100 320 10 .70 0 .04 .10

.50 .18 2 0 .18 .10

Strawberry 150 27 57 .18 13 .02 .07

.20 .54 18 0 .34 4.0

MINERAL CONTENT OF COMMON FRUITS

Put above se and cr (mcg)

(mcg)

FRUIT grams Ca P Mg K

Na Fe Cu Mn Zn Se Cr

Apple 150 7 7 5 115

1 .2 .04 .05 .04 .30 2

Apricots 40 14 19 12 296 1

.5 .04 .08 .26 0 0

Bananas 150 6 20 29 400 1 .3

.10 .15 .16 1 9

Blueberry 140 6 10 5 90 6

.2 .06 .30 .11 0 5

Cantaloupe 400 11 17 11 310 9

.2 .04 .04 .16 0 2

Grapes 150 14 10 5 190 2

.3 .04 .72 .04 0 3

Oranges 180 40 14 10 180 1

.1 .05 .03 .07 1.3 3

Peaches 100 5 12 7 200 1 .1

.07 .05 .14 .40 2

Pears 75 11 11 6 130 2

.3 .11 .08 .12 .60 2

Pineapple 140 7 7 14 110 1

.4 .11 1.7 .08 .60 0

Plums 100 4 10 7 172 2

.1 .04 .05 .10 0 2

Strawberry 150 14 19 10 170 1

.4 .12 .30 .13 0 3

International Breast Cancer Death Rates Related to Fat Intake

Age Adjusted Death Rate

Per 100,000 Population

30

Netherlands

U.K. Denmark

Canada

25

Ireland Switzerland N.Z.

Belgium

Australia U.S.

20

Sweden

Italy

Austria Germany

Czechoslovakia

Norway France

15

Portugal Hungary

Hong Kong

10 Chile

Venezuela Romania

Yugoslavia Spain

Philippines Colombia

Panama Greece

5

Japan Mexico Puerto Rico

Thailand El Salvador Sri Lanka

0

0 20 40

60 80 100

120 140 160

Estimated Fat Intake (grams/day)

Chapter 8: Other Diets

____________________________________________________

There are so many different diets that are popular now. With all this

contradictory information how does one decide what really works and

what doesn't? In one word….RESULTS. When you see people advocate a

certain diet are they healthy and happy? Do they look good and feel

good? Are they youthful in nature with lots of energy and a good

disposition? " By their fruits shall ye know them " as the Bible tells

us. Look at the RESULTS of all these other ways of eating. And look

at the authors of these many different books. Most of these diet

gurus are overweight, have high cholesterol, look older than their

years despite plastic surgery, and have a wide variety of illnesses

they don't disclose. The whole grain based way of eating we

call " macrobiotics " is the only way that has been proven here in the

U.S. for over three decades now to result in maximum health and to

cure " incurable " illnesses. No other way of eating can say that.

The most popular diet in history is the so-called ketogenic

diet, Paleolithic diet or " Atkins Diet " as proposed by Atkins

who fell over of cardiomyopathy in April of 2002 from following his

own advice. He is the most popular diet author in history by far.

This is proof that to be successful you merely need to tell people

what they want to hear. Atkins tells people to eat all the meat,

poultry, eggs, dairy products, vegetable oils and seafood they want

to. He advocates that you eat all the fats, animal proteins, animal

products and other animal foods you want, but God help you if you eat

any whole grains! To his credit he does say not to eat simple sugars

of any kind, not to eat refined grains like white flour and not to

eat hydrogenated oils. This goes along with the " glycemic index "

where all carbohydrates are considered equal. The buzzword " carbs " is

used constantly to refer to any carbohydrate at all. Brown rice is

the " same " as white sugar, oatmeal is the " same " as a Twinkie, and

whole grain bread is " no different " than candy bars. These are simply

called " carbs " to make it simple for you. Many otherwise intelligent

people have fallen for this transparent pseudo-science. Anyone who

can't tell the difference between whole grains and sugary junk food

is obviously beyond help anyway.

It seems people never notice that the word " ketogenic " comes

from the word " ketosis " - which is a disease state! That's right- this

diet is named after a condition of sickness where ketone bodies in

the blood are excessive and cause illness. " Ketogenic " means having a

disease condition. Look up the word " ketosis " in your dictionary to

see for yourself. The most popular diet in history is modeled after a

disease state! Shows you truth is always stranger than fiction

doesn't it?

Another popular diet is the raw food diet where everything

you eat must be raw and uncooked. Cooking is " bad " because it

destroys the enzymes in " live food " . You cannot cook anything so if

it doesn't taste good raw you just don't eat it. Obviously this

limits most of your normal food choices. Some grains and beans can be

sprouted however. This is an understandable reaction to a lifetime of

eating meat, dairy products and overcooked foods. People who eat this

way become thin, weak, and sickly with bad skin and low immunity very

quickly. The idea that cooking " kills " all your foods is silly.

Cooking grains and beans is necessary to even eat them. Lightly

cooking most of your green and yellow vegetables makes them taste

better and makes them more digestible not less digestible. Certainly

you should eat some raw foods and some salads with your meals

especially in warm climates and in summer. A strict diet of raw,

uncooked foods will quickly convince you this is an irrational

extreme that leads to debilitation. It is important to realize that

cooking food makes it more digestible and this is what distinguishes

us from animals which are unable to cook their food. People who are

ill often have difficulty in digesting raw foods and do much better

when their food is minimally cooked.

Another diet that has been popular for years is the one based

on your blood type. Unfortunately your blood type has almost no

relevance except when you need a blood transfusion. Since people are

always looking for a simplistic answer this has become amazingly

popular. There are four basic blood types and you are supposed to

base your diet on which one you are. Type O means you are a Meat

Eater and should eat red meat, poultry, eggs and seafood as the basis

of your diet and no whole grains or beans. Type A means you are a

Vegetarian but for some unknown reason the author just doesn't like

wheat. This is the most intelligent of the diets obviously. Type B is

the Nomad and you can eat pretty much anything you want to as the

caveman did especially dairy products. Type AB is the Enigma (only 5%

of the population) and this combines the rules for both type A and B

and you can eat a lot of eggs but no corn for some unknown reason.

That this kind of foolishness has become so popular is an important

statement of our current culture.

Food combining or the " fit for life " diet is based on the

teachings of Herbert Shelton decades ago. Poor Herbert died

prematurely of a horrible disease from following his own advice. With

this diet you eat a lot of raw fruits, nuts and vegetables with a lot

of scientifically unbased rules on not combining starches with

proteins and other prohibitions. Harvey Diamond is currently reviving

this and Tony Robbins adopted it for years before admitting how wrong

he had been and how poorly he and his wife had fared on such a

regimen.

The " zone " diet (controlling your zone of insulin values) or

30/30/40 plan has also been popular recently. This includes lots of

red meat, eggs, all dairy products, poultry, white bread and sugar.

It is recommended you eat a full 30% fat especially saturated animal

fat. Since the ideal is only 10% vegetable oils this is obviously a

high fat diet. It is also recommended to eat 30% protein which is at

least twice what you need. One reason this has become poplar is that

some movie stars were attracted to eating this way. Now, that's a

great reason to follow such a regimen! The theory is that 30% fat and

30% protein will keep your insulin and glucose at proper levels for

optimal blood sugar metabolism. It has been clinically proven very

conclusively that eating too much fat and protein especially from

animal sources is as much a cause of blood sugar dysmetabolism as is

our intake of various simple sugars. It has equally been proven the

best way to maintain optimum blood sugar levels is by eating complex

whole carbohydrates. This is obviously a very unhealthy diet with

three times the fat and twice the protein you need. The claims are

made that you will achieve " superhealth " , maintain lower insulin

levels, lose fat, gain lean muscle mass, have more energy, lower

cholesterol and better mental focus. Good luck.

There is even a " breathitarian " diet where you only eat raw

fruits and nuts as they fall off the tree naturally and you never

kill or hurt anything. You eat nothing but fruit and nuts and

eventually try to become so " spiritual " that you need no physical

food at all and live off of " prana " or cosmic energy. This is

patently ridiculous, but they do have a point here. Essentially

nothing in this universe exists but " sat/chit/ananda " which is

consciousness, energy and bliss. Food is nothing but manifested

energy and in theory if you were enlightened you would simply absorb

everpresent prana and not need physical food. The physical world is

rather different.

You are welcome to be a pure vegetarian or vegan which

simply means you eat no seafood. If you feel that you should not eat

any animal food whatsoever macrobioitcs is a perfect diet for you. So

called " lacto-ovo vegetarians " eat eggs, milk and dairy products.

Obviously eggs and milk aren't vegetables and it is rather silly to

call yourself a vegetarian when you eat them. Eggs, milk and dairy

are among the top ten allergenic foods known and you could never be

healthy eating this way.. Many vegetarians and vegans are " ethical "

by nature and choose not to harm or exploit any animal life including

honey from bees or casein in soy cheese. This is to be respected

certainly. Unfortunately such people often eat refined foods, junk

foods, tropical and Nightshade foods and are outright sugar addicts.

Many of them admit they are not eating for health but only out of

compassion for animals. Macrobiotics is a wonderful opportunity for

people who want to be pure vegetarians to express their compassion

while eating healthful, balanced and nutritious food.

One of the most popular series of diet books was written by a

television actress who got breast cancer from following her own

advice. Nevertheless many women still follow her advice!

The Pritikin diet has a lot going for it but needs to deal

with Nightshade vegetables, tropical foods and dairy products. The

Ornish diet is a very good, low fat diet but does include Nightshade

vegetables and tropical foods, but has dropped dairy products. The

McDougall diet is pure vegetarian but also includes Nightshades and

tropical foods. The Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine is

a very unusual group of doctors that, not surprisingly includes Neal

Barnard and Dean Ornish and advocate a good basic way of eating.

Chapter 9: Natural Hormone Balance

_____________________________________________________

When macrobiotics was introduced to America natural hormones were

basically just not available. Doctors rarely-and still don't- tested

anyone for their hormone levels anyway and it was prohibitively

expensive to do so. Scientists were well aware of the importance of

the entire endocrine system, but not the doctors or the general

public. Technology in the 1990's finally produced most all the basic

hormones inexpensively and this became an important part of life

extension. People who eat well, exercise and live a healthy lifestyle

certain have better hormone profiles than those who don't. This

doesn't make up for the decline in our " good " hormones and rise of

our " bad " hormones as we age however. We are going to discuss

progesterone, estradiol, estrone, estriol, DHEA, melatonin,

testosterone, androstenedione, pregnenolone, cortisol, thyroid and

growth hormone as these are the basic ones we can deal with

practically. Surprisingly men and women both have exactly the same

hormones only in different amounts. Women have testosterone and

androstenedione and men have prolactin, LH and FSH. The chapter on

Home Hormone Testing will tell you how to test these at home with

saliva samples without a doctor.

Progesterone is not a feminizing hormone. It is the

antagonist to the estrogens in our bodies and balances them

especially estradiol and estrone. Women have been given unnatural

oral progesterone analogs (chemical relatives) called " progestins "

instead of real, bioidentical progesterone. Men have not been told

how important progesterone is for their metabolism and how it

protects them from rising estrogen levels as they age. Women with

PMS, menstrual irregularities, menopause, osteoporosis, arthritis and

other problems can benefit greatly from transdermal progesterone

supplementation. Men over 40 can benefit from using very small

amounts (i.e. a mere eighth of a teaspoon) of natural progesterone

cream especially to protect them from the current epidemic of

prostate disorders. Buy a good two ounce transdermal cream with 800

to 1000 mg of real USP natural progesterone which therefore has 400

to 500 mg per ounce. Women can read my book " No More Horse Estrogen! "

as well as many other books on natural progesterone by Lee and

other authors. Men can read my book " The Natural Prostate Cure " .

Avoid any products with the word " yam " or " wild yam " on the label as

this is called " yam scam " in the trade. Yam (Dioscorea species)

extract is used in laboratories as the raw material for conversion to

progesterone, but this is NOT a prescursor in the body. Progesterone

is extremely safe and non-toxic and has many proven benefits.

