Food Rant - A Short Treatise on Healthful Eating

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A Short Treatise on Healthful Eating

Edmund Fitzgerald

January, 2002
[Revised 2004, and 2006]
Copyright © 2006

Introduction

Mostly, I eat Macrobiotically. You can find information on the net, but best are a few books, mostly out of print, you may find on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Alibris or ABE Books.

Zen Macrobiotic Cooking, and Cooking for Life are two books I rarely read now, but served me well. Cooking for Life has single pages of wisdom spread throughout the book's recipes worth the whole book. Both books are by Michael Abehsera. But especially, find Our Earth, Our Cure by Raymond Dextreit and Michael Abehsera, and Healing Ourselves by Naboru Muramoto.

I met, and had a consultation with Naboru Muramoto many years ago. Very interesting. He spoke broken English, and examined me with pulse, face-looking, fingernail examination, talking with me (listening, mostly), and looking at my eyes (irises). He recommended a certain root to eat (Kuzu Root) for my digestion, and said I was doing fine. By then I had been Macrobiotic for several years.

All these folks are major practitioners of Macrobiotic eating and healing. The entire field is adapted from traditional Japanese healing and cooking, brought to this country by George Osawa, and is now well established and understood, if not accepted by western allopathic medicine.

Michio Kushi is the best known of the Macrobiotic teachers following George Osawa, and his institute is online at kushiinstitute.com.

Another good book is Dirk Benedict's Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy. Dirk is the actor known as The Face on that old TV show, The A-Team. He had aggressive prostate cancer at age thirty, and cured himself with Macrobiotic eating and healing. He's now in his fifties, raising two sons Macrobiotically, and doing fine.

Macrobiotics and My Food Choices

The heart-healthy benefits of the Mediterranean diet are gaining prominence, and much Macrobiotic thinking results in a very similar approach. Good oils, few sweets, lots of grains, beans and vegetables, no refined products and very moderate animal protein and fat.

I eat no dairy at all. No cheese, no milk, no cream, no ice cream, no butter. Not ever, unless I'm being stupid, or stressed and depressed. These are absolutely the worst possible foods. Not only does cow's milk contribute to all sorts of strange maladies, but modern dairy farming turns milk into a carrier of strange chemicals.

Milk products have a long association with prostate cancer, and contribute to the American epidemic of ear infections, tonsillitis, and other childhood maladies.

Joint problems and cartilage failures may be the result of a lifetime of milk and cheese consumption. Cow's milk is good for cows, not humans.

I avoid commercial red meat as I would avoid the plague. The chemical additions to commercial meat of any type (BGH and antibiotics, especially) make it suspect. If I have a neighbor raising organic beef, I may trade for a small amount once in a while. I rarely eat any meat at all. Commercially processed meats (bacon, bologna, sausage, etc.) are outright dangerous and should not be handled with bare hands, let alone eaten.

I will occasionally eat some wild meat-venison or elk or wild bird-if it's killed cleanly, and properly handled. I hunt grouse with a .22 revolver, and love to eat one or two when I can. I get an upland bird tag and put the pistol on the dash while I'm getting wood in the fall. I occasionally help others hunt deer and elk and receive some meat for my assistance in field dressing and carrying them out of the woods. I prefer venison.

I will eat an organic chicken every now and then. Baked slowly and completely. Then added in chunks to morning soup or stir fry, and evening stew. Every two months or so.

I eat fish, but not large quantities or often (once per week is enough), and when I'm feeling poorly and need to clean out, I eat no fish either. Canned sardines are good for the shot of protein, and for the super calcium in the bones. I will also eat some canned tuna, though certain types are known to be carriers of mercury and other heavy metals from the toxic runoff we've been dumping in our oceans for fifty years.

I will eat a sardine sandwich on well-toasted bread with sliced pickles when I need a protein and calcium jolt. My protein need goes up as I work hard, but too much protein tightens my muscles, makes me grouchy, and makes me smell bad. Better more rice and thick bean soup than more protein, even fish. The exception to this is if you are recovering from liver damage or have another similar specific need. Then extra protein may help with rebuilding.

I eat eggs hardly at all, and try to avoid things made with them. Eggs are often in commercial breads, sauces, mayonnaise, cookies. Occasionally, if they really are organic farm eggs, I will eat a few, carefully scrambled. A few times a year.

