The Macrobiotic Approach To Health And Wellness

It may be an ordinary dance studio during the week, but on Sunday mornings this little room in Toronto's west end is transformed by the smells of steamed vegetables, seaweed and miso into Anna Rosenberg's Macro Mornings cooking class. Here Rosenberg provides her students with a basic introduction to macrobiotic cooking.

Many of Rosenberg's students come to her cooking classes to learn how to prepare a wide variety of meals that will help them start the healing process and recover from such diseases as cancer.

"The first factor of health is what you eat. It determines how you react, how you think," says Rosenberg, a macrobiotic chef, teacher, councillor and founder of the Macrobiotic Living Whole Foods Cooking School.

Macrobiotics Defined
In macrobiotics health and longevity is believed to be achieved through theunderstanding of the relationships between ourselves, the food we eat and the lifestyles we choose to live. Sickness is viewed as the body's natural attempt to harmonize itself with its environment.

All foods consumed in macrobiotics help the body achieve this harmony by aiding in the digestion and absorption of nutrients.

"Macrobiotics is basically a whole grain and vegetable diet, it's really simple," Rosenberg says. "It's about looking at an individual and seeing what they need."

In macrobiotics food preparation is just as important to human health as are proper food choices.

"I'm trying to teach day to day cooking," Rosenberg says. "Most people think it (cooking)is just a matter of ingredients but it's also the energy of the food, the pots the food is prepared in and the type of dish. Is it a fast or slow dish?"

By going to fast food restaurants she says we give up our control over what we eat to others who might not be concerned with whether the food they are preparing is healthy.

"By putting order into cooking, you put order into your life," Rosenberg says.

Good Health
Rosenberg first learned about macrobiotics from her ex-husband who told her that when they got married they were going to eat macrobiotic. After seeing her health improve from this diet, she knew she couldn't go back.

"I though I was in good health but I discovered a whole new sense of health," Rosenberg says.

Little things that she though were just part of life like, menstrual cramps and athlete's foot, completely disappeared.

She says she is amazed when people tell her they are healthy and then tell her they have a health condition like diabetes. She says many people don't truly understand what health is.

Making The Transition
One of the most common mistakes beginners make when starting a macrobiotic diet Rosenberg says, is not eating enough of a variety of foods.

"In a day you should have about 10 different vegetables. Cooked in different ways," she says.

Lidia Kuleshnyk, a licensed holistic practitioner, macrobiotic cook, health consultant and founder of Macrobiotics Plus, recommends beginners start by adding healthy foods to their diets instead of taking away bad ones. This will help stop food cravings and make the transition physiological and biologically easier.

Kuleshnyk says miso soup is a great addition to any diet.

"One bowl of high quality miso soup will cleanse 50 cigarettes from your body," she says.

Miso, a fermented soybean paste, has been a staple of the Japanese diet for centuries

Macrobiotics In Demand
One day Kuleshnyk would love to see rice balls offered along side Tim Horton's donuts and amaske as an alternative to ice cream at Baskin Robbins.

Amaske, a whole-grain sweet brown rice beverage, is just one of the hard-to-find foods that Kuleshnyk's macrobiotic food service currently sells.

"There's never a shortage of demand. There is just a problem with the logistics of meeting it," she says. " I'm busier beyond my capacity."

Six or seven years ago, Kuleshnyk believes society shifted toward a more spiritual and environmental form of thinking.

"Today there is a health food store practically on every corner. It wasn't' like that 10 or 15 years ago," she says.

Stephanie Raymond is the publisher of Hippocrates, a web journal dedicated to the healing properties of food. To find out more visit http://hippocrates.4t.com

Washington Post

HEALTH CARE: Where are reform alternatives? TheNewsTribune.com All we hear are evil lies about health care reform, but nobody offers an alternative to a problem that has grown too big to ignore. ... Alternative is unacceptableHeraldNet American health-care reformEconomist Editorial: Rx for health care: political courageMinneapolis Star Tribune Washington Times -Hartford Courant -OregonLive.com all 268 news articles »

New York Times (blog)

Kucinich's health-care vote could be Obama's lucky charm Washington Post "I struggled with Crohn's disease most of my adult life, to discover 16 years ago a near cure in alternative medicine and through following a plant-based ... If bill fails, Pelosi has strategic alternativeSan Francisco Chronicle Nancy Pelosi's challengeEconomist Kucinich switches healthcare voteLos Angeles Times TIME (blog) -New York Times -The Hill (blog) all 7,658 news articles »

Health Net of Arizona Named #1 HMO Six Years in a Row MarketWatch (press release) ... wide spectrum of health care plans and specialty services, including coverage for vision, dental, life insurance, chiropractic and alternative medicine. ... and more »

CBO: $940 Billion Health Overhaul Saves More Than Previous Bills Atlantic Online (blog) We can go back and forth on whether the cost cutting measures in HCR will be more like the Medicare reforms that stuck through the 1990s or the Alternative ... and more »

Stop the bleeding in California Los Angeles Times Like her fellow congressional Republicans, Bono Mack supports an alternative GOP proposal, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says would ... and more »

Health Care and Alternative Health in France Futurehealth The conference was about what we call CAM, or Complementary and Alternative Medicine, in the United States, and particularly about the basis for some CAM ...

Direct-buy Health Insurance: Another Health Insurance Alternative eMaxHealth The battle for supremacy in the heated health insurance debate seems to be halting progress. Lawmakers are perpetually clashing proposing bigger, ... and more »

Reuters

The MSM and Obama's 'Medi-Grab': Let Their Punishment Fit the Crime Big Journalism (blog) ... infomercial,” as Geller called it, the network rejected advertisements that offered a free market alternative to Obama's statist health-care vision. ... Make the Democrats Pay for Their Sell-out to Corporate InterestsFiredoglake (blog) Beware Obama's one-sided coinLompoc Record Obama: 'We need courage'msnbc.com all 2,100 news articles »

The Battle Over Health Care At America's Medical Schools FOXNews ... for liberal health care policies. Patient-centered organizations such as Physicians for Reform are never invited to present an alternative viewpoint. ... and more »

USA Today

reconciliation bills SEIU (blog) Many Republicans have been trying to define "reconciliation" as a radical alternative to the normal legislative ... No trickery, just voteTheDay.com Willing to winBarre Montpelier Times Argus all 391 news articles »