There is no such thing as " estrogen " per se and it is a

convenient term that refers to the group of two dozen or so

estrogens. Estradiol is the strongest, estrone second and estriol

very mild in comparison. Humans have 80 to 90% estriol and 5 to 10%

each of estrone and estradiol. Women who go thru menopause are rarely

low in estrogen contrary to the popular wisdom, and giving them

estradiol and estrone supplements especially from horses only makes

them worse, not better. Breast, uterine and ovarian cancers are all

basically caused by excessive unopposed (by progesterone) levels of

estrogens. American women are generally plagued by excessive levels

of estradiol and estrone from overeating, not exercising, eating

almost half their calories from fats, drinking alcohol, and other

causes. Estriol is the " forgotten estrogen " even though it comprises

80 to 90% of human estrogen and is not even manufactured in the U.S.

You must obtain a transdermal cream from a compounding pharmacist if

you can find a doctor who is even familiar with using it. If, in fact

a woman, tests low in estradiol or estrone she can take real, natural

hormones in the amounts she needs, but this is unusual. Doctors who

hand out estrogens rarely even test the blood levels before

prescribing them. Men over 50 have higher estrogen levels than their

menopausal wives! This is a frightening fact and a major reason men

have hormonal imbalance as they age. The only realistic way to lower

excessive estrogen levels is to eat a low fat diet, exercise, don't

drink alcohol and take the supplement DIM (discussed in the

supplement chapter). One third of American women consent to being

castrated by having their uterus surgically removed at an average age

of only 35 and they must test all their hormone levels after being

butchered like this.

DHEA is a very powerful hormone and the levels fall after the

age of 40 as you can see by the chart. By that age most people have

already fallen about 50%. Never, never take DHEA without first

testing your level to see if you are deficient. The ideal is always

YOUTHFUL levels and not high levels as some people naturally have

excessive levels of DHEA which is a pathological state especially in

women. If you are deficient men can take about 25 mg and retest their

levels after about six months. Women may only need 10 to 20 mg and

should also retest after about six months. There are several good

books on the benefits of DHEA supplementation, and the scientific

literature has literally thousands of studies to prove this and more

benefits are discovered every month.

Melatonin is the most underrated of all hormones. The media

tells you this is merely for better sleep and jet lag! Melatonin is

critical in how long you live, how strong your immunity is and how

prone you are to getting such diseases as cancer. Good books have

been written on melatonin such as " Your Body's Natural Wonder

Drug " , " Melatonin Miracle " , " Melatonin: The Anti-Aging

Hormone " , " ABC's of Hormones " and " Stay Young the Melatonin Way " . The

most impressive use is with cancer patients in a holistic program of

diet and balancing their other hormones. You can see by the chart

that melatonin falls from the time we leave our teenage years and

keeps falling until we have almost none left by the age of 70. The

most important benefit is influencing how long we live in that this

regulates the aging clock in our bodies. Mice simply given melatonin

in their drinking water lived one third longer than control mice.

Imagine theoretically living to 100 rather than just 75 by taking two

dollars worth of melatonin every month. It is important to take

melatonin only at night as we do not produce this during the day.

Three milligrams is a good general dose and you can only test this by

itself at 3:00 AM in the morning with a saliva test unless you know a

medical doctor who has office hours at that time. This is extremely

safe without any known side effects and scientists cannot even find

an LD50 (lethal dose in 50% of test animals) for it. There is no such

thing as naturally excessive melatonin levels, but it would be very

unwise to go over the youthful levels you had in your twenties.

Testosterone is important for both men and women although men

have about ten times more of it. Women can have naturally excessive

levels as they produce it in very different ways. Men cannot have

naturally excessive levels. As you can see by the male chart

testosterone falls in men after the age of 40 and most men are

deficient by the age of 50. This level can be raised to the youthful

male levels you had in your 20's. You can use oral androstenedione

tablets or natural transdermal testosterone cream. It is important

you never, never use unnatural oral testosterone salts such as

enanthates and propionates. If women are deficient they must take

very small doses (like 2 or 3 mg a day) of natural transdermal

testosterone cream since they have very little testosterone compared

with men. They can also try 10 to 20 mg of androstenedione since they

convert this less efficiently to testosterone than men do. Men who

are deficient can use natural testosterone cream in about 15-20 mg a

day amounts or use 50 mg tablets of androstenedione. If a man is

using 3% natural testosterone cream he would use a half gram a day to

get 15 mg. If you want stronger doses use a 5% cream.

Pregnenolone is the " grandparent " hormone since it produces

all the other sex hormones ultimately, but it is also the " forgotten "

hormone as it has been studied so sparsely. It is incomprehensible

why this basic hormone has been ignored since it was discovered. We

do know that it is the most important of all brain hormones and very

vital to cognition, memory, clear thought processes and general

mental ability. Fortunately there is finally a saliva hormone test

available for $35 as a blood test is currently about $150 plus the

office visit. You can see by the chart that both men and women start

losing pregnenolone about the age of 35. Men can try 25 mg daily and

women also 25 mg but only four times weekly, retest after about six

months and adjust your dosage accordingly.

Cortisol is the " stress hormone " and low cortisol is the

ideal while high cortisol generally indicates too much stress.

Therefore there are no cortisol supplements to raise your levels. To

lower excessive cortisol is difficult as this is usually due to the

way one lives. You cannot tell people to simply walk away from a bad

marriage, change their profession, give their children away, escape

from lifetime poverty or whatever else is upsetting them. Exercise,

meditation, sports, hobbies, getting a pet and other such things can

lower our cortisol levels. It is said that having high DHEA and low

cortisol is a good indication of long life. The best way to test

cortisol is to do an all day saliva test since it would be difficult

to get an all day blood test. This gives you a better picture of your

cortisol secretion rather than just test it early in the morning at

8:00 or 9:00.

The thyroid surprisingly has been neglected in life extension

circles and there is no reason for this. Our thyroids secrete two

hormones T3 (triiodothyridine) and T4 (L-thyroxine). About 20% of

that is T3 (which is four times stronger than T4) and about 80% of

that is T4. You can get blood or saliva tests but these don't always

tell you as much as you would expect as there is such a wide range of

values. You can be excessive (hyperthyroidism) or deficient

(hypothyroidism. It is best to go by symptoms as well as blood

levels. There is also a TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone test that

should be taken. A high level shows you are not secreting enough

hormones and that you need more TSH to stimulate more production.

Fortunately bioidentical versions of both hormones are easily and

inexpensively available. If you are shown to be low in T4 you

generally take 25 mcg to 100 mcg to raise your level. If you are

shown to be low in T3 you generally take one fourth as much T3 as

your would T4 since it is four times stronger. Most doctors have very

little knowledge of this, don't even prescribe T3 and go by mere lab

results rather than actual known hypothyroid symptoms. A thyroid

specialist might be of more help here. There are also dried animal

thyroid powders which contain both T3 and T4 you can choose, but

these are no more natural than the real T3 and T4 you get in the

pharmacy as there are all bioidentical (pigs and cows produce thyroid

hormones identical to ours) and you may not need both hormones at

all. We need a lot more study here and a lot more education in

medical schools about thyroid function, symptoms, testing and

supplementation. Another way to determine if you are excessive or

deficient is to take your temperature every morning for one month. A

doctor named Broda did a lot of work in this area years ago

and his books are still available in libraries. It is a much more

difficult problem if you have hyperthyroidism as it is very difficult

to slow the thyroid down except by harmful surgery, dangereous drugs

and outright radiation to destroy thyroid tissue. Lifestyle and

natural health practices are the real answer here.

Lastly we will discuss growth hormone (GH). Our growth

hormone levels fall from the time we are young and fall continually

until they are extremely low by the age of seventy or so. Only in

rare cases of agromely do we see excessive GH levels.You can get

great benefits from raising your growth hormone levels if you find

that they test low. Currently you cannot get saliva tests for this

and the conventional wisdom that IGF-1 (which can easily be saliva

tested) parallels growth hormone levels is not true no matter how

widespread this misinformation is. You must see a doctor and get a

serum test for actual hGH (human growth hormone). The only way to

raise your level is by injecting expensive rhGH (recombinant) at

least twice a week at a current cost of $300 or more monthly. You can

use air injector pens that diabetics use rather than hypodermic

needs. No matter what you hear there are NO oral supplements to raise

your growth hormone levels. You will see and hear endless ads

promising you their supplement is " clinically proven " to work, but

none of these have any value at all You will see some very convincing

advertising telling you about oral growth hormone " secretagogues " but

none of it is true. None of them work! Period. You will probably need

about 30 IU (which is 10 mg) every month of prescription rhGH. You

must balance all your other basic hormones to get any real effects

out of this. Our endocine system is a harmonious balance and the

hormones all work together in concert. Raising one deficient hormone

and ignoring the others has very little effect on us. Cow (bovine)

and pig (porcine) growth hormones are very inexpensive, yet cost no

more to produce than the human type. The pharmaceutical companies

could offer hGH for $100 a month and still make a good profit but

they are unwilling to do so. There are oral and nasal spray

secretagogues that will be available within the next five or ten

years but they will be very expensive, sold only by prescription and

simply more convenient to use. The most notable of these is hexarelin

which has been proven safe and effective in humans of all ages

including GH deficient children, yet is still not available on the

market. Many other such substances to raise our growth hormone levels

are constantly being researched and developed. Meanwhile you can

take one gram of the common amino acid L-glutamine twice a day to

substantially and termporarily spike your GH levels.

Chapter 10: Home Hormone Testing

____________________________________________________

Thirty years ago the only way to test your hormone levels was

to go to a specialist and order very expensive blood tests. Almost no

one did this unless they had an unusual disease and were under the

care of an endocrinologist. Even then only a very few hormones would

be tested. Now most doctors can easily test your basic hormones for

about $100 apiece. Unfortunately most doctors are completely ignorant

of this and have no idea at all what to test for or what the results

mean. Most doctors don't even know that most of our sex hormones are

bound with sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) and are completely

unavailable biologically. This is why, for example they will test

your bound testosterone, your free testosterone and then calculate a

bound/free ratio as if all this has some great esoteric meaning. The

bound hormone levels are basically meaningless while the unbound,

free levels are critical to every facet of our health and well being.

The

words " melatonin " , " estriol " , " pregnenolone " , " DHEA " , " androstenedione

" and other such common hormones just are not in the vocabulary of

medical doctors generally. If they can't sell you an expensive

prescription for it, they aren't interested in it.

There is a much easier, cheaper and less invasive way to do

this at home with a simple saliva sample. For decades clinics have

used saliva instead of blood serum to test hormone levels. One of the

greatest technological breakthroughs of the last decade has been to

simplify and improve these saliva tests so they can be used by the

person at home without needing an expensive office visit to a medical

doctor. Several major labs now do saliva testing for a wide range of

hormones and every year the list of what they can do grows longer.

The World Health Organization approved this for field testing in

Third World countries years ago. You simply purchase a saliva kit,

spit in a plastic tube and mail it in to the laboratory.

Sophisticated RIA (radioimmunoassay) testing accurately determines

your hormone levels down to the picogram (billionth of a gram). You

get a chart or table to show you the reference values for your age

and sex. All this for about $25 to $30 a hormone.

Here are five labs, which are most prominent. You can also

search the Internet under " saliva hormone testing " .

Aeron Life Cycle Labs

(now sold thru Products)

8469 Warner Drive

Culver City, CA 90232

toll free

Great Smokies Diagnostics

(aka Body Balance)

18-A Regent Park Blvd.

Asheville, NC 28806

toll free

ZRT Labs

1815 N.W. 169th Place #3090

Beaverton, OR 97006

www.salivatest.com

Pharmasan

375 280th Street

Osceola, WI 54020

www.pharmasan.com

Life-Flo Health Care Products

11202 North 24th Avenue

Phoenix, AZ 85029

www.life-flo.com

Chapter 11: Natural Supplements

____________________________________________________

When macrobiotics was introduced in this country there were

not a lot of supplements available besides the usual vitamins and

minerals. And there were just no natural hormones available.

Understandably this way of eating stresses that you get your

nutrition from whole foods and not from vitamin and mineral pills.

And this is very correct- as far as it goes. Eating whole natural

foods does provide you with all the nutrition you need and you should

never look to compensate a poor diet with vitamin and mineral

supplements. Most people get their education on supplements from

advertisers and promoters and get very misled most of the time ending

up with supplements that are either useless or actually deleterious.

