vincent@garfield.UUCP (Vincent Gogan) (12/09/84)
Does anyone have any information concerning Metabiotic Diets. I have
not heard much about them but what I have heard has been interesting.
It seems to involve eating foods natural to where you live and talks
of the yin and yan of foods to balance your diet. The diet is not
necessarily vegetarian but it could be. I am interested in such a
diet and would welcome any information. Anyone else who is interested
can mail to me and if I get a lot, I'll post. If not, I shall mail.
P.S. It is not a weight reducing diet.
{utcsrgv,allegra,ihnp4}!garfield!vincentcrm@duke.UUCP (Charlie Martin) (12/12/84)
I think you are talking about a MACROBIOTIC diet, and that's "yin" and "yang" usually. Look for books on macrobiotics and similar by Michio Kushi. In general, a macrobiotic diet is very heavily based on grains and beans, with vegetables added. It's roughly like the diet that is eaten in any arbitrary Zen monastery in Japan. The interest in macrobiotic diets comes from the fact that people who live in zendos tend to live a long time (although some have claimed that it just *seems* a long time...). In addition, some have claimed that macrobiotic diets have a pallative effect on cancer. Two caveats: 1) they eat like that in zendos mostly because it is cheap, and members of the sangha are really supposed to be living only on begging... although that isn't really true any more. They don't live on that kind of diet because it's somehow better for you -- and in fact people in zendos are sometimes prescribed to leave the zendo for a meal or two a week because the diet is hard on their health. 2) Some versions of a macrobiotic diet suggest that you can live ONLY ON BROWN RICE, with nothing else. THIS IS NOT TRUE and will do you no end of harm after more than a couple of weeks. If you can stand it, you will lose weight on just brown rice, but don't push it. -- Opinions stated here are my own and are unrelated. Charlie Martin (...mcnc!duke!crm)