Here again, commercial eggs have become storehouses of bad pharmacology and industrial runoff. I am cautious about anything "manufactured." Most large-scale industrial food production facilities cannot produce good food. When food escaped household hands, both to grow and prepare, it lost its healthfulness.

Cooking Oil

I use Olive oil in cooking. No margarine. No Mazola or other chemically processed oils. I eat nothing that contains cottonseed oil, palm oil or partially hydrogenized 'anything' oil. I never eat french fries at a cafe. I don't normally eat corn chips (though I love to eat them, and occasionally succumb-when I can find organic chips cooked in good oil) both because the normal oils used are toxic, and because I don't digest corn well. Commercial potato chips should be handled with gloves and treated as hazardous waste.

Sesame oil is great, especially in salads, but hard to keep, and finding fresh Sesame oil is a problem. I avoid Canola oil. It is chemically processed to remove naturally toxic compounds, and I don't trust it. Other oils are good if cold pressed, including Sunflower oil, Safflower oil, and Avocado oil. Most spoil quickly; that's why I use Olive oil. My eating is not low-fat. I go through a fair amount of Olive oil in my cooking, and I add it directly to soups and stews. Olive oil provides richness in many of my meals.

Good oil provides Omega-3 fatty acids, a necessary part of an immune system sustaining diet. Interestingly, Olive oil has little Omega-3 fatty acids. For that I add extra Flax oil, or make Gamasio with Flax seeds rather than Sesame seeds. This tastes different from Sesame seed Gamasio, but I like it, and use it regularly on rice and bean stew. For specific healing regimens, taking a tablespoon of Flax oil each day is recommended. Use only organic and cold pressed oils.

For specific healing, fish oil in capsules may be taken for the Omega-3 fatty acids. This, along with Flax oil, is the best source of Omega-3s. Be certain to obtain an organic source of fish oil that is checked for heavy metal contamination.

Sugar

My friend David Hudak spent time with Helen and Scott Nearing in Vermont, when the Nearings were finally becoming known for their study and writing about homegrown healthy food. Scott is reputed to have said, many times, "Apple pie is toxic! The only thing more toxic than apple pie is apple pie ala mode!" The bad fats (Crisco, et al) and white flour are terrible. Combined with refined sugar and milk they become outright dangerous.

Sugar can be used as medicine, but rarely. I keep no sugar or honey in my house. Sweetness comes from baked squash, dried fruit occasionally (sometimes stewed), and the natural sweetness of good rice. Once in a blue moon I will eat fresh fruit, especially in hot summer.

I try not to eat anything too sweet (too Yin). I don't eat jams or jellies. Making jam, jelly and preserves was a way to preserve fruit using sugar to prevent spoiling. Today they've become jars of sugar flavored with fruit, because sugar is cheaper than fruit.

I do have a sweet tooth, and it's my Achilles heel of eating. When I succumb, I try to eat dried fruit. On occasion, I'm known to buy a chocolate bar. I try to keep that down to once or twice a year. Read Sugar Blues by William F. Dufty for a real handle on the dangers of sugar.

If I'm eating really cleanly, and very sensitive as a result, even a small amount of chocolate will weird me out, almost like being drunk. When you eat sugar and it burns your mouth, you know you've shifted your metabolism into a more alkaline and easy running mode.

Wheat

I don't eat donuts, or commercial breads or rolls. The oils are bad, but I also don't digest wheat, especially white flour, worth a healthy shit. And that's just what happens if I eat pasta, or too much bread-I get cramps, bad gas, and the shits. I can digest a little wheat if I take it as dry wholewheat toast and chew very carefully.

Many have bad reactions to the gluten in wheat and some other grains. White flour is empty calories, and contributes to all sorts of maladies.

Nuts

I eat a few nuts. Many are good for you if chewed very carefully, but they are hard to digest and can leave some strange byproducts. Peanuts, and a few others, are hypoallergenic for many. When I eat nuts or seeds, I go for peanuts, pumpkin seeds (good for the prostate) almonds, and walnuts. A few others are good, but I like these. Almonds have anti-cancer properties, and I buy them in 25-pound boxes from an organic grower in California.