In the last three decades tremendous discoveries have been made in

the area of life extension and natural health. Many medical journals

now regularly include studies on natural diet and supplements. Using

this scientific technology in a sensible and holistic way will now

allow us to heal illnesses faster, have stronger immunity, feel

better, prevent illnesses and live longer than just relying on the

food we eat to be well. The simplistic idea of not using supplements

just doesn't stand up at all to the light of reason or science. Let's

discuss some of the natural supplements that we can use.

If you really eat well a vitamin and mineral supplement is

not actually required especially if you eat seafood and sea

vegetables for your minerals. Trace minerals like selenium, boron,

chromium, molybdenum, silicon and vanadium can be very difficult to

get in your diet In sufficient quantities. You may choose to take a

good multi-vitamin and mineral tablet daily to insure you do get

all these minerals. Mineral formulas unfortunately are woefully

inadequate often lacking several trace elements or adding them in

insignificant amounts.

Vitamin E is plentiful in whole grains and you only need

about 30 IU a day. This is very deficient since so few Americans eat

whole grains. Taking a supplement of 400 IU has been shown to have

very strong benefits especially for the cardio- vascular system. A

good type to take is the mixed tocopherols instead of the usual alpha

tocopherol alone. You can also consider the new tocotrionols. The

research on vitamin E goes back decades and is well established.

Glutathione along with S.O.D. (super oxide dismutase) are the

two most important antioxidant enzymes in our bodies. Taking

glutathione per se is surprisingly not very effective in raising your

levels. Taking NAC (N-acetyl cysteine) 600 mg a day is a much more

effective way to do this. Unfortunately oral S.O.D. is ineffective,

nasal sprays are considered a prescription drug and so far no

pharmaceutical company is interested in offering them.

Unfortunately almost no doctors are willing to give injections of

S.O.D. even though the proven benefits are most effective. In the

future you'll see more nasal and injectable S.O.D. products.

Phosphatidyl serine or " PS " is a important chemical in our

brains and this has been shown to be an important supplement in

keeping our brains functioning well as we age. You need 100 mg a day

and this is a little pricey but well worth it. PS has only become

available in the last few years at a reasonable price thru improved

technology and the research is very impressive. It is now extracted

from soybeans rather than cow brains.

While we're talking about phosphatidyl serine you should know

that common soy lecithin is phosphatidyl choline and also an

important supplement for good arterial health as well as brain

function. You can take a 1,200 mg softgel every day. Lecithin has

been known about for decades and also extracted from soybeans.

Recently the amino acid acetyl-L-carnitine has become

available inexpensively and studies prove the value of taking this

for brain metabolism, memory, avoiding senility and Alzheimers, and

general cognition. This is not expensive and 500 mg a day should be

enough for you or 1,000 mg over the age of 60 or in illness.

You have probably never heard of beta-sitosterols even though

they exist in literally every vegetable you eat. This is an important

supplement for both men and women and you should find a brand with

about 300 mg of mixed beta-sitosterols (campesterol, stigmasterol,

brassicasterol, etc.) This is good for cholesterol metabolism and has

shown preventative power in cancers especially of the prostate,

breast and colon. Vegetarians get far more plant sterols in their

diets obviously than carnivores and omnivores. This is an excellent

supplement to prevent the plague of prostate and breast disease

generally. This is the active ingredient in saw palmetto- which is

useless because of it's insignificant sterol content even in the

extracts.

It is important to take a good brand of acidophilus with 3

billion or more units and keep it refrigerated. Buy only reputable

brands here like Jarrow, PB-8, American Health, DDS, Puritan's Pride,

Bio-Kaps and others. Try and buy it refrigerated. There is a stable

spore form of acidophilus called lactospore you can take along with

this that doesn't need refrigeration. Along with the acidophilus and

lactospore take one or two 750 mg capsules of FOS (fructo-

oligosaccharides) otherwise known as inulin. This is an indi-gestible

sugar that feeds the good bacteria in your colon but not the bad

bacteria. It is important to keep your intestines strong and well

balanced as the intestines of Americans are generally in terrible

shape due to too many calories, too much fat, and too many toxins

like excessive sweeteners, coffee and alcohol. These three

supplements taken together along with the next one will do wonders

for your intestinal health.

Another way to improve your intestinal health and help your

growth hormone levels as well is the inexpensive amino acid L-

glutamine. Taking a gram of this in the morning and a gram before bed

will do a lot for your intestines while spiking your growth hormone

levels. This does not permanently raise your growth hormone level all

day but does raise them for about two hours. Surgeons are actually

giving patients L-glutamine after intestinal surgery to help them

heal faster.

Flax oil is a much better source of omega-3 fatty acids than

fish liver oil for a variety of reasons. Try to purchase your flax

oil refrigerated and keep it refrigerated. We eat far too many omega-

6 fatty acids and far too few omega-3's as there are so few good

food sources of omega-3's. Valuable lignans are contained in flax oil

and this is less susceptible to oxidation than fish liver oils. This

is the best source of omega-3 fatty acids known and it is very

difficult to get omega-3s even on a macrobiotic diet. Taking a one

gram softgel every day will go far to balance the ratio of omega-6 to

omega-3 fatty acids in your system.

If you are concerned about arthritis be sure to take

glucosamine sulfate, but don't fall for the chondroitin promotion.

(The chondroitin molecule is too large to pass thru our intestinal

walls.) Glucosamine is an important building block in our joints and

cartilage but taking this by itself is not enough. This needs co-

factors such as vitamins D, E and K as well as sufficient minerals

and all trace elements. Vitamin D, for example, does not exist in our

food, but is made by our skin on exposure to sunlight. If you live in

the southern U.S. and spend time outdoors you would not need this. If

you live in the northern U.S. or spend most all your time indoors it

would be a good idea to take 400 IU a day or 800 IU if you are

elderly or ill. Vitamin K is the " forgotten vitamin " and you can take

80 mcg (that's micrograms) a day if you are not taking a multivitamin

that contains this much.

The most powerful immune stimulant known to science is not

exotic, outrageously priced bioengineered interferon alpha, but

rather a simple extract of yeast and mushrooms (1,3/1,6

configuration) or oats and barley (1,3/1,4 configuration) called beta

glucan. This has been known about for decades, but technology has not

been able to inexpensively extract it until about the year 2000.

Right now the yeast derived beta glucan is the strongest and least

expensive, and you can take 200 mg a day or 400 mg if you are elderly

or ill. The yeast proteins are nearly all removed in the processing

so you don't need to worry about yeast allergies. Please read my

book " What Is Beta Glucan? " (Safe Goods Pub.) to learn about the

proven benefits of this. Don't take the expensive maitake mushroom

extract or other preparations as they have very little beta glucan in

them.

It is unrealistic to think that you are going to eat enough

soy foods like soybeans, tofu, tempeh and the like to get any

realistic amount of isoflavones in your diet. Drinking a single

glass of soymilk daily will add more than 43,000 unnecessary

calories a year to your diet. Taking a 40 mg soy isoflavone

supplement is a practical way to get the valuable benefits of the

daidzein and genestein. These are not " phytoestrogens " no matter what

you have been told or what you have read- they are unrelated flavones

or plant pigments that have nothing whatsoever to do with estrogens.

Estrogen of any kind is only found in animals and not in plants; to

call isoflavones " phytoestrogens " is totally unscientific and very

contrary to fact no many how many times you read this.

An extract of cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower

and cabbage) called indole-3-carbinol or I3C was discovered to have

important anti-cancer properties and to lower and improve the

metabolism of estrogens in both men and women. This breaks down to di-

indolylmethane or DIM in our digestive system which is twice as

strong- and thus half the price. Find a 200 mg DIM supplement by

surfing the Internet as this may be difficult to find in stores or

catalogs at fair prices. Pay no more than $20 for 60 capsules of 200

mg each and be sure not to take any less than this as most all brands

contain much less.

Coenzyme Q10 or CoQ10 is a very important chemical in our

bodies and supplementing this after the age of 40 is very beneficial

in many ways. As we age the CoQ10 levels in our organs like our

hearts and brains fall severely. The research on this is stunning

especially for heart health, insulin regulation, healthy gums and

anti-cancer activity in general. It is a little pricey, but currently

you can find it for less than 50 cents a day and you need 100 mg a

day to do any good. If you are ill or elderly take 200 mg. This is a

very vital supplement to take and it should be emphasized this should

be a part of anyone's supplement program. A strong (0.5% to 1.0%)

CoQ10 cream can also be used topically on your face to effectively

lessen wrinkles and aging. Nearly all the commercial creams refuse to

state how much CoQ10 is contained in them because they contain almost

none. Read the label carefully.

Curcumin is an extract of the Indian cooking spice tumeric.

Find a supplement with 500 mg of actual curcumoids and do not buy

mere tumeric powder. This is a very powerful anti-inflammatory for

arthritis and rheumatism, and a powerful anti-oxidant with potent

anti-cancer properties. Curcumin is an ancient Ayurvedic remedy

known for thousands of years and there are good published clinical

studies on this as well.

Quercitin is another natural and very powerful anti-oxidant

with clinical research behind it. Quercitin has been known about for

a long time but has never been popular despite it's well proven

benefits. Find an inexpensive 250 mg to 500 mg supplement.

Maca root has been promoted for a long list of benfits

including sexual rejuvenation. The fact is this is not " Peruvian

Ginseng " but merely a fibrous turnip fed to livestock in South

America and I've been unable to find a single valid study to verify

any active ingredients of merit or any benefits whatsoever.

Noni juice is another well promoted " cure-all " without

scientific justification. I have been unable to find one single

clinical study to verify any use at all for this heavily advertised

South Pacific plant.

Green tea contains valuable polyphenols with many proven health

benefits including anti-cancer activity. Unfortunately green tea is

just regular old tea (Thea sinensis) before it is fermented to the

common black tea and contains caffeine. The same applies to bancha

twig tea. Find a decaffeinated brand of extract as it is not

reasonable to think you will drink several cups of decaf green tea

every day.

Silica is the " forgotten mineral " but science is more and

more coming to understand the important of this trace element. You

will rarely find this in your multivitamin and mineral supplement and

it is hard to find in natural food stores or catalogs. Do not fall

for the horsetail extract but simply surf the Internet for an

inexpensive brand of silica gel otherwise known as silicic acid. 10

mg is a reasonable dose. You'll hear more about this in the future as

this is vital for bone and joint health especially.

The macrobiotic diet has been criticized for the low calcium

intake. Defenders have replied with irrational replies about the

calcium content of certain macrobiotic foods. The fact is that

calcium is basically found in milk and dairy products and these

should not be eaten at all. People in Asia, Africa and other areas

who don't eat dairy products and eat far less calcium than we do have

much better bone and joint health than Europeans who have the highest

calcium intake on earth. If you feel the need to take calcium

supplements just take 600 to 800 mg and be sure to take magnesium

and boron with it as co-factors.

There are 16 minerals we are known to need. We seem to get

enough potassium, sodium, and phosphorous which leaves 13 you should

supplement. Unfortunately almost every single mineral supplement

doesn't contain or has insignificant amounts of magnesium, calciuim,

boron, vanadium, silicon, iron, selenium, chromium ,iodine,

molybdenum, zinc, manganese and copper. Others such as tin, cobalt

and strontium need more research. Avoid colloidal minerals as well as

coral minerals as they never list the amounts of individual minerals

contained, have no advantage over natural mineral salts and are

simply another commercial promotion. They contain completely

insignificant amounts of the dozens of minerals they claim to contain

as well as deadly poisons such as arsenic, cadmium and thallium.

Search the internet for a brand that has the proper amounts of all

thirteen of these in the amounts you need as nearly every single

mineral supplement currently sold is very defective.

Whole grains are an excellent source of magnesium. So why

consider a magnesium supplement? Because many people react very well

to taking a magnesium supplement of about 250 to 500 mg regardless of

sufficient dietary intake. Calcium cannot be absorbed without

magnesium and boron present for example. Women especially seem to

benefit from taking this for reproductive health and bone strength

among other benefits. If you are taking a vitamin mineral supplement

be sure it has 3 mg of boron in it. Boron is deficient in American

soils generally, deficient in our foods and therefore deficient in

our bodies. You cannot absorb calcium without magnesium boron. You

can also buy separate boron supplements. Even if you eat very well

you may not be getting enough boron in your food. And be sure to

include the other ten minerals you are known to need.

