ahearn@convex.UUCP (08/08/84)
#N:convex:56000005:000:823
convex!ahearn Aug 7 17:29:00 1984
Say, Ed, if you liked the effect of macrobiotics, why did
you quit the diet. I'm not flaming, just curious...
Anybody else have any experience with macrobiotics?
My own experience is that although i love the effects of the diet,
there are times (mid-July here in Texas for example) when i just
cannot eat it. Nor have I ever gotten over a lifelong fondness for
spices (lead me to the salsa!!!)
By the way, you lacto/ovo types out there should look up a cook-
book called *The Vegetarian Epicure*. It's loaded with great recipes
for continental, Japanese, Italian, Greek, Indian, etc., food.
(Sure the recipes are loaded with butter and sugar, but it's hot, right?)
Regards,
Joe Ahearn
{allegra, ihnp4, uiucds, ctvax}!convex!ahearn
-----------------------------------------------
"...History is why I'm washed up..."ncss@mrvax.DEC (Ed Smith) (08/13/84)
<So Where? Nowhere.> >Say, Ed, if you liked the effect of macrobiotics, why did >you quit the diet. I'm not flaming, just curious... - Joe Ahearn Thanks for asking Joe. Part of the reason is similar to your Salsa craving, except for me, since moving to Boston, it's ice cream...but there's more to it than that. Socially, Macrobiotics is a very difficult diet to maintain. If you are married and have a spouse who is as interested in it as you are, that's one thing, but if you live with people not overly impressed with the diet, then it's not easy at all. Even living alone is a difficult situation, because of the time it takes to cook the food. It's not that it is impossible to do, but for me, my life is not sufficiently settled or organized to be able to plan out meals, when to cook them, etc. I still maintain an awarness of what foods (and the stuff inside of foods) are doing to me, and have worked out my own algorithms for balancing effects. I eat natural foods when it's possible, and maintain a "semi-vegitarian" (Yes, I know... Jumbo Shrimp, Military Intelligence, a little pregnant... :-) diet, with nice Veggie meals when I eat home. The thing that turned me away from the diet initially was that after a little over two months, I realized I had no idea HOW to go OFF the diet. I had so completely bought into not only the style of eating, but the style of thinking of a small, very isolated, and very... (I won't say "conceited", but I will say) self assured group. I had hardly met any of them (at the time), but their view of the world clearly comes through the literature. There is very little self doubt about the "rightness" of the diet, and to a large degree a patronizing attitude to all of those poor unenlightened souls who still go to McDonald's, drink Coke, take asprin, and have of heart attacks, or cancer, or whatever, and who keep the same life style that produced and nourished that disease. The overall problem is buying into a whole world view, which is easy, even highly tempting, to do. It's not a question of Macrobiotics being "right" or "wrong", but rather it's isolationist tendencies, and the "secret ritual" feel. Macrobiotics (as I think you mentioned in your article) descended from certain dietary practices of Zen Buddhist monks in Japan. However, those who translated the diet into western terms (at least, somewhat) left out most of the real Buddhism, and with it much of the subtlety and uncertainty inherent in any sufficiently complex system. (Godel had nothing on Virmalakirti :-] ) So, for me, I'll watch my diet and my body in my own way, aware as I eat my Cahaley's Bittersweet Chocolate cone that I'll be more tired than I need to be, and that my nose will be a little runnier, and that maybe a tunafish sandwhich wouldn't be a bad idea for dinner (packed in Spring water, of course.) Yet, if I was told by my chiropracter that I was possibly developing a malignancy somewhere, or if I felt fat or weak, then I would not have some doctor cut chunks of flesh out, or fill myself full of drugs or hormones or whatever. I would go back to a more strict diet, and try to understand the specific causes which were at work to give me the problem in the first place. I think The people who organized and control the macrobiotic community learned a great deal about health, nutrition, and lifestyle, but I don't think they have the final word, and I think it is too easy for people to get trapped inside, cut themselves off from many of their old friends and the possibility of meeting new friends who eat "normally" (How many social situations DON'T involve eating or drinking of some kind?) and keep repeating phrases like "Michio Kushi says..." and "That's much too Yin." What I would really like to see from some source, either from within the Macrobiotic "Village", or from some outside party, is a report on those people who were NOT helped by Macrobiotics...those people who followed the diet and whose conditions did not improve. I would also like to know, out of curiosity, how George Ohsawa died. I think it's important to have a well rounded understanding of a system that is as pervasive as Macrobiotics is, to those in it, and as obscure and misunderstood as it is from the outside. I think Macrobiotics needs to incorporate a wider understanding of western life, and not be satisfied by simply saying "this is natural, and this isn't," etc. It also needs to be less isolated, and more humble. Perhaps I'm not quite being fair. Does anyone know of books that supply the sorts of things I'm looking for? I'd like to hear about them. I also don't meant this to be a flame, but rather an example of the issues that cough at each other inside my brain when I think about Macrobiotics. Ed Bernstein DEC e-net: MRVAX::KL2116::EBERNSTEIN Usenet: decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-mrvax!dec-kl2116 (I guess)
ahearn@convex.UUCP (08/20/84)
#R:convex:56000005:convex:56000008:000:105 convex!ahearn Aug 20 12:33:00 1984 Hey, Ed, our mailer can't find your site. I'd like to continue the discussion, but... Any ideas? --jra