I invite you to take the MACRO leap.
Macrobiotics is not a fad diet; it is humanity’s original way of eating. Perhaps most importantly, macrobiotics is a lifestyle for everyone. The practice is all-inclusive because it is a constant journey of adding healthy, balanced practices into daily life. Practicing macrobiotics is flexible and adaptable to anywhere we happen to be.
This way of life is based on the dietary and lifestyle traditions of all of the world’s long-standing civilizations. These civilizations learned to create health and longevity through adapting to their climate and specific conditions. Each culture contributed to our global culture through its cuisine, history, arts, and sciences.
Our nutrition comes from plant-based foods either directly or indirectly. We receive second-hand and inferior nourishment from animals who have eaten these foods. Grains, beans, and vegetables enable us to make a direct connection to nature and the environment. Choosing local and indigenous foods makes the strongest and most direct connection to where we live. Grains, beans, and vegetables alone also provide enough food to feed and sustain a global population.
Macrobiotics is an empowering practice that awakens and deepens our confidence in our own ability to create and maintain lasting health. We can start immediately with just one meal, and expand and develop our practice over time. As we move in the direction of health, we experience a deeper connection with our own source of life and nature. We begin to move towards fuller physical and emotional well-being, and our fears and anxieties melt away.
The macrobiotic diet has many things in common across cultures, such as the cultivation of grains, beans and vegetables, as well as the natural preservation practices of pickling, fermenting, smoking, salting, and drying foods. Along with an appreciation of broader, universal patterns, there is also an appreciation of unique connections to locality. There is no one “Chinese food,” “French food,” or “Italian food,” but different regional cuisines that express a people’s harmonious relationship with a locality or region. Macrobiotic practice helps us to develop an orderly rhythm to life and a deep resonance with our unique circumstances.
Pickling and fermenting foods using traditional methods naturally preserves the foods. Secondly these methods enhance the taste and nutritional qualities of the food. This transforms the life of the food by inviting bacteria, microbes and oxygen to derive nourishment from the food and transform it into something new. The most unique and enjoyable foods and beverages in the world come from a simple principle of inviting life in. This is one of the core messages of macrobiotics: let life in.
From this, everyone can learn to make health-supporting choices, no matter the circumstance. The orderly practice of macrobiotics supports the transformation of healthy choices into healthy habits. Our health and environmental health are related. The environment is a direct reflection of our collective state of health. The macro leap embraces the outwardly spiraling journey towards health, for with health, there is life. Are you in for the macro leap?
I have the book “The Good Life diet”, my only question is how do we adapt when we change to daylight savings time?
If we normally eat at 7am, 12 noon and 5pm, do we eat an hour later during daylight saving time?
Margie, that is a good question without a completely clear answer. We try to keep our meal time consistent year round. Stopping Daylight Savings time would be the best solution.
‘Inviting life in’ – what a beautiful concept!
Since reading your book I too have wondered about the timing issue with daylight savings. Before I had kids, I woke up between 5.30 and 6.00 year round, and was usually asleep by 9.30. This seemed to work for me, but some time ago I started wondering if it would be better to just rise with the sun, as I do this quite easily. This meant a later rising time in the Winter – which seems appropriate as I feel I need more sleep then – and a very early start in Summer – currently I wake before 6.00
At our home dinner mostly starts at 6.30 year-round, and at work the only time I can eat is 1.00 PM, so that’s regular too. What I don’t like about the later rising time in Winter is eating breakfast later – after 8.00 instead of at 7.00 AM. I somehow feel half the day has gotten away from me when I do this, but perhaps I need to relax a bit more and take it as it comes. The positive benefit of later breakfast is less need to snack at morning tea time.
Maddie.x