Aloe vera is an old standard because it works. This is well

known for topical use, but taking it internally can be good if you

have poor digestion, stomach ulcers, or blood sugar dys-metabolism.

It is also claimed to be good for immune enhance-ment. So this can be

considered a universal supplement for everyone. Very concentrated

200:1 powdered extracts in capsules are now sold inexpensively which

makes it easier to take than spoonfuls of refrigerated gel. Take 100

mg of a good extract.

Let's talk about vitamin C. The macrobiotic diet has been

criticized for the low amount of vitamin C. The reality is that the

recommended daily allowance is only 60 mg a day and you will get

enough eating green and yellow vegetables as well as local fruits in

moderation. Vitamin C is extremely yin and generally the only high

source of vitamin C is tropical foods especially tropical fruits and

Nightshade plants like tomatoes. Such foods are meant for people

living in those hot tropical areas. Foods grown in temperature

climates just do not have high levels of vitamin C as they aren't

needed. You do not need a vitamin C supplement and there is really no

reason to take one. If you feel for some reason you want one take no

more than 100 mg to 250 mg a day. Never consider taking large doses

of this no matter what nonsense you've read about the value of

megadoses. Linus ing was wrong and long term megadoses are very

debilitating and keep your blood acidified. This will only alter the

inherent alkalinity of your blood, lower your immunity and make you

sick and debilitated in the end. Please remember that people in

temperate climates have done just fine on the vitamin C in their

local foods for thousand of years before very recently when

transportation advances allowed us to ship tropical fruits to the

colder climates.

A popular criticism of vegetarian and macrobiotic diets is

the lack of vitamin B-12 since this is only found in animal foods.

Therefore supplements of B-12 are recommended especially for children

and babies. Do you really think Nature is so inept as to forget to

put vitamin B-12 into vegetable foods? Or that we're supposed to eat

red meat just to get vitamin B12? Do you really think logical,

rational science is more intelligent than the Infinite Forces of the

universe? Did you ever notice that all the countless millions of pure

vegetarians in the world for thousands of years have never had a

problem with this? Such people as strict Hindu vegetarians have lived

healthfully for thousands of years never touching a food of animal

origin. Doesn't that answer any questions about needing B-12

supplements? We make our own B-12 in our intestines every day and

when we eat well we always have enough of it.

Chapter 12: Tropical and Nightshade Foods

The macrobiotic philosophy has always been the only way of

eating to warn against Nightshade vegetables also known as the

Solanaciae family botanically. This includes potatoes, tomatoes

(botanically a fruit), eggplants and most peppers, belladonna, Jimson

weed and tobacco. You can see this family includes delerium inducing,

toxic and deadly plants. These vegetables contain harmful

glycoalkaloids especially solanine and chaconine. The average

American eats enough solanine alone every year to kill a family of

four if it was eaten all at once. Why do so few diet authors not

understand Nightshade vegetables should be excluded from our diet

due to these harmful alkaloids?

Green skinned potatoes are so dangerous they are unsafe to

eat because of the very high level of alkaloids. Potato sprouts also

contain equally dangerous amounts. Potatoes can range widely in

alkaloid content but about 12 mg per 100 g serving is typical. Some

varieties contain up to 30 mg per 100 g serving.

Have you noticed all the Caucasian developed countries seem

to live off meat and potatoes? Americans, Canadian, English, Scotch,

Welsh, Irish, Germans, French, Swiss, Austrian, Australians and New

Zealanders all love potatoes and use them as a major staple in their

diet. Americans are estimated to eat over 60 kg a year which comes to

about 170 grams per day. Mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, the

ubiquitous French fry, hash browns, potato pancakes, potato chips,

and potato salad. Why this love affair with a mere tuber other than

the fact it is inexpensive, easy to grow and very versatile? The

Asian countries did not eat potatoes until very recently and still

do not embrace them.

The tomato for centuries was considered an ornamental plant

unfit to eat. We should have retained that native wisdom and kept

them for decoration. It is only recently that Americans started to

eat large amounts of tomatoes and tomato products especially canned

ones. In addition to solanine it also contains the glycoalkaloid

tomatine which has similar toxic effects. This is not native to

America and was introduced over two hundred years ago. Tomatoes are

one of the top ten known allergenic foods. Many people break out if

they eat them, yet millions of tons are eaten every year in ketchup,

pasta sauce, pizza and other foods. Southern Italy is the major

country to make a cult of the tomato. Nearly all natural diet authors

include tomatoes as a regular staple as they just don't understand

about Solanum vegetables and the harmfulness of these alkaloids. If

you ate just one tomato a day for a year the solanine in them would

actually kill an entire family if ingested all at once.

Eggplants (Solanun melongena) are just not very popular and

never have been fortunately. The amount of solanine varies but

typically is about 8 mg per 100 g serving ranging from about 6 to 11

mg.

Peppers (Capsicum family) including bell peppers are very

popular in America but contain similar amounts of solanine of about 8

mg per 100 g serving. They can only be used occasionally and in small

amounts. This does not include black pepper but that should be

avoided for other reasons.

One major reason for the epidemic of arthritis and rheumatism

we have is our intake of solanine alkaloids. These do accumulate in

our tissues over time. Many studies have shown the effect of

Nightshade vegetables on joint inflammation in both lab animals and

humans. Many people have gotten dramatic relief from taking these out

of their diet completely. A very good article was in the Journal of

Neurological and Orthopedic Medical Surgery in 193 (vol. 12, p. 227-

31) with a long list of references.

Solanine poisoning has effects we still do not know about,

but the known ones include nausea, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, coma,

fever, headache, weak pulse, delerium, rapid breathing and

hallucinations. There have been recorded incidents of mass poisoning

in Europe earlier in this century when poor people ate large amounts

of potatoes as they had no other food to eat.

Macrobiotic philosophy was about the only system of eating to

tell people in temperate climates not to eat tropical foods. Why

haven't the other diet authors understood this rather obvious fact?

Foods grown in tropical areas are extremely yin to balance their

extremely yang environment. Nature has a pattern here and the foods

that grow in hot, tropical climates like mangoes, bananas, citrus

fruit, avocadoes, and coconuts are meant for the indigenous peoples

in those areas to adapt to such a climate. If you would feed an

Eskimo such foods they would sicken and quickly die. Or if you fed

someone in Southern India nothing but fish, whale and seal meat and

fat they would also sicken and die quickly.

The situation gets much more confusing when people of

European descent move to tropical areas to live rather than merely

visit. Or when people from Africa, the Philippines or Southern India

move to temperate climates to make their home. All these people are

going against the order of the universe and not harmonizing their

genetics with their environment. Take people of African descent for

example. In Africa there really is very little typical western

disease like colon cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate

cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis and heart

attack. African men and women who live in America and Europe have

stratospheric rates of all these diseases from an environment and

diet not meant for their genetics. The same is true for Europeans who

move to tropical climates. There are no easy answers for these

people. Our bodies are a microcosm of the universe and we also are

microcosms of the environment we live in.

The point is to eat foods that grow in temperate climates and

avoid foods that grow in tropical climates. is Carrel in his

book, " Man, the Unknown " writes, " Man is literally made from the dust

of the earth. For this reason, his physiological and mental

activities are profoundly influenced by the geological constitution

of the country where he lives, by the nature of the animals and

plants he eats. " We are healthier, stronger and in tune with the

universal laws when we eat the food in our environment that was given

to us by Nature to be appropriate. The United States in recent years

has a very high consumption of various citrus fruits and citrus juice

for example. Orange juice for breakfast is an American tradition.

Citrus fruits are plentiful, inexpensive and widely consumed- and

contribute very much to the bad health of our country. This is

especially true when they are eaten in the winter time which is very

yin.

Have you ever noticed that vitamin C is basically only found

in any quantity in tropical fruits (also in the Nightshade fruit

tomatoes) like mangoes, papayas, citrus fruits and the like? These

fruits are meant for the indigenous peoples of hot tropical areas and

they need more vitamin C than we do. There is very sufficient vitamin

C in the fresh green and yellow vegetables we eat in temperature

climates and we have no need at all to eat tropical fruits or take

vitamin C supplements. In fact this can be counterproductive as this

is a very yin vitamin and tends to acidify our normally alkaline

blood. Since citrus fruit is very inexpensive and available year

round this has become a staple in American culture. When people have

a cold or flu they actually are told to drink more orange and

grapefruit juice which just makes them worse of course.

There is a third group of foods to be cautious of and that is

the oxylate group. Most common vegetables contain small amounts of

oxalic acid, but these foods contain higher quantities than other

vegetables and should only be eaten occasionally. Oxalic acid binds

with minerals especially calcium and iron to form urinary stones.

Vegetables such as Swiss chard, spinach, sorrel, amaranth, rhubarb,

beet leaves, parsley, purslane, chives and cassava root contain high

amounts of oxalic acid that contribute to poor health if eaten daily.

These foods can be eaten occasionally in small amounts but not

regularly.

Avocadoes are a popular fruit because of the very high

(78%) fat content. One cup of California avocado contains a whopping

407 calories four fifths of which are from fat- 36 grams of fat. Most

vegetarians eat many tropical fruits such as avocadoes regularly and

this is one reason vegetarianism as practiced does not work very well-

there is no understanding of the Order of the Universe. You' find

most vegetarians tend to be sugar addicts and eat large amounts of

sweet tropical fruits such as mangoes and bananas and " natural "

sweeteners such as honey thinking these are good for them. Sugar is

sugar is sugar and all simple mono- and disaccharides have the same

basic deleterious effects on us when eaten in any quantity.

Chapter 13: Exercise

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" The sovereign invigerator of the body is exercise, and of

all the exercises walking is the best. " – Jefferson

Surprisingly traditional macrobiotics did not stress

exercise. People in poor Third World countries usually have to do

manual labor and walk many miles a day just to stay alive. In the

developed countries of the world people actually have to go to

swimming pools, gymnasiums and health clubs, tennis courts and other

places to get exercise. Unfortunately most people in America just

don't bother. Even if you enjoy skiing, tennis, soccer, basketball,

softball and other sports you just aren't going to get regular year

round workouts from these kinds of activities. You can choose aerobic

exercise (the kind that makes you pant) or resistance exercise

(weight training) or, ideally, a combination of both. Many runners,

for example, have poor upper body strength while many weight trainers

have poor aerobic capacity. Most people have jobs, children and

endless responsibilities that leave little time or energy for

exercise even if it is just walking the dog every night. Yet a third

type of exercise is internal and expressed in such disciplines as

aikido, tai chi and chi gong which are meditative and spiritual in

nature.

The best overall exercise is simply walking briskly at a pace

of about four miles an hour. Just a half hour of walking a day will

keep you in shape, but a whole hour would be ideal. Walking will do

wonders for you physically as well as mentally. A daily walk will

lower your blood pressure, help relieve stress, suppress appetite,

help you lose weight beyond merely burning calories, circulates your

blood and improves blood parameters, stimulates digestion, relaxes

you, helps you sleep better, improves your appearance, prevents

coronary heart disease, lowers your cholesterol and gives you a

wonderful time to reflect on your life and deal with your everyday

situations.The other aerobic exercise is jogging, but most people

simply don't enjoy this. Jogging can have side effects such as shin

splints, bone spurs, runner's knee (inflammation), foot stress mini-

fractures and swelling of the Achille's tendon; so be careful if you

choose this.

Resistance exercise or weight training is for both men and

women, especially ones over the age of 30. Women gain strength and

tone while men gain strength and size. Strength training raises your

level of " beta-endorphins " which make you feel good all the time,

diminishes or eliminates mood swings and prevents or stops

depression. Doing 50 sets of weights twice a week is enough to keep

anyone in top shape and this can be done in a mere half hour

with " circuit training " . Circuit training is just doing one exercise

after another with only about fifteen seconds of resting between

sets. You can learn to do 50 sets in just 15 minutes this way.

Circuit training is also aerobic.

Which brings up the epidemic of osteoporosis especially among

women but also in men. It is very difficult to rebuild bone once it

is lost no matter how good your diet, supplement program and hormone

profile. It is far, far easier to prevent osteoporosis. Resistance

exercise stresses your bones and tells them to be stronger. This is

one reason poor people in Third World countries have much stronger

bones and less bone and joint disease- they have to work hard

physically and put stress on their bones all throughout their lives.