Nightshade (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant)

I don't eat tomatoes, eggplant or potatoes (usually). Tomatoes and eggplant will give me cold sores, and while I can eat potatoes successfully, I mostly avoid them. All three are in the Nightshade family, and contain small amounts of the same alkaloid poisons that appear in the leaves.

The starch in potatoes is absorbed as quickly as sugar, and can raise the blood sugar level faster than glucose in many people. Knowing this, my Irish ancestry must have influence, because I can eat a plate of spuds (sauteed gently in Olive oil, with onions), with little ill effect. Some potatoes have a higher "Glycemic Index" than others. Small red potatoes are some of the best, and have a lower sugar equivalency.

Vitamins

I take no commercial multi-vitamins of any sort. In general, if it comes in a pressed pill (except for herbs and extracts pressed into tablets) you can assume it's bad for you, with a few necessary exceptions (antibiotics when required, etc.).

Commercial pharmaceutical pills are manufactured by corporations with little interest in your health, but a huge interest in profit. These things are usually synthetic, baring little resemblance to naturally occurring vitamins. While touted as "exactly the same," they are not. They do not contain the same left-right molecular structures and are missing the bio flavinoids and other accompanying compounds that work synergistically with the specific vitamin or mineral.

If I've been poisoned (common in our culture-pesticides, road oiling, painting my house, fixing my car, etc.) or have not been eating well due to work constraints or travel, I will take additional Vitamin C (usually purchased in bulk powder form). I will also take nutritional yeast for B-vitamins, and occasionally Folic Acid (B-9), B-12 and extra calcium. I try to find manufacturing sources which seem to understand what they're doing, and have a consciousness about their products that assures me their product is pure, and not over-processed.

Rice

So just what do I eat? Rice and beans. Mostly short-grain brown rice, organic if I can afford it. Lundburg's organic rice, grown in California, is the absolute best. Commercial Sacramento Valley rice, however, is good, and Tsuru Mai is a commercial brand found in most stores. It's okay.

[A note about organic food: I believe our commercial food sources are so contaminated with chemicals and GMOs that it's worth the trouble and expense to buy organic and grow our own, when we can.]

I cook rice with 1-3/4 to 2-1/2 cups water per cup rice. Less water makes a better frying rice the second day, and more water results in a soft rice easier to digest and better for breakfast. Bring to a light simmer, cover tightly and do not disturb. Takes 50 minutes.

You can turn off the heat after 20-30 minutes, wrap the pot with a down jacket or several terry cloth towels to keep it warm, and it will come out perfect. If you overcook it and the bottom is a tad scorched, don't panic. Unless the scorch is actually black and burnt, it will eat fine, and even be a little sweet and crunchy from the caramelizing. Overly browned rice can be added to soup and will soften nicely.

If the rice is dried out, or you wish to rejuvenate yesterday's batch, you can fluff it with a fork, and steam it in a vegetable steamer for a few minutes to heat and re moisturize it. I don't usually eat rice right out of the cooking pot, but add it to a sauteed onion the next day as part of my breakfast or lunch stir-fry.

Beans

With rice I eat beans. Much of my calorie intake is from bean soup and bean stew. Usually just plain old Pinto beans, but when I'm flush I like others too. Lentils are great. Thick lentil soup with lots of sliced carrots, sauteed garlic and a dash of Cayenne is the best! Adzuki beans are wonderful, especially if you can find the very dark red kind. These are small beans and may be cooked along with rice if you use a long cooking method, and extra water. Other beans add variety-red beans, black beans, Great Northerns, etc.

Lately (2005...) I've been eating more beans than rice. I often start my day with a thick bean soup/stew, usually with tofu and vegetables, and sometimes with fish. This stew usually contains several vegetables, such as broccoli, carrots, onions, chard, etc.

I cook large pots of beans and freeze them cooked. Three quarts of dried Pinto beans will make 8-9 quarts of cooked beans. I take a quart out of the freezer in the evening, so I can have bean soups or bean-based vegetable stew for breakfast.

Other Grains

I occasionally eat other grains-millet, barley and buckwheat-but not often. They are good, and if you like them the variety is good. Millet is high in B-17, an element thought by many to be a necessary part of a daily anti-cancer life. Buckwheat also has anti-cancer properties, and is very Yang (you'll need to read the mentioned books to understand Yin and Yang). Fresh ground buckwheat pancakes served with a little pure Maple syrup are terrific in winter.

