Macrobiotic Diet Foods
Guidelines to Macrobiotic Diet
Proper eating can re-establish harmony, balance and health. The food choices, food amounts and food preparation, as well as the way we eat, our attitude toward foods and emotional state while eating, will affect how we receive and process the given.
The standard macrobiotic way of eating is a set of guidelines which help us make the right choices - give us a basis for a better life.
What are Macrobiotic diet foods?
First of all - Moderation... No extremes. Moderate yin and moderate yang foods - Moderate in essence and amount.
What is extreme?
Foods that are too yin... sugar, alcohol, most drugs... stress, too. These result in extreme expansion.
Foods, too yang... mostly animal products... result in extreme contraction.
Almost every modern degenerative illness, including cancer, heart disease, and multiple sclerosis, result from the habitual excessive intake of foods which are either too yang, too yin, mostly both.
Macrobiotic Diet Foods - Standard Diet
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1. At least 50% of the volume of every meal should be whole cereal grains – including brown rice, whole wheat, barley, millet, oats, corn, buckwheat, rye, etc… 2. Approximately 5% of daily food intake should include soup – variety of vegetables, seaweed, beans, and grains – seasoned with miso, tamari or seasalt. 3. 20%-30% vegetables – preferably locally grown and in season. 4. 10%-15% cooked beans, chickpeas, lentils and seaweed. 5. Beverages should include: 'bancha' twig tea, roasted, Mu tea, dandelion tea, cereal tea or coffee without stimulant effect. 6. Icy cold beverages should be avoided. |
Occasional supplements:
1. Small amount of white fish – once or twice a week
2. A cooked fruit dessert – cooked in order to make it less yin
3. Roasted seeds and nuts or dried fruit
Additional suggestions:
1. Cooking oil should be of good quality and of vegetable origin.
2. Salt should be unrefined sea salt
3. You may eat as much as you want, provided the proportion is correct.
4. Chew your food well. All food should be swallowed only after it has turned into a liquid consistency.
macrobiotic diet
Foods to be avoided:
As in all things, balance is harder to achieve, when going to extremes.
Avoid Extreme Yang:
Eggs, Meat, Poultry, Salt in large amounts, etc...
Avoid Extreme Yin:
Sugar, Chocolate, Honey, syrups, Artificial sweeteners, Soft drinks, dairy products, refined flour and grain products, spicy seasoning, alcohol, drugs – chemical medications, stimulants – such as black tea and coffee.
When eating extreme Yang food, such as meat, automatically we are attracted to extreme Yin food, for balance. More on this topic...
Helpful foods for yin-yang balancing:
• Gomasio - 10-12 parts roasted sesame seeds to 1 part sea salt, ground together
• Roasted kelp (kombu) powder
• Umebushi plums
• Tekka - or Miso
• Tamari soy sauce
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