Did you know that professional athletes such as football and

baseball and basketball players actually live shorter lives and

suffer from more ills than most of us? One reason is they only stay

conditioned for a short period in their life and this is not a

lifelong lifestyle. Another reason is most of them eat high protein,

high fat, high sugar diets based on meat, poultry, eggs and dairy

products.

You can never be slim, trim, fit, feel good and stay youthful

all your life without some kind of regular exercise. Admittedly we

live in a technological society where most of us work with our minds

rather than our hands. Find the kind of exercise you enjoy and stay

with it the rest of your life.

Chapter 14: Fats and Oils

____________________________________________________

It is important that you eat a low fat diet for many

reasons. There are only three sources of calories- carbohydrates at

5 calories per gram, proteins at 5 calories and fats at 9 calories.

Fats of all kinds contain almost twice the calories of carbohydrates

or proteins. Since you will not be eating red meat, poultry, eggs,

milk or dairy products it is really quite easy to keep your fat

calorie intake down to 10 or 15 per cent. 20 per cent is the very

maximum and there is no reason to eat that much. Please do not think

that vegetables oils are somehow " good for you " , as unsaturated

vegetable oils are simply less harmful than saturated animal fats.

Clinical studies have shown that sometimes vegetable oils can promote

cancer cell growth every bit as well as the saturated fats. Saturated

fats are only found in animal foods and palm and coconut oils are

actually not saturated at all since they are liquid in the hot

tropical areas they are native to. The fats in fish and seafood are

not harmful in moderation and do not raise your cholesterol and

triglyceride levels.

You actually do not need any vegetable oil in your kitchen

and many native peoples simply do not use this in their food

preparation. You can use oils in moderation for stir frying, baking,

salad dressing and other limited uses. What oils are good for general

use? All the oils you see in the grocery store are generally heavily

refined and heated to high temperatures and filtered to make them

clear and more appealing visually. Virgin olive oil is about the only

exception. The cold pressed oils in the natural food store are quite

pricey. You are getting very little nutrition from oil anyway, so in

this sense it just doesn't matter very much. Also any solvents that

are used to extract oil are boiled off basically. It is your choice

whether to buy grocery store oils or natural food store oils, but in

either case use as little as possible. Corn oil is a fine choice

especially since it comes from grain. Safflower and sunflower oils

are both good choices. Sesame oil is good but just too expensive for

general use. Toasted sesame or " dark sesame " oil is an excellent

condiment for Asian dishes. Olive oil is a good choice but it is

not " good for you " no matter what you have read. Soy oil does not

taste good unless it has been very heavily refined. Peanut oil comes

from one of the top ten allergenic foods and is not a good choice at

all. Cottonseed oil is purely a commercial byproduct of the cotton

industry and was never meant for human consumption. This is a

favorite oil for hydrogenation since it is the least expensive edible

oil. Walnut, avocado, pumpkin seed, almond and other gourmet oils

make nice specialty oils but are very, very expensive and have

limited use. Avoid anything that has the generic

description " vegetable oil " or " vegetable oil blend " as you can count

on the fact this is a cheap cottonseed oil. Palm and coconut oil are

tropical foods and should be eaten by tropical people living in their

native climates.

They are all right for occasional use though.

Canola oil needs a separate mention. The name comes

from " Canadian oil " and the source is the rapeseed (Latin for rapa or

turnip). This is promoted in the natural foods industry as a healthy

oil to use when it certainly is not. Canola oil by law must contain

less than 2% of the toxic erucic acid that is naturally contained in

it. For many years rapeseed oil could only be fed to farm animals or

used in industrial applications because of the high erucic acid

content. This is a major crop in the cold Canadian climate and the

farmers genetically engineered this over the years to make

it " acceptable " for human use. This was never meant for human

consumption and no amount of genetic engineering will make it so. Do

not buy or use products with canola oil no matter how promoted they

are in the so-called natural foods industry. The fact that the entire

natural food industry is promoting this as a healthy choice tells you

a lot about the people in it and their real motivations.

Americans eat the most fat of anyone one earth (except

Eskimos who have a very short lifespan and live under the most

primitive of conditions). On the average people in America eat an

astounding 42% fat calories and most of these are from animal fats.

Five times the amount of fats we need.

Macrobiotic people have cholesterol levels of about 150, low

triglyceride levels and excellent HDL to LDL ratios. Total

cholesterol is an excellent predictor of life span. They also have

very low cancer rates as you can see by the following charts on

breast and prostate cancer.

Men with very low fat intake, especially animal fats, rarely get

prostate disease of any kind.

TAKE THE BREAST CANCER CHART FROM PAGE 3

AND PUT IT HERE (page " 3 " is before page 37)

Chapter 15: Curing the Incurable

____________________________________________________

" Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know

little, to cure diseases of which they know less, to human beings of

which they know nothing. " - Voltaire

What is it that distinguishes the macrobiotic diet from the

countless other diets that are all claimed to be the best for us?

What proof is there that eating whole grains, beans and vegetables as

our basic foods is really the ideal way of eating? Why should we put

any faith in books such as this one?

It's very simple…what other way of eating allows one to cure

themself of " incurable " diseases such as various cancers, diabetes,

epilepsy, atherosclerosis and other such illnesses that allopathic

medicine can only cover up with palliatives? Remember that it is not

diet that cures disease but rather that our bodies cure themselves.

Healthy diet allows our own healing powers to cure illness. It is

common and everyday in macrobiotic circles to talk about people who

have cured different kinds of cancer in less than a year. Or people

who were living on insulin to have normal blood sugar levels after

two years of eating natural foods in the macrobiotic tradition. Talk

to someone who was afflicted with epilepsy and was on brain deadening

seizure medication who is now healthy and clear minded after a few

years of this lifestyle.

Every year cancer becomes more common and now one in three

people will end up with cancer before they die. There will never be

a " cure " for cancer as the real cure has always been to be in harmony

with natural laws. The phoney " War on Cancer " has done nothing but

waste money on allopathic studies, and the cancer survival rates have

only worsened as well as the cancer occurrence rates. This is

neither random nor caused by events beyond our control. Certainly

there are genetic and environmental influences, but our diet and

lifestyle are the basic causes. Diseases are a wake-up call from

Nature to change our direction. This is not a " war " or a " fight " at

all as we so often hear. Americans eat twice the calories we need,

five times the fat we need, twice the protein we need, 125 pounds of

sugars we don't need at all, God knows how much coffee, alcohol and

cigarettes, plus an endless variety of refined foods full of

chemicals, preservative, addititves and colorings. And then we wonder

why we have such high rates of disease? Everyone who has chosen to

take this path should definitely take the time to read some classic

books. Satarillo was a medical doctor who was dying of

pancreatic cancer and believed only in dogmatic allopathic medicine.

He completely turned his view around and cured himself and wrote the

book " Recalled by Life " .

Milenka Dobic had stage IV ovarian cancer which had already

metastasized into her liver and lymph system. She was only given a

few months to live. Milenka had a husband and daughter and was just

too young to die. She was ready to go thru the usual surgery,

radiation and chemotherapy until she met women in her doctors waiting

room who were barely alive after going thru this. She saw the living

hell they were suffering and felt death would be preferable. Somehow

even in Yugoslavia she found out about macrobiotics and immediately

changed her way of life. She and her family started eating whole

grains, beans and vegetables instead of meats, chicken, potatoes,

eggs, milk and dairy products. Her health kept improving and within

two years she was cancer free.She wanted to share her experience with

the world and wrote the book " My Beautiful Life " .

Dirk Benedict was a famous, rich and happy actor who got prostate

cancer in his thirties and decided he wanted to live rather than be

butchered, irradiated and poisoned. In less than a year he was well

and wrote " Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy " . He is now in his

fifties, alive, youthful, charismatic, creative and the father of two

handsome sons.

Elaine Nussbaum was a Jewish housewife who thought the sun rose and

set on medical doctors. She let them literally destroy her when she

got cancer until she was at the brink of death. She refused to die

and got well within two years and wrote " Recovery from Cancer " . She

was diagnosed with advanced uterine cancer and given twenty radium

treatments as well as a radium implant. She then had both her uterus

and ovaries removed. Then she went on to chemotherapy. Her vertebrae

in her back started collapsing and she became addicted to pain

medications to the point they no longer worked. She then got cancer

of the spine and both lungs and got ten more radium treatments for a

total of thirty exposures. She went on to more chemotherapy and then

to antibiotics and numerous blood transfusions as she could no longer

stop bleeding. She was taking over three dozen pills a day now. Near

death and complete collapse she read " Recalled by Life " and changed

the entire course of her life. She started eating macrobiotic food

and within two years was cancer free and gaining strength. She went

on to live, write her book and become a dietary counselor to others.

There are many thousands of people who have read these books

and cured themselves of all manner of " incurable " illnesses and never

wrote a book and you'll never hear of them. I have been fortunate

enough to work with men with prostate cancer for years now who just

did not want to end up as the living dead. They saw no reason to be

technically alive as suffering zombies. They choose to change their

lifestyle and the food they ate. Every one of them who made any kind

of sincere attempt to cure themselves was well within less than a

year; there were no failures except the ones who didn't have the

faith to change their lives and went to the medical doctors for their

allopathic treatments.

Diabetes is another epidemic and can be cured by taking all

sugars out of your diet including fresh fruit, fruit juices, dried

fruit and any sweeteners whatsoever. Have you noticed how uncommon

diabetes is in Asia generally especially in the countryside? The same

is true in the African and Latin countries generally. If you are on

oral or injected insulin you can gradually wean yourself from this.

In 2003 I will write a book, " The Natural Diabetes Cure " . Refined

grains and high fat intake are other causes of this besides the

extreme sugar intake of modern people. With diabetes you cannot fast

even for one day. You can keep going for longer and longer periods of

time between eating until you can go a full day comfortably without

any food and without any side effects. Continue to fast one day a

week but do not do this until you can do it without discomfort.

What " incurable " illness do you have? There is no reason you

cannot heal yourself and be well if you truly want to live. There are

two reservations that should be mentioned- AIDS and radiation

poisoning since they are both manmade and not natural diseases. AIDS

is the product of genetic bioengineering from military laboratories

and not from " green monkeys " in Africa. HIV positive people who have

adopted a macrobiotic lifestyle went on to live their lives never

progressing to AIDS. Once AIDS takes over you can live longer and

better but there is no cure. There is no concentrated radiation

anywhere on the face of the earth and this is a product of

technology. Pritikin died of radiation induced cancer after he

received radium treatments when he was younger. He lived a much

longer time with a far higher quality of life by following his own

advice- the Pritikin Diet- which was very close to macrobiotics. Once

exposed to excessive doses of radiation you can only mollify the

effects.

Alzheimers disease is something that can definitely be prevented by a

macrobiotic lifestyle, but once it takes hold there is no cure for it

either. The emphasis here is that it CAN be prevented and you can be

insured and protected against ever coming down with it by following

the principles of natural diet, natural supplements and hormone

balance. This is an illness that has only occurred in the last two

centuries basically and was non-existent before this; Alzheimers is

clearly different from common senility. The Journal of the American

Medical Assoiciation in 1991 (volume 265, page 313) said that

Alzheimers had increased a full thirteen times in the last ten years.

It has gotten worse since then. It is quite distinct from classic

dementia and we have not figured out what has caused this very recent

epidemic. Aluminum is indicated but may simply be a symptom rather

than a cause.

This is a good place to talk about allergenic foods. I've found that

milk and dairy is the number one allergenic food due to the lactose

content. The other top allergens are citrus fruit, chocolate, coffee,

alcohol, poultry, eggs, strawberries, Nightshade vegetables

(potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants and peppers) and peanuts. Any simple

sugars including all fruits are bad for people with candida yeast

syndrome. Unfortunately a few people are allergic to fish and

seafood. It is popular to say that wheat, corn and soy are among the

top allergens but this doesn't seem to work that way in the real

world. We do not know how to diagnose allergies however and the

current tests that claim to do so simply do not work no matter what

their assertions. When we are able to diagnose which foods are

compatible for each individual a new day will dawn on natural

medicine.

Chapter 16: What to Drink

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The best drink in the world is pure water. Nothing is more

delicious when you're thirsty than good well or spring water.