Oatmeal

I love oatmeal, and oats are a very good food. A large bowl of oatmeal is often my breakfast, and occasionally my dinner. Oats are known to help with prostate problems. I do not use milk or cream, not even soy milk. I don't put sugar or fruit on oatmeal.

I've learned to eat oatmeal plain, with a little salt. I like to cook it a little soupy. If your metabolism isn't trashed from bad food, plain oatmeal will taste slightly sweet all by itself.

Vegetables

To these basics, I add most vegetables, especially broccoli, kale, spinach, carrots, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, chard, peas, green beans and squash. Dark leafy greens have gobs of calcium and iron of the highest quality.

Absolutely most valuable are onions. I try to eat some onion, cooked, every day, with something. Sauteed onions, with cooked rice added and heated in the pan is often my breakfast, along with a cup of tea. Baked onions are very good. Bake them as you would a potato. Chopped raw onions and garlic go in my occasional green salad.

Macrobiotic tradition is a bit skeptical of garlic, but I've found it very important. Koreans, who eat more garlic than anyone, have the lowest incidence of cancer (I know, I know ... correlation does not imply causation, but this is still a noted connection, with other factors accounted for, and should not be dismissed).

I often chop three or four cloves in the morning, and gulp them down with a half-glass of water first thing. I follow that with herbal supplements, if I'm taking any, and then breakfast and tea. Raw garlic stimulates bile production, aids sluggish digestion and helps elimination.

I cook with fresh garlic, sauteing it along with onion. My garlic regimen goes in cycles, with periods of large garlic intake, and then not. Garlic adds wonderful flavor to many of my dishes, and has apparent anti-viral and anti-cancer properties. I use granulated garlic in most of my soups and stews, with even a dash in my salad dressing. My salad dressing is Olive oil and apple cider vinegar (50/50), with a dash of soy sauce and granulated garlic.

Miso

I have miso soup almost every day, often for breakfast along with a bowl or plate of rice and beans. Miso is fermented soybean paste, very salty, and used in soup. Wonderful flavor!

The classic Macrobiotic miso soup consists of onions, carrots and cabbage, with miso (about one tablespoon) added in the bowl at serving. Saute a large onion in Olive oil first, then add the onion and thinly sliced carrots and cabbage to water. Cook quickly and do not overcook-until the carrots are just tender. Re-heat leftovers without boiling. See the above cookbooks for many other miso recipes. This stuff is the best food on the planet, and is far more healing than grandma's chicken soup.

The best miso is currently made in North Carolina, by Miso Master (American Miso Company). I buy it in 15-pound tubs online from Great Eastern Sun (online at http://www.great-eastern-sun.com/), or your local food co-op can get it for you. A 15 pound tub costs about $70, and lasts six months for a single daily user. You can also get it in one-pound tubs, or 40-pound buckets.

Traditional Country Barley miso is my favorite. When you buy any miso, be certain to get unpasteurized ... it's a living food, and the enzymes are best uncooked.

Tofu

Tofu is another soy product that, along with all soy products, especially miso, is known to have anti-cancer properties. When you need extra protein, tofu is good. Buy the firm type, and saute it along with your onion in the morning before adding rice.

Lately (2005...) I eat it more than I have previously. I've come to depend upon the extra protein to keep my liver and joints functioning properly.

It is extremely important to get tofu and miso made from organic soybeans. Commercial soybeans are grown with GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) seeds, and often use plenty of commercial fertilizers and pesticides. These can have very deleterious effects on humans. Small Planet makes an organic tofu with Herbs and Garlic that, when fresh, is terrific.

Tofu can also be made at home, but again, be absolutely certain to obtain organic soybeans.

Sea Vegetables

I often add seaweed to my soup and sometimes make rice balls, like sushi, wrapped in seaweed. Nori sheets are used for sushi or rice balls.

You take a quarter-sheet (about 4 inches square) toast it lightly, and wrap it around cold rice with a bit of miso, salt plum (Umeboshi), pickle or anchovy stuck in the middle. Great traveling food. Keeps well, unless it's just roasting hot outside.

I add powdered kelp, one or two teaspoons at least, to every pot of soup I make, and every pot of beans I eat.

For traditional miso soup, adding soaked and chopped Wakame or Dulse packaged seaweed is good. Every soup needs the minerals in a teaspoon or two of powdered kelp, or chopped sea vegetables. Our mental and physical health suffers when we become chronically deficient in trace minerals.

