I consider it no small irony that the first syllable of the word dioxins sounds like die: So potent is this group of more than 100 cancer-causing industrial chemicals that the Environmental Protection Agency is currently considering setting the “safe” daily level for human exposure at seven-tenths of a picogram per kilogram of body weight. (A picogram, FYI, is one-trillionth of a gram.) To put it in perspective: With the much publicized toxic chemical BPA, you could be exposed to 50 million times that amount, and you’d still be within the realm of what’s considered safe.

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“Eating soy will kill you!” Scan the media reports and surf the Internet, and you’re bound to come across scary claims that would lead you to believe this is true. You may have heard:

• Soy will give you breast cancer.
• Soy formula is dangerous to babies.
• Genetically modified soy foods may modify you.
• Soy foods block your thyroid function.
• Soy prevents the absorption of minerals and interferes with digestion.
• Tofu causes Alzheimer’s disease.

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At age 43, Nancy Wolfson-Moche wanted to conceive. She was not eligible for “hi-tech” fertility treatments (IVF) due to an elevated FSH level (which western medicine said was normal in a healthy 43-year-old woman). MD’s said the FSH level may fluctuate, but once it goes over 30 it is an indication that the eggs are too old and not viable to conceive a healthy baby. Nancy’s FSH level was as high as 38. Through a macrobiotic diet and lifestyle, and by following the recommendations of Denny Waxman, her FSH went from 38 to 6 over a 12 month period. Two months later she went on a trip around the world and conceived her first child, somewhere between Bhutan and southern Spain, at 44. She gave birth to a full-term, healthy baby girl at age 45. Her second daughter was born when she was 51. read article

From Phiya Kushi’s Blog: Musings on life and macrobiotics

Below are a list of ideas that have come to me and have remained undeveloped until now. They will be removed when it is discovered that either someone has already done it or it deserves to be in the dustbin and forgotten.

1. Supermarkets With No Packaging
Here, I envision a grocery store where everything (and I mean absolutely EVERYTHING) is sold in bulk and where you bring your own containers, or you can buy recyclable ones on the premises. There would be no presence of any packaging anywhere; no brand names, no colorful designs, and no sensational words to entice you. Each food section would have their own wait staff who would take your containers and fill them up with the desired amount of product and then give you a ticket which you would then take up to the cashier. What this idea does is eliminate the excessive expense of creating, marketing and distributing all those packages that one sees the moment one enters a supermarket which is wasteful (look at what’s in your kitchen garbage) and can be deceptive. Food marketing should be based on integrity and transparency and not flash, “bling”, and other gimmicks, that are intended to mask or hide what’s really behind or in the products. (Where advertising expense could go is in future food product “descriptions” which would be online.) If successful, this idea could also eliminate the heavy environmental burden involved in repackaging and transporting goods in “throw-away” packaging (which never really go away, anyways). It also prevents customer spillage and potential fraud at bulk areas as well adds a new desirable level of customer service. If we are to truly go environmental friendly then supermarkets will have to go this way.

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While the studies are limited, they are positive in showing that organic foods provide both implied, as well as, actual health benefits. These benefits alone may save the consumer far more money than is spent on the cost of buying organic foods. Read article

There are three types of exercises: harmonious exercise, physically or emotionally-oriented exercise and spiritually/mentally or energetically-oriented exercise.

Harmonious exercise means everyone can do it and everyone benefits. This is universal exercise and should be the basis of all exercise programs. Examples of harmonious exercise are walking, laughing, body rub, reading, making love, breathing, cleaning, chewing, gardening, swimming, dancing and hobbies.

Today I will consider walking. Walking is the universal exercise. When I say “part of life,” I don’t mean power walking, which is an unnatural stride. Walking in the past was how you got from one place to another. That was part of life. And our idea of walking, what a short walk is, has changed very much. When you walk naturally, your arms swing like a pendulum and your legs do the same. This is setting a rhythm that helps to regulate all of our bodies’ natural rhythms, including the balance of the branches of our automatic nervous system, our heart beat, our digestive system. Plus, walking helps every condition. It makes you more flexible, and if you are tired, it gives you energy. If you are full, your digestion improves. If you are down, it picks you up. Whatever your state is, you benefit, you return to balance from walking, if it is a natural walk, especially outside. This is so-called harmonious or universal exercise. Everyone should do it and everyone benefits from it. Now of course, if you have certain injuries where this can’t be done, don’t try to do it. But under normal circumstances, everyone benefits from walking. It should be done at a natural stride, at a brisk pace. As if you have somewhere to go and you want to get there.