Distilled water is not how Nature produces it, but it is an accept-

able drink. If you do not have well water you can buy inexpensive and

very effective water filters for your drinking and cooking needs. The

inexpensive ceramic filter models work very well.

It is surprising to many people to learn that we should only drink

when we are thirsty. We should only drink when we need to drink, when

we have a true thirst. We never have a false thirst for water like

we have a false thirst for food. Many dietary advocates advise

drinking literally quarts of water per day whether you are thirsty or

not. Do not listen to this. This drink-as-much-as-you-can theory is

very harmful, " drink eight glasses a day " . The proponents go on the

theory you can flush your kidneys out like sewer pipes. Quite the

opposite is true in that the more you drink the less efficiently your

kidneys operate. Your kidneys are not like the plumbing system in

your house. Kidneys filter, absorb and diffuse and thus cannot be

overloaded with water they don't want nor need. Drinking when you're

not thirsty overworks them so they can't do what they are designed to

do. When you drink too much the kidney cells close up so water can

barely pass thru and the large intestine in desperation feeds water

to the bladder to be passed out without removing the toxins from your

system. This leaves the toxins in your body.

Have you ever noticed, for example, people who drink a lot of

beer or soft drinks? They urinate a lot but they only urinate

colorless water basically with very little toxins being removed from

the body. Unlike the hunger instinct when we often eat when we're

really not hungry, the feeling of thirst is always a true one. We

never feel thirsty unless we really need water. ONLY DRINK WHEN

THIRSTY and never drink if you are not thirsty. Your urine should

never be cloudy but rather clear with a deep yellow color to show

that lots of toxins are contained in it. It is very difficult to

drink when you're not thirsty. It goes against our very instincts to

drink when we don't need to drink. It is said that men should

urinate three times a day and women only twice. There is a point here

in that men do urinate more than women, but we definitely should not

be passing urine five, six or more times a day. This clearly

indicates kidney problems.

Salt intake is most important. Traditional macrobiotics

includes too much salt with all the miso, shoyu, gomashio, and

pickled vegetables. Salt is necessary and is good for us in small

amounts, but avoid high intakes of salt even in summer when you work

outside. Excess salt causes edema (water retention) which unbalances

and strains the body when all the excess sodium is excreted in the

perspiration and urine. Avoid an overconsumption of salt or your body

will swell up with water to absorb it.

Coffee is a toxin with not only caffeine, but many other alkaloids,

oils and chemicals. Coffee is a national addiction currently and it

can be very insidious and hard to stop. Decafffeinated coffee is half

as bad as regular coffee and not acceptable at all. The clinical

research proves that drinking coffee regularly is extremely harmful

in many ways and predisposes us to many illnesses. Yes, coffee is

most enjoyable, inexpensive, legal, available everywhere, popular and

can actually help you to work harder and work better. The price you

pay for all this is simply too high however. Coffee is an insidiuous

addiction that can be almost impossible for some people to stop.

Milk was discussed in Chapter 6. Milk is never suitable even the low

fat, non-fat, lactose reduced or when taken with lactase tablets. No

adult of any race produces the enzyme lactase after the age of 5 and

all people are lactose intolerant. If the lactose simply passed thru

your system undigested this wouldn't be a problem- but it doesn't.

Soymilk has about 120 calories per cup, which adds an impressive

43,000 calories per year to your dietary intake. Beer is full of

alcohol and the less alcohol you drink the better your health will

be. Non-alcoholic beer at least is a better choice. Soft drinks no

matter how " natural " or new age are full of various sweeteners,

especially fructose, and all sugars are sugars regardless of their

source. Fruit juices are full of simple sugars and simply are no

better than soft drinks. Do you really think a glass of fruit juice

with a full ounce of sugar per 12 ounce serving is any different at

all from a cola drink with the same amount of sugar? It isn't at all.

Artificially sweetened drinks are much worse than real

sugars and a new artificial sweetener is introduced every few years

with endless guarantees of its safety. Every one of these artificial

non-caloric sweeteners has eventually been found to be toxic and

unsafe. The newest one claims to be, " made from sugar, tastes like

sugar " . The truth is this is a synthetic laboratory toxin halogenated

with chlorine to replace the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms. New

gimmicks are always being contrived such as stevia herb and lo han

fruit. There's no way around this folks- you have to severely limit

sweets, as they are all extremely yin when used regularly. You'll get

used to this very soon.

Traditional macrobiotics is also against ice and iced drinks.

If you want to put ice in your water or drink it ice cold just sip it

slowly as to not shock your stomach. People who gulp ice cold drinks

down on a hot day often get a stomach cramp that will drop them to

their knees. You just don't need ice in your drinks.

You'll notice when you fast that you hardly drink at all.

When you fast you may only drink two cups of water a day. When you

eat less and only eat two small meals a day you drink less. When you

add very little salt to your food you'll notice you drink very

little. When you eat a lot of salty food like sushi dipped in soy

sauce you'll notice an inordinate thirst for several hours and then

excessive urination to rid yourself of the extra sodium. The body

balances itself very well, but we have to be careful not to go to

excesses that disturb this equilibrium and use too much energy to

maintain balance. Drink pure water as your main drink, drink as

little as possible and do not use excess salt which causes

unnecessary thirst and imbalance. Thirst caused from heavy exercise

and hard work is beneficial for us as the water is lost thru

perspiration and toxins are excreted very well by the skin (our

largest organ).

Some people will think they are missing nutrients by not

drinking fruit juice. As you saw in the " Fruits and Sugars " chapter

fruits and fruit juice have very little and very limited nutrition.

There is as much or even more sugar in fruit juices than commercial

soft drinks. A typical can of cola drink contains about 40 grams of

sugars, but many fruit juices contain 48 grams or a full 20% more

than colas. All regular sugars are " natural " and they are all just as

harmful in excess. Sugar is sugar is sugar and all simple sugars are

harmful in excess. Once you get off your sugar addiction you'll find

that undiluted fruit juices are simply too sweet and cloying. If you

want to drink a fruit juice occasionally just use one part juice and

three parts water.

What about teas? The term " tea " really refers to Thea

sinensis the traditional tea plant. Black tea is the fermented green

tea leaf that most people drink including the Chinese and the English

and what you buy in bags in the grocery store. Green tea is the

unfermented leaf the Japanese drink, but this, unfortunately, is full

of caffeine. You can buy decaffeinated green tea very easily and this

is a good choice. Bancha (kukicha) tea is promoted in traditional

macrobioitcs as a healthful beverage, but is full of caffeine despite

the fact is is a product of roasted tea plant twigs. There is no

doubt that caffeine is a poison. Why would nature give us a drink

that is full of caffeine and must be decaffeintated? If this concerns

you then don't drink tea at all. The science on the polyphenols and

cathechins in green tea is undeniable on the other hand. Here we have

no easy answers. Mu tea is promoted in traditional macrobiotics as

some kind of traditional panacea but is simply an overpriced,

traditional drink with no real health benefits.

What about guarana and yerba mate? These are better

alternatives to coffee certainly, but are both full of caffeine-like

drugs. Americans are looking for energy drinks understandably, but to

resort to using a legal stimulant like caffeine regularly can never

be part of a health lifestyle. Because a drink is " traditional and

used by primitive cultures does not make it healthful at all.

There are many herbal teas available, but most of these

contain herbs that may be incompatible with your individual

biochemistry. Use ones make from mint, citrus peel, berry leaves,

chicory root and other mild ingredients. One answer is to buy herbal

tea bags but only use one bag per 1.5 quart (six cups) teapot. To use

one tea bag dilutes this down to amounts that are pretty much

biologically insignificant yet still very tasty.

Drink good water. Keep a bottle of water in your car. Drink

water when you eat out or socialize. Drink water when you travel.

Drink water with your meals. This is the very best drink for you.

Chapter 17: Everyday Eating

____________________________________________________

There is just no reason to eat three meals a day. Eating two

meals a day makes life much simpler as Thoreau suggested when he

said, " simplify, simplify, simplify. " Eating two meals a day makes it

far easier to cook, to eat well, to make good food choices, to limit

your caloric intake while not being hungry, and to not eat out

regularly. Ideally a snack in the morning and just one main meal is

the best way to live, but it usually takes years to achieve this and

still really enjoy yourself.

One important tenet in eating well is to avoid eating out as

much as possible. Take your lunch to work definitely. Either eat

breakfast at home and skip lunch or take your own food. Take some

food with you when you go out instead of buying it. The best places

to eat are generally Asian restaurants- Thai, Korean, Chinese,

Japanese and Vietnamese and the white rice is not a problem as you'll

only be doing this occasionally. You'll find that whenever you go out

to eat you end up eating something you shouldn't and wouldn't be

eating at home. Buffets can be quite good with a wide selection of

various fresh vegetables and salads. Mexican restaurants usually have

vegetarian dishes but ask that i cheese not be added to them. Indian

restaurants have a tradition of vegetarianism but avoid the dairy

products. Latin restaurants such as Cuban usually have a tradition of

rice and beans with various vegetables. Vegetarian restaurants are

usually only found in larger cities.

This way of eating and drinking should be FUN and not dull,

boring, bland or restrictive. When you see the very wide range of

healthy, delicious, whole natural grains, beans, green and yellow

vegetables, seafoods, salads and local fruits that are included you

do not feel limited at all. While the Asians in general are the best

vegetable cooks this is only one type of general cuisine. You can

modify many Indian, Northern Italian, French, Mexican, Latin, Cuban,

Mediterranean, Mideastern and South American recipes so they are in

tune with universal principles. Go get some cookbooks from your local

library and get some new ideas on how to cook and season the normal

foods you already eat in new ways.

What about babies? It is simply unbelievable that less than

half the mothers in America nurse their babies by choice. A very few

are physically unable to nurse, which speaks about their condition of

health and why they were not physically fit to give birth. Babies

should be fed human milk, as this is obviously what is meant for

them. If an acceptable healthy wet nurse can be found this will

suffice. Under no circumstances should babies be fed cow or goat

milk, which was meant for animals. These have such a different

constitution as to be unacceptable. If you cannot find human milk for

your baby feed it a combination of various grain and seed milks. Do

NOT simply feed it soy milk as this is too restrictive and the

isoflavone content would be extreme. Give your baby a variety of soy,

rice, oat and almond milks. This will not equal human milk, but will

be nutritionally sound and is infinitely better than cow or other

animal milk. The fact that two thirds of Americans were weaned on

cow milk is frightening and the results are reflected in our present

society that is so far away from following natural laws. Clinical

studies comparing breast fed people to those raised on cow milk show

better heatlh, higher I.Q., stronger immunity and other benefits in

the breast fed ones.

Since you will only be eating two meals a day life is going

to be much simpler. Would you rather not eat breakfast or not eat

lunch? Or you can vary this day to day depending on your mood.

Since working people often have so little time in the morning and are

so hurried it might be better to eat only lunch and dinner. If you do

prefer to eat breakfast make it very light with whole grain cold

cereal and non-dairy milk, or hot whole grain cereal, whole grain

bread and herbal tea. Soy milk contains about 120 calories so this

isn't necessary as a beverage as this would add over 800 calories a

week. Regular tea is full of caffeine and coffee is not part of a

healthy lifestyle. It is a good idea to take your own lunch to work

every day for a lot of reasons. A good lunch would include brown

rice or other grain, a green or yellow vegetable, a thermos of hot

soup, fresh salad, or bread. You can learn to make very interesting

sandwiches without meat, poultry or dairy. Most offices have

facilties for people who bring their lunch and you can eat a much

more delicious meal from home than eating in a restaurant.Dinner

should be the main meal of the day. A grain should be your principal

food of course. A good dinner would not be very different with a

grain or whole wheat pasta, beans, a green or yellow vegetable, some

seafood if desired and bread, soup or salad. The idea of dessert is

mostly a western one. Temporarily you can fix macrobiotic desserts

but only as a transition. Enjoy a piece of local fruit especially in

warm climates and in summer if you feel the need for something

sweet. You will be surprised at how little you can eat and feel

completely satisfied. Do not snack between meals or after dinner.

Never eat after dinner as your stomach should be empty when you go to

bed.