Sample Daily Menu

I may begin the day with tea, sometimes coffee, water, garlic and any herbs or supplements I'm taking, unless they require being taken with food.

For breakfast I may have rice, steamed spinach or chard with a little soy sauce and a cup of black tea with lemon (I drink the lemon tea first to stimulate my liver). The rice is usually eaten re-heated with sauteed onion as a stir-fry with other vegetables. This is not quite like wok-cooking or stir-fry, but close. Done in a large deep cast iron pan with a tight-fitting lid. Instead, perhaps a bowl of oatmeal with soup and tea, or a bowl of bean stew with miso. Almost all my breakfasts include something with miso.

For lunch I'll have a bowl or plate of rice, with cooked beans and more spinach, or with what leftover squash I may have in the fridge. Plus miso soup.

For dinner, still more rice and beans, with broccoli, and perhaps with a little steamed or baked fish or organic chicken added.

A baked acorn or butternut squash, or a baked sweet potato or yam, makes a great dessert, and will be quite sweet by itself if your taster isn't trashed from eating too much sweet stuff.

This may sound like a boring diet, yet each pot of soup, each meal, is from scratch, and thus different. The ingredients, the number of dashes of Cayenne pepper, the Olive oil dribbled, the condiments used-all alter flavor and mouth feel. Vegetables in season, the occasional venison roast, a different recipe-all provide variety of vitamins, proteins and minerals, as well as variety in flavor and texture.

The books listed herein provide hundreds of recipes that are healthy and tasty. You may also be able to find a teacher of macrobiotic cooking in your locale, and there are lots of online macrobiotic schools available. Be cautious here however, as fraud exists in this field, as in all others.

Cooking and Eating

All factors should be considered each day by the cook. The eater's health, attitude, work load, climate exposure, age, and other questions of daily need are answered with the next bowl of soup, baked squash and plate of flavored rice. Daily eating is daily healing.

Chewing is very important. Chew each mouthful until liquid. Macrobiotic folks say that half our digestion takes place in the mouth. Good food, thoroughly masticated and mixed with saliva begins complete digestion. Chewing even applies to soup and oatmeal. Careful mastication to mix everything very well with saliva will stimulate the proper stomach and intestinal fluids to complete the job.

The generation of saliva takes time, and chewing thoughtfully provides that time. Good chewing helps speed and smooth digestion by making everything smaller. Acid stomach and ulcers are often the result of improper chewing. The dictum here is that blood is made in the intestines. Good food plus good chewing equals good blood.

Condiments

For a condiment I often make Gamasio, which is roasted Sesame seeds ground with a little toasted seasalt. Separately roast a cup of seeds in a frying pan (until popping and lightly browned-stir rapidly to prevent burning), and a tablespoon of salt. Then grind carefully in a Suribachi-a Japanese grinding bowl with a wood pestle. A coffee grinder can be used in place of the Suribachi, but do not grind them very hot from the pan or you will melt the plastic grinder. Gamasio is sprinkled on rice and soup.

I often make Gamasio with Flax seeds for the Omega-3 fatty acids, and to give a different flavor. In this case do not toast the Flax seeds, as that will destroy the value of the fatty acids. For this type Gamasio, I use a coffee grinder, and add the Flax seeds and salt together.

I often take fresh cucumbers, peel and slice them and drop them into apple cider vinegar and water (50/50). They keep well in the refrigerator, and I eat a small handful of the slices as a snack, or with meals to aid digestion.

I eat pickles for flavor and for digestive assistance, and I try to buy ones with no chemicals, and containing garlic. There is a simple technique for making salt pickles with a little hand press. You can make pickles in a day or two with it. Japanese food stores sell them. Other types of pickles can be made in a crock with a weighted lid. I do not currently use one.

Salad and Raw Food

I don't usually eat much salad (lately I have been eating a little more). I rarely eat fruit either-too sweet. Almost everything I eat is cooked grains, beans and vegetables. The exception to this might be when healing cancer, diabetes or other specific metabolic disorders.

Enzymes in raw foods can contribute to healing in many cases, where the disorder or previous bad eating has interfered with normal enzyme production in the intestines.