In macrobiotics we look at illness as a developmental progression. The first major stage, which is not really an illness itself in many cases, is our blood starting to become imbalanced. Our blood, which has hemoglobin, iron containing protein at the center, is important for maintaining our direction in life. When our blood quality is strong, it is easier to maintain a good direction. When our blood quality starts to become weaker, it is easier to lose our direction. Also, our sensitivity is affected. Once we have a disorder with our blood, which includes allergies and skin diseases, we become much more emotional than we were before and emotional sensitivity starts to change. We start to become more sensitive, overly sensitive, or start to lack sensitivity in certain areas. It can go from one extreme or the other.

From there, illness passes to the next level, emotional disorders. Here, emotional imbalances, which started on a previous level of blood, start to become more fixed or deeper. This then becomes our state of being, where we have free-floating fears or anxieties and become more depressive or angered. Our view of life or our approach to life starts at this point to be affected, in the area of so-called emotional disorders. Finally, from emotional disorders, we develop organ or gland problems. This is the area where most modern problems fall, heart disease as well as diabetes and chronic hypoglycemia. Intermittent hypoglycemia we can classify on the level of blood.

It is not by accident that emotions are between our blood quality and our organs or gland quality. Emotions play a kind of balancing or harmonizing role in our lives. We will look at this more next week.

If your constitution and condition are more yang, you prefer to be asked questions than to ask them of someone. It also means that you seek questions more than answers. You place more value on the question than the answer, for the reason that a good question has many answers and as time goes on, you get many good answers from one good question. But when you seek the answer, that is the end of the process. That is a very yin process. But you also like to be asked questions if you are a yang person. A yang person likes to be asked to do things. A yin person doesn’t.

If you are constitutionally yin but your answers tend towards yang, this means for most people that their constitution and condition are opposite. However you are born, you seek what you lack. That is making your capacity grow. You are not opposing your nature. This is a natural process. It is natural order, natural movement. It makes your capacity grow. The secret of success, which means realizing our potential, is to know what quality we can take, to build up, to support what we lack.

If we take bad quality, we get sick. If we take good quality, we get great. If you are yang, then you must find out what kind of good quality yin you can take to build and support your nature. And if you are yin constitutionally, you need to know what kind of good quality yang you can take. Then you build up your potential fully.

We get up in the morning and become more and more active. Then we get to a point when, it seems, the sun gets stuck high in the sky, so we can have either activity or stagnation. What we choose for lunch determines whether we become more active in the afternoon or stagnate. Now many people have hypoglycemia and become useless in the afternoon. They have to start out in the morning and do as much as they can, be as productive as possible until they get to that point, and that is it for the day. Then they just kind of coast and try to get a good start the next day.

If you want to be active in the afternoon, there are two key points; beginning lunch at noon rather than at one or two, and eating a simpler rather than more elaborate meal. The sandwich is the lunch food which has conquered the world. It is very unique, very ingenious and good for lunch. Of course this depends on the filling, how much, the type of bread, etc. Some good sandwich ideas are humus or steamed tofu. You can come up with many bean or vegetable based sandwiches. In macrobiotics we have introduced rice balls, brown rice with some umeboshi plum in the center and toasted nori wrapped around the outside. That is very good and very simple. We should look for things that are more simple and light but also nourishing and complete.

If you want to have a leisurely afternoon, then have an elaborate lunch.

The meal is a natural cycle, like the sun or the moon.

Allergies have now replaced the infectious diseases that claimed so many lives in the last century as one of our most pressing health problems. The once common infectious diseases including TB, diphtheria and scarlet fever have largely been eradicated through better hygiene and antibiotics. Yet, not much attention has been paid to the dietary and lifestyle causes of these problems.
Although not often fatal, allergies represent a weakened blood quality and immune system that leave us vulnerable to a host of dangerous and potentially fatal infectious illnesses. The treatment of allergies can also be very costly in terms of doctors visits, medications, lost productivity and time from school or work. Their symptoms can make our lives and the lives of those around us miserable.
Allergies are related to a weakened blood quality, which is caused by an overly rich or nutritionally imbalanced diet. A diet high in animal fats especially from cold dairy products and cheese raises blood fat and cholesterol levels. These foods include cold milk, ice cream, yogurt, various types of cheese and butter, as well as sweets and fruits, which help make the blood more fatty. The modern American diet depletes our supply of minerals. A lack of minerals allows our blood to be more acidic and open to infections.
By practicing Strengthening Health Macrobiotics, we naturally choose food and lifestyles which strengthen our blood quality. In this way the causes of such problems as allergies, heart disease, high cholesterol, obesity and cancer are changed. We can strengthen the health of ourselves, families, communities and world.