Some people may ask " why cook our foods " ? You'll notice

animals do not naturally eat cooked foods and cooking our food is one

thing that has given man freedom and independence. Fire is one of the

four primordial elements (earth, wind and water being the other

three) and is basic to preparing our food. It seems to escape the

advocates of a raw food diet that we're not animals and aren't

limited to raw foods. Cooking is necessary for such things as grains

and beans. Heat transforms our food and makes it more digestible.

When you steam or stir fry vegetables they keep most all of their

nutrition. Cooking is very yang and changes the very nature of our

food. If you look at people who have been on a raw food diet for any

length of time you'll see they are pale, weak, sickly, have poor

immunity and bad skin. Their choice of foods is also very limited.

Usually they are sugar addicts and eat a lot of fruit juice, dried

fruit, tropical fruit and sweeteners of various kinds. They are far

too yin which you can see reflected in their poor judgement and way

of life. Cooking is a divine art, a sacred ceremony and the kitchen

is the center of the home. Use the magic of fire to change the very

quality of your food.

There are no cookbooks recommended here. The macrobiotic

cookbooks are pretty plain, uninteresting and uncreative being based

on Japanese culture and not the universal cuisines of the world. Go

to your local library and get cookbooks from around the world and use

them to create interesting, varied, creative and delicious meals

without watering down the health benefits of macrobiotics. Chinese is

generally the best and there are five different regional styles to

choose from. Often you need make no changes at all in the recipes.

Indian food uses too much fenugreek, pepper, cumin, hot chiles,

mustard, coconut milk, cardamon, tamarind, cayenne and other

stimulating tropical spices for regular meals. Burmese, Mongolian,

Filipino are exotic, different and interesting. Southern Italian

cooking uses too much tomatoes and dairy cheese and it is very hard

to substitute for tomatoes. Northern Italian cooking uses too much

meat and dairy cheese. Thai cooking uses too many tropical spices

like hot chiles, curries (different from Indian curry), serrano

peppers and coconut milk for regular use. Vietnamese cooking offers

many possibilities with only small changes. Korean has potential but

is the least healthiest of all Asian cooking styles. Cajun cooking

has little to offer due to it's highly spicey nature and use of

animal foods and fats. Eastern European cooking is very meat and

dairy oriented and uses many nightshade vegetables. Classical

Northern European (English, Welsh, Irish, ish, German, Austrian)

cooking is a meat and potatoes diet by tradition. When is the last

time you saw a Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish or Swiss

restaurant? French country cooking is infinitely better than the high

fat classic French and has some real potential. Latin, Central and

South American cooking offers possibilities when whole grains are

used and tropical fruits and nightshade vegetables are omitted.

Middle Eastern food can be very applicable to whole grain healthy

meals. Mexican cooking has a lot going for it when you take the

cheese and meat out of it. Unfortunately black Americans cannot look

to African cooking for inspiration as it is too undeveloped even the

Ethiopian. The healthiest recipes are going to come from China as

well as Viet Nam. Most people find the various regional Chinese

styles to be the most practical and enjoyable especially the stir

fried vegetables. There is a lot you can do with standard American

cooking and some imagination to make healthful meals. Japanese

cooking is very healthy but very limited, restrictive and uncreative

and just not fun. And this one cuisine has been the basis for

macrobiotics for no reason at all except the authors were born in

Japan. For over 30 years now millions of people have limited

themselves to this without questioning it. Use the cuisines of the

world to inspire you to eat whole healthy natural food in tune with

the universal laws.

Chapter 18: Condiments and Seasonings

Eating should be fun, delicious and most enjoyable. One of

the reasons Japanese macrobiotics is understandably not appeal- ing

to many people is the severe and very unnecessary restrict-ions on

seasonings and condiments. The Japanese actually cook very little

food and have the most limited and uninteresting cooking style in

Asia. Eating this way is just not very tasty, fun and enjoyable. The

flavors seem to be limited to such things as tamari soy sauce,

ginger, miso, bonita shavings, natto, sesame seeds and other such

Japanese traditions. There is just no reason at all for this. Food

should be delicious, flavorful, aesthetic, pleasing and fully

seasoned without the use of fats and hot spices using all the

healthful international styles available.

The key to using the following seasonings is moderation. There are

many flavorings that can enhance your food when used with a light

hand such as sage, rosemary, basil, thyme, tarragon, oregano, bay

leaf, cumin, marjoram, mint, lemon grass, caraway seed, celery seed,

good vinegars, horse radish, Italian seasoning, mustard, nutmeg,

garlic, coriander leaf and seed, parsley, orange peel, lemon and

lime peel, lemon and lime juice (in small a-mounts), Chinese soy

sauce, dry sherry, vanilla, Thai fish sauce, Old Bay seasoning,

Worcestershire sauce, and capers. Soy cheese in all the regular

dairy flavors, soy milk, soy yogurt, soy sour cream and other soy

products will replace most any dairy product. Toasted nuts such as

walnuts, almonds, filberts and pecans make an elegant garnish

especially to stir fried vegetables. It is true we should avoid or

limit powerful hot spices such as black pepper, cayenne pepper,

chiles, hot sauce and other such tropical spices.

We should not use nut butters like peanut butter except

occasionally in small amounts as the fat content is far too high.

Ketchup is another poor choice even natural ketchup since it is

tomato based. Barbeque sauce is another tomato based con-coction.

Mayonnaise is too full of fat obviously for regular use.

Most salad dressings are full of chemicals.

The most important condiment to talk about is salt. We need

salt in our diet although many people will tell you it is somehow

harmful to add salt to any food. The Framingham Heart Study proved

beyond any doubt that moderate salt use is not harmful and does not

contribute to high blood pressure or any other coronary heart

condition. Since Americans do eat too much salt and sodium we can

understand why many people react to the past and reject the use of

salt. We eat so much red meat, cheese and other high sodium foods

that we already get an overload of sodium just in the food we eat.

This is not rational at all however. In fact salt is very necessary

to our lives and should be used in our food. Salt free diets are

dull, boring, very unnecessary and unhealthful if taken too far. The

word salt comes from the Latin " sal " and this is what the

word " salary " is based on since Roman soldiers were paid in part with

salt. Salt was one of the most important items of commerce for

thousands of years and still is. The Bible is full of references to

salt. We've all heard the term, " salt of the earth " . Traditional

macrobiotics simply used too much salt however in such things as

miso soup, highly salty tamari soy sauce, natto, gomasio (ground

sesame seeds and salt) pickled vegetables and pressed salads. You

do not need to buy overpriced " sea salt " as all salt comes from the

sea. That's right- all salt originated in the oceans and has been

deposited on land. Talking about the " importance " of sea salt is

scientifically unsound and the minerals this provides are

biologically insignificant consisting mostly of very small amounts

of magnesium. Simply find a brand that does not use an aluminum anti-

caking agent (always avoid anything with aluminum salts in it). Our

bodies naturally expel salt in the urine within hours of taking it

in, but that is no reason to overdo it. Eating too much salt results

in edema (water retention) and unbalances the body and uses up

valuable energy getting rid of the excess water. Use salt

intelligently in moderation.

No baking powder or baking soda is used for baking and this

is very wise. If you want to bake something occasionally that cannot

be leavened with yeast find a sodium based baking powder like

Rumford. Do not eat such things as baking powder biscuits with any

regularity as both baking powder and baking soda are extremely yin.

Never eat anything with aluminum based baking powder as this is one

of the main sources of aluminum in our diets since aluminum pots are

rarely used anymore unless coated with chemically inert Teflon.

Chapter 19: Calorie Restriction and Fasting

____________________________________________________

Americans are literally the fattest people on earth and one

third of us are overweight. Obesity is an epidemic that only gets

worse every year. What has happened in the last 30 years? What has

changed? Look at any movie or television shows filmed around 1970 or

earlier and you don't see all these fat people. It would be nice to

be able to answer this question since it seems nothing basic has

changed in three decades. For example, fast food outlets were popular

and the meat, potatoes and sugar diet was as common then as it is

now. It is not just that we eat too much ,but almost half the

calories we eat are fat calories. Most all of the fat calories are

saturated animal fats. It isn't the food per se that makes you fat

but the FAT you eat. The rural Red Chinese eat more calories than we

do but much more grains and vegetables and far less fat. Refined

grains, empty calories and the 125 pounds of sweeteners we eat every

year all add to this. Lack of exercise is certainly a factor, but

people were just as lazy thirty years ago. We are the richest nation

on earth, have the least expensive food supply, the highest standard

of living materially, so we eat the most food per person and the most

fat, and we're the fattest nation on earth and lead every nation in

most any disease rate you can name. Obesity equals disease and short

lifespan.

You can eat as much as you want if you make good food

choices. Diets don't work, they never have worked and never will

work. Just make better food choices. The answer is making more

intelligent, informed and aware, food choices to be in harmony with

the universe that created and sustains us. You cannot go hungry for

long because the hunger instinct is too deeply imbedded for survival

and is much, much stronger than even our sexual instinct. You can go

without sex your entire life, but it's hard to go without food for

even a day. If you eat whole grains, beans, vegetables, seafood,

salads and fruits you can eat all you want and not be overweight.

That's right, if you eat whole natural foods you can satisfy your

hunger and not gain weight.

The first thing you can do is stop eating three meals a day.

You do not need to eat three times a day regardless of the fact 99%

of Americans do this. In fact you can eat a snack in the morning like

a bowl of hot or cold whole grain cereal and only eat one real meal a

day in the evening. Would you rather skip breakfast or lunch? Or you

can alter which meal you will skip as you feel like it. Many people

will prefer to drop breakfast as they have so little time in the

morning to prepare and eat food and are in a hurry to get to work.

Drop down to eating two meals a day and stop eating three times a

day. The less you eat the better you'll feel, the healthier you will

be, the less illness you will get and the longer you'll live. Ben

lin said, " To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals " .

Eating less calories- not necessarily less food- slows the

aging process and extends maximum lifespan. Glucose and insulin

metabolism are improved, body temperature is lowered, immunity is

enhanced, less illness and less severity of illness occurs as well as

less oxidative stress. Calorie restriction does not mean going

hungry, but rather eating whole, natural nutrient dense foods that

are low in fat and high in fiber and nutrition. More and more

scientific evidence comes in every month proving that calorie

restriction is the single most powerful and effective means of

extending our life span. The less you eat the longer you live. The

average active woman only needs about 1,200 calories per day and the

average active man only about 1,800 calories. Generally we eat at

least twice that here in America and the results are all too obvious.

There has been quite a bit of research on the benefits of

calorie restriction especially on animals including monkeys. Of

course it would take almost a century to fully do this for humans but

there has been a lot of shorter term human research as well.

The animal studies have shown this works best when started from birth

but has dramatic benefits even when begun in middle or older aged

people. Typical of this is a group effort done with the University of

Wisconsin, Columbia University and the Veterans Administration

(Toxicol. Sci. 1999, v. 52, p. 35-40). People on calorie restriction

for just a few years had much better health than the control group

and much better prospects for not only living longer but getting less

diseases of most every kind.

With all this published research on calorie restriction you

would think there would be a good number of books written on this

subject as well as magazine articles. Unfortunately this isn't true

and there only seems to one author on this subject. Roy Walford wrote

The 120 Year Diet and Maximum Lifespan, which you should read if you

have to get your local library to borrow them. (His third book, sorry

to say, is not worth reading as he changed his course quite a bit).

Along with calorie restriction goes fasting. Fasting means

water only; there is no other definition. People who speak of " juice

fasts " really mean juice feasts. You can fast for a week very easily

and this is good enough for most people to do once a year. Very heavy

people can fast longer and they can consider a multiple and vitamin

supplement for fasts longer than a week. As Christ said 2,000 years

ago when his disciples could not heal an afflicted man, " This kind

goeth out not, but by prayer and by fasting " . The Old and New

Testaments are full of references to fasting that are almost always

ignored or explained away in modern churches. All religions have a

long tradition of fasting especially the Buddhists, Hindus and

Moslems. You don't have to be a religious person to fast, though, as

fasting builds inner strength and character while healing, repairing

and cleansing the body. The wilderness animals know the value of

fasting when they are sick or injured. Pythagoras the philosopher

required his initiates to undergo a long fast before they could be

accepted into his mystery school to prove their character and

sincerity.

Fortunately there are some excellent books on fasting.