Also in cases of specific healing regimens, high doses of anti-oxidants such as Vitamins A, B-6, B-9, B-17, E and many others, may be used for a time. Combined with Macrobiotic eating, this diet/treatment can be superior to surgery, radiation or chemotherapy.

Bromelain from fresh pineapple can aid protein digestion, if normally insufficient, and that can aid in joint and cartilage problems. Bromelain can also be obtained in supplement form.

Water and Liquids

I try not to drink too much water, which will also knock the regular nutrition folks off their seats. Drinking six or more large glasses of water daily is valid if you eat unbalanced food, or food that will injure your kidneys or liver, or that will produce byproducts that need flushing-in other words, the standard American diet.

If you eat Macrobiotically, you should only need the occasional cup of tea. Drinking excess water can cause unnecessary kidney overload, and can remove necessary minerals from your system.

The exception to this might be specific treatment regimens requiring cleansing. Some cancer treatments require a general flushing, and lots of water may be required for this process. It should be considered temporary, however.

Drinking water when you need it during heavy exercise, of course, is required to prevent dehydration, but normally one should get most liquid from food, soup and tea.

Check your liquid input-output: If you're quickly fatigued, you may be dehydrated. If you are dry-mouthed, you are dry. If you are feeling suddenly depressed or unaccountably angry, you may be dehydrated.

Personally, I find I tend to drink too little, and do add a glass or two of water each day, depending on the liquid content of the food I've eaten. I tend to eat drier food, and this requires extra water.

Balch and Balch in their excellent book Prescription for Nutritional Healing suggest that we should be drinking distilled water, and using it for tea and cooking. I recently (2005) bought a $100 electric still and it generates a gallon or two per day of pure water. Our local water system is so polluted with organics and excessive carbonates, that the residue in the bottom of the still, when it's finished with one of its cycles, is absolutely disgusting. Amazingly, this same water, right out of the tap, tastes fine, and doesn't smell.

You can buy distilled water at most stores today, though a still is much less expensive in the long run. I've paid for my little still many times over already.

Bottled water is seldom different from tap water. Treated water that has passed through an osmotic filter of small (low micron) size, may be fine, and the filtering system will remove most physical contaminates (Giardia, et al), but will not remove dissolved minerals.

Many suggest that the minerals in tap water are good for you, and some may be, but I think it advisable to personally control the intake of those minerals, rather than trust that what's already there will do you well.

Home filters that attach to your faucet are often dangerous, as the filters clog almost immediately with organic residue and become breeding grounds for weird bacteria. Osmotic filters that can be flushed are OK, but the flushing (or replacement) should not be forgotten.

Tea and Coffee

I like plain black tea, sometimes with squeezed lemon added (liver cleanser). Any of the black or green teas are good, however, so long as you don't steep them very long (30 seconds is fine for Lipton, et al), or don't want the caffeine. In that case, use non caffeine teas only.

Green tea is the same plant as black tea, just not fermented as long, and both have anti-cancer properties. Green tea does have some caffeine. I also drink several herb teas, including Chamomile, and buy blends from the major organic tea houses. Try them until you find those you like.

Teas are very useful in herbal healing, and you can adjust tea type according to your health needs as well as your tastes and preferences. Celestial Seasonings' Detox AM tea has Milk Thistle, and is a good liver stimulant and cleanser. Traditional healing teas described in the mentioned books can be used much as Allopathic doctors prescribe pills-specific to known disorders. These books, especially Healing Ourselves, have very specific prescriptions for tea mixes to be used for known conditions.

Traditional Macrobiotic cooking recommends Bancha twig tea as the most often taken tea, but you have to go to a Japanese or natural foods store for it. You take a small handful of Bancha twigs and roast them lightly. Then brew as you would cowboy coffee. Very good.

I like coffee and will I drink it when my system will accommodate it. I try not to drink much, but when I do, I only drink an organic coffee, as exported DDT and other pesticides are used out of the US, and regular coffee is chemically suspect because of this. I grind it fresh when I succumb. If you do drink coffee sometimes, learn to drink it black. Adding cream or sugar to coffee is terrible for your system.

Soda Pop and Beer

It completely amazes me that many, perhaps most, Americans are addicted to buying, and drinking, poisoned water. There is nothing in Soda Pop that is good for you. The sugars are often corn syrup, which is terrible, even worse than table sugar.