Bragg's " The Miracle of Fasting " , Alan Cott's " Fasting- The

Ultimate Diet " , Lee Bueno's " Fast Your Way to Health " , Dave

' " The Miracle Results of Fasting " , Herbert

Shelton's " Fasting for Renewal of Life " , Norbert Kriegisch's " Healthy

Fasting " and Eve on's new " Complete Idiot's Guide to Fasting "

are all good to read.

The simplest and easiest way to start fasting is to choose

one day a week to go 24 hours on water only. Do this 52 weeks a year.

Every week fast for one whole day and this will become a most

meaningful and enjoyable ritual for you. Eat your dinner and do not

eat again until dinner the next day. If a special occasion comes up

just fast the day before or the day after, but always honor your

weekly one day fast. This will give your body 52 days a year to rest,

relax, purify and repair itself. Our bodies are self-healing and

self-repairing especially when we go without food for a period of

time and only drink water. The 15th century physician Paracelsus

said, " Fasting is the greatest remedy- the physician within. "

Surprisingly, feelings of hunger usually cease after the

third day and, ironically, longer fasts can actually be easier since

there is little desire for food. At first some people may experience

mild side effects as toxins and poisons are expelled from their

systems. The less side effects you have the healthier you are; the

more side effects you experience the more you needed to fast.

Headaches and a feeling of general sickness happen temporarily in

some people, but these tend to go away quickly. Do not end your fast

if you have side effects. Quite the contrary, this shows just how

much you need to get these accumulated poisons out of your system.

You will actually feel happy, euphoric, clear headed, light and

energetic when you don't eat although a little weaker physically.

Chapter 20: Calorie Density of Foods

____________________________________________________

This is how many pounds of each food a person would have to eat every

day in order to get 2,500 calories. For example you could only eat 10

ounces of vegetable oil at one extreme or try to eat more than 25

pounds of zucchini squash. You could eat a 15 ounce bag of almonds or

try and finish off over 16 pounds of peaches. The caloric intake

would be the same. The grains and beans are cooked in the normal

manner. Vegetables, fruits, seafood, poultry and meat are raw. Values

do vary here but not much.

Vegetable Oil 0.6

Butter 0.8

Almonds 0.9

Peanuts 0.9

Peanut Butter 0.9

Pistachios 0.9

Sesame Seeds 0.9

Walnuts 0.9

Cashews 1.0

Chocolate Candy 1.0

Cheez-ItsTM

Sirloin Steak 1.2

Beef Chuck 1.4

Blue Cheese 1.5

Cream Cheese 1.5

Sugar 1.5

Coconut 1.6

Honey 1.8

French Fries 1.7

Potato Chips 2.0

Tuna (oil) 1.9

Turkey 2.1

Ground Beef 1.9

Corn Chips 2.0

Ham 2.1

Mackerel 2.3

Lamb Chops 2.2

Pork 2.1

WW Pasta 3.1

Chicken 3.2

Avocado 3.3

Eggs (whole) 3.4

Veal 3.4

Chestnuts 3.5

Salmon 3.9

WW rolls 4.0

Tuna (water) 4.3

Chickpeas 4.6

Millet 4.6

Olives 4.7

Navy Beans 4.8

Brown Rice 5.1

Soybeans 4.9

Scallop 4.9

Shrimp 4.8

Pink Beans 5.0

Pinto Beans 5.3

Sweet Potato 5.4

Lentils 5.4

Black Beans 5.5

Kidney Beans 5.6

Lobster 5.8

Crab 5.9

Buckwheat 5.9

Oatmeal 6.0

Yams 6.3

Bananas 6.4

Corn 6.5

Green Peas 6.5

Prunes 6.8

Raspberries 7.5

Tofu 7.6

Mangoes 8.3

Cherries 8.7

Blueberries 8.8

Pears 9.0

Plums 9.1

Nectarines 9.3

Apples 9.4

Blackberries 9.4

Potatoes 9.6

Soymilk 10.1

Pineapple 10.5

Apricots 11.4

Grapes 11.9

Soy Sprouts 11.9

Collards 12.1

Brussels Sprouts 12.1

Cranberries 12.4

Seaweeds 12.4

Beets 12.7

Carrots 13.0

Onions 14.8

Strawberries 14.8

Okra 15.2

Oranges 15.6

Mung Sprouts 15.6

Tangerines 16.1

Peaches 16.6

Pumpkin 16.6

Mustard Greens 17.6

Cantaloupe 18.2

Melons 18.2

Persimmon 19.5

Mushrooms 19.5

Cauliflower 20.2

Asparagus 21.0

Spinach 21.0

Watermelon 21.0

Green Beans 21.9

Cabbage 22.8

Artrichokes 26.0

Endive 27.3

Grapefruit 27.3

Watercress 27.3

Eggplant 28.8

Squash 28.8

Zucchini 32.1

Radish 32.1

Celery 32.8

Cucumbers 32.8

Lettuce 39.0

You can see that meat, dairy, poultry and eggs have the highest

calorie density because of their high fat content. Grains and beans

are so low in calories you can eat all you want. Fruits are very low

in calories but can only be eaten in moderation because of their high

sugar content. Green and yellow egetables generally contain less

calories than any other food and you can eat as many of these as you

want; in fact if you ate only green and yellow vegetables you

couldn't get enough calories to live.

Chapter 21: Feed Your Pets Well

____________________________________________________

One third of American families own dogs and cats.

Do you really love your pet? Then why are you feeding them that awful

commercial pet food? Because it is convenient and cheap? Feed them

delicious, naturally healthy food they will enjoy. Animals cannot eat

the foods we eat because they have a different digestive system and

teeth. Our pets have short digestive systems meant for digesting meat

and teeth meant to rip and tear flesh; this is their biological

nature. Animals usually only eat once a day in the wild and this is a

good idea for domesticated ones. Feed them warmed food as smell is

very crucial to their life. Your dog and cat is meant to eat meat and

animal foods and must have them to thrive. Fish and seafood can be a

good staple especially for cats. Do not feed your pet milk and dairy

foods as, like all the other animals, do not eat these in their

natural state. They are as lactose intolerant as we are. Buddhist

monks feed their temple cats a mixture of fish and whole grains like

barley and rice as they realize cats cannot exist on the same diet

they eat. Misguided vegetarians feed their cats and dogs a pure

vegetarian diet which results in sickness and early death. Animals

are meant to eat animal foods and must have at least half of them to

be healthy and well.

A good standard is to feed them half animal food and half

whole grains with some green or yellow vegetables added. It is

important to see they get some small amount of green or yellow

vegetables for their vitamin A and other needs. They do eat this way

in the wild and one reason you'll see them eat grass. Again, do not

feed them milk or dairy foods except for occasional hard cheese which

contain almost no lactose. It is very easy to find inexpensive cuts

of pork, beef, chicken, turkey, various organ meats (like liver,

kidneys, hearts, brains), fish, shellfish and eggs. Most supermarkets

have a section where outdated meat is sold at half price and this is

a great way to find inexpensive cuts of good food for your pet. Talk

to the butcher about inexpensive types of meat and organs in bulk

that can be frozen.

If you knew what was in commercial pet food you would never

again feed this to your beloved friends. If you went to a pet food

factory and saw the ingredients allowed by law to be put into them

you would never buy any again. Diseased animals for example are a

main ingredient along with a high fat content. Commercial pet foods,

no matter how well advertised, are not fit for your pet. It just

takes a few minutes a day to feed them what you would want if you

were them.

Your pets can also benefit greatly from many of the same

supplements you use. Beta glucan, flax oil, acidophilus, beta-

sitosterol, multi-vitamins and minerals, glucosamine, L-glutamine,

PS, CoQ10, curcumin, quercitin and others can be added to their diet

especially as they age and get older and need these. It is important

to understand that they should get amounts proportionate to their

weight. If you have a 150 pound German Shepard you can give it the

same amounts of supplements you take. If you have a 15 pound Pekinese

it only needs one tenth the amount you would need.

It would take a specialist to test the hormone levels of your

cat or dog as they get older and most people would not be willing to

do this. You can give them melatonin when they get older but by body

weight. If you have had your male dog castrated or your female dog's

ovaries removed they have a severe hormone imbalance and an equally

severe biological imbalance from such destructive surgery. Yes, it is

important to keep unwanted puppies from being born and tying of the

seminal vesicles and tubal ligation are much less harmful means of

doing this. Would you cut the testicles off your son or cut the

ovaries out of your daughter?

Aren't your pets like children to you?

Be sure they get a long walk twice a day with you. This is

their " hunting time " and you are members of their pack. Walking with

you is more than just exercise- it is instinctual and part of the

bonding experience with their pack. Good food and exercise will

prevent them from gaining weight. Don't share any junk food or

sweets as this is not a real treat at all. If they are sick let them

go without food for a day or two as they would in the wild as fasting

is instinctual with them.

Chapter 22: Meditation

____________________________________________________

How can you call macrobiotics " Zen macrobiotics " without

talking about meditation? Do you know what the word " zen " in Japanese

means? It simply means meditation just like " chan " does in

Chinese.Daily formal meditation should be the spiritual center of

your life.

A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about

but thoughts and thus becomes disconnected from the reality of the

world. Reality is neither materialistic nor spiritual nor both nor

neither. It is something that cannot be said, written, communicated

or described. And if you can say it you can't sing it either. As

Krishnamurti said, " there are no deep thoughts; all thoughts are

shallow " . The most difficult of all things is to have a silent mind

beyond thought. Nothing is more difficult than this as it is the door

to Enlightenment. In meditation you are only concerned with the here

and now. " Be here now " may be the best mantra of all. The past is a

memory and the future a dream. When the knower becomes one with the

known you have reached. An important tenet of Zen is " no purpose " .

But how does one give up purpose except by having a purpose to give

it up?

There is only one Universal Ground of being underlying all

phenomena. Sat Chit Ananda in Hinduism- consciousness, energy, bliss.

There really are no meditation techniques as this would

clearly imply purposeful behavior. There is something you can do

though. Simply watch your breath. No breathing techniques here- just

silently watch your breath. You'll see it is neither voluntary nor

involuntary. Just quietly watch your breathing and you'll notice it

becomes deeper and stronger without any effort at all. Quite the

contrary- if you make any efforts it will not happen. An old Zen

aphorism is, " If you strive you fail, if you don't strive you fail.

What else is there? " After a while you will hardly breath at all

while you meditate, just two or three breaths a minute instead of a

dozen.

Why should you sit with your back straight up and your legs

loosely crossed? Because this is actually the most comfortably way to

sit for prolonged periods. Ideally an hour of meditation a day is

enough. This can be divided into half hour morning and half hour

evening periods if you want.

If you have never read or heard of Alan Watts he could be

considered the premier American writer on Zen. The main book you

should read is " The Book " . His other books include The Art of

Meditation, Meditation, The Wisdom of Insecurity, Nature, Man &

Woman, Tao: The Watercourse Way, Nonsense, This Is It, What Is Tao?,

Still the Mind, The Supreme Identity, Myself: A Case of Mistaken

Identity, Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown, Behold the Spirit, Zen

and The Beat Way, The Spirit of Zen, Buddhism, Myth & Ritual in

Christianity, Two Hands of God, Psychotherapy East & West, What is

Zen?, In My Own Way and Does It Matter? There are also a variety of

tapes, videos, books edited after his death by his son and books

about Alan himself.

D.T. Suzuki is another excellent author. His books include

Zen Buddhism, Zen Doctrine of No Mind and others. Many audio tapes

are now available as well. He is one of the finest writers on the Zen

tradition ever.

J. Krishnamurti wrote a variety of books. He is not the most

entertaining or fun person to read and comes off as rather serious

and his books can be somewhat dry. What he says in them though will

change your life and leave no doubt about his enlightenment. They

include Meeting Life, Think on These Things,

This Light in Oneself, Freedom from the Known, Education and the

Significance of Life and The First and Last Freedom.

If you want a real iconoclast read Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

(aka Osho). Instead of listening to the media about him, read one of

his books and see for yourself. If there is one thing he emphasizes

it is that life has no meaning at all without meditation, without

understanding who and what you are. He is very funny and very unique

and criticizes everyone from Mother Theresa and the Pope to Mahatma

Gandhi. He wrote dozens of books and many of them are still available

as are the video tapes. You can't take yourself seriously if you want

to read " Osho " .

Chapter 23: Books to Read

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