Worse still are diet drinks containing artificial sweetening chemicals like Aspartame and Nutrisweet. These are linked to all sorts of metabolic diseases. Don't drink the stuff ... ever.

Even more insidious is drinking these things from aluminum cans. While the cans are coated they can still have small amounts of aluminum in the liquids due to the liquid's great corrosiveness. Aluminum is well-associated with Alzheimer's disease, and one should not consume anything with aluminum, or eat or cook from aluminum utensils.

[Side note here: Many deodorants use Aluminum Hexachloride as an anti perspirant. Don't use these things. If you eat cleanly, you will have a natural and pleasant body odor. I gave up spraying or wiping my armpits with chemicals nearly forty years ago. These sources of aluminum are immediately absorbed directly into your blood stream.]

Beer, especially good beer made with good water and ingredients, can be good food, if used judiciously. Any alcoholic drink tends to cause your system to treat is as it would sugar, so be aware that beer is very Yin, and expanding. I do like a good microbrew beer, and imbibe when it feels appropriate.

Ancients used alcohol as a sacrament, and the use of alcohol as a drug to expand consciousness is historically valid. Moderns tend to use alcohol for escape or social lubrication, and the result is disastrous.

Don't drink what I call pissin' beer ... Budweiser, Miller, Coors and most of the standard drinking beers. They are terrible tasting, and unpleasant for your system. You tend to drink more of them, and that leads to all sorts of problems, not the least of which are alcoholism, kidney and liver damage and bladder cancer.

Scatology

If your pee is dark, you're not taking enough liquid. If your pee, however, is clear, you're taking too much, or your digestion is faulty. It should be the color of regular beer. A man should pee three or four times in 24 hours, and a woman two or three times, under normal, moderate activity. If you pee often, you may have urinary problems, you've just taken tea or food that is diuretic, or you're drinking too much liquid. If you pee seldom, or your pee is dark, drink more.

You can check your digestion with a little scatology: Turds should be firm, usually one piece, medium to dark brown but not black, and convoluted (slightly lumpy). They should float. You should need little or no toilet paper.

Lightly colored turds, or ones slimy or loose or otherwise different, indicate poor digestion (including lowered bile production), and possible liver malfunction. Loose stools can also be from eating too much sweet stuff, or other Yin food.

The Medical Community, Macrobiotics and General Nutrition Notes

Macrobiotic eating will send the normal nutrition folks out the window in abject panic and total denial. They have been so propagandized by the four-food-group people, the banana and papaya import companies, the lettuce growers, and the meat and milk industry, that they have become staggering ignoramuses. The worst of them, and the most entrenched, are college-trained nutritionists.

Never have I seen worse food served than in a hospital, managed by a college-trained nutritionist. When my brother Alan was out of major abdominal surgery this past April (2001)-from colon cancer no less-what did they bring him to eat? White flour pancakes, sugar syrup, butter, cottage cheese, and sugared pseudo-juices. For lunch a hamburger on a white flour bun, canned veggies, salad with greasy dressing and Jello. Then they had the gall to add an acidic orange for dessert. Low quality commercial meat, french fries and overcooked veggies for dinner. They thereby ensure a continuous crop of surgery patients. Amazing.

More General Notes on Eating

In general, one should not overeat, even Macrobiotically. I usually eat from bowls, rarely from plates. One large bowl of food is usually enough, unless I'm working very hard physically and need the calories. Then I'll have a second bowl, or add a plate of rice and beans.

Under heavy load I eat often. If I'm really putting out the effort getting firewood, or hiking and climbing, I may eat four or even five times per day, and I'll add more protein and fat to the mix-including fish and wild meat.

During intense exertion I may eat things that have lots of calories in fat and protein, like nuts, dried fruit and jerked venison. I usually avoid energy bars because most of them are way too sweet and milky, but in an emergency they are a good boost without too great a price to pay. In these cases, extra water is required.

If I'm eating too much and feeling stuffed, I use a smaller bowl. I try to eat until I'm no longer hungry, but stop before I'm full.

Our Food Confusion

We have learned to achieve fulfillment by stuffing ourselves at the table. We substitute satiation for serenity and security.

The 60% of Americans who are overweight, or outright obese, are suffering from malnutrition. We use this word to describe people who are under-nourished, but the prefix 'mal' means bad. When we feel the need to continuously eat to satisfy simple hunger cravings (distinct from pathological ones), it's usually because the food is not complete, is unbalanced, or contains useless calories.

The typical American diet is grossly unbalanced, containing too much bad fat, too much protein, not nearly enough trace minerals and real vitamins, and is full of empty calories from refined sugars and flours.

This consumption of too much results in diabetes, heart problems, plugged arteries, liver failure, cancer and most other common debilitating metabolic disorders. When your body is running neatly, it is not necessary to consume as many calories. This sounds paradoxical, but a really efficient metabolism does not crave the extras most Americans seem to want.

Mental Health

I'm convinced a large portion of our cultural malaise and outright insanity (violence) results from a lack of understanding about food and its mental effects. If one is eating a high-fat, high-sugar, chemical-filled bad diet-one that leaves a trail of toxic residues throughout the body-you can expect inhibited utilization of proper nutrients, and consequent disruption of neural signal transmission in the brain.

Can one be sane, and remain so, if one eats poorly? Even if not overweight, can clear thinking and sanity be present in a sugar junkie, a donut lush, a coffee addict, or McDonald's french fried brains? Has anyone correlated an increase in road rage with the proliferation of Espresso carts and increased donut consumption? Should there be a sugar-nutso scale? Or a bad-fats brain index? A caffeine junkie wacko scale? We know about alcohol and tobacco, but have we yet recognized that bad food is also addictive, and with similar results?

In the 60s, Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder wrote Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain. Sounds wacky, and some things they discuss are, but they did report on a Russian experiment that opened my eyes.

Apparently a Russian mental hospital decided to experiment on their most whacked Schizophrenic patients, and put the crazies on a fast. No food, only water. Many of them, usually after three weeks or more, became suddenly quite sane. They sat up and asked, "Where am I? What's going on here, and why am I so damned hungry?"

The Russians then re-introduced various foods back into their diet until they went nuts. The three foods that contributed most to the 'I-see-God-in-a-lightbulb' phenomenon were: Red meat, white sugar and white flour.

This, and many other studies and anecdotes (I know, I know, anecdotes aren't evidence and testimonials aren't tests), may tell us that our individual metabolisms are very different from person to person, and that some things which bother a few may not bother anyone else.

Many of us are the "Canaries" of the food world. This is why Macrobiotics can be so valuable, for it suspends use of most of the bad stuff, and allows one's individual metabolism to recover. In this process, one can often find what foods and other inputs are fitting for us as individuals.

Some may find that some red meat is fitting. Others may find that certain chemicals are really toxic, and need to be avoided at all costs. Some may learn that certain foods make us sick (I have a friend who will get immediately sick if he eats Brussels sprouts, or sips even a tiny amount of Tequila).

[In general, everything we take into our bodies is food: water, things we eat, drugs, air, the attitudes of those around us, sounds we hear, sights we see and things we touch.]

Enough

Enough rant for now. I have additional references for food, and for mental health, but this will get you started if you wish to follow this lead. If you get Healing Ourselves, don't get hung up in the oriental Five-Elements theory. It's a bit obtuse for our Western minds (though vastly interesting). Pass right over, and go to the chapters on Eliminating Waste, Diagnosis, and on. Our Earth, Our Cure is more straightforward, though not strictly Macrobiotic.

Also very worthy is a book by Dr. Andrew Weil, Spontaneous Healing. This book examines miraculous healing and spontaneous remission, which can be stimulated by good mental practice (sometimes quite idiosyncratic) and a pure diet. An earlier book of his, Natural Health, Natural Medicine, is one I value highly for its general practical advice, though not Macrobiotic. Both are still in print. Andy Weil has a website which provides good general advice on health and diet.

Take care. Do good work. Be well.

Bibliography:

Healing Ourselves - Naboru Muramoto
Prescription for Nutritional Healing - Balch and Balch
Spontaneous Healing - Andrew Weil
Natural Health, Natural Medicine - Andrew Weil
Our Earth, Our Cure - Raymond Dextreit and Michael Abehsera
Confession of a Kamikaze Cowboy - Dirk Benedict
Zen Macrobiotic Cooking - Michael Abehsera
Cooking for Life - Michael Abehsera
The natural Prostate Cure - Roger Mason
Sugar Blues - William Dufty.........................................................printer friendly