Recently I became very interested in macrobiotic diet. It’s an old Japanese diet but only recently it gained a lot of popularity, mainly  because many celebrities follow it. Madonna even has a macrobiotic chef in her kitchen to prepare macrobiotic meals for her whole family. Even though most of us heard about macrobiotics, not many of us really know what  is this. So what exactly is a macrobiotic diet?

‘Macro’ stands for large and ‘bios’ stands for life and as the name suggests the diet focuses on whole, living foods such as grains, vegetables, fruits, sea vegetables, legumes and fermented foods. There is no meat or diary allowed. It’s mostly vegan way of eating with an occasional consumption of fish, although eating fish is a personal preference and is not mandatory. Now we probably should explain what is a living food.

Living foods are simply foods that can grow even though they’ve been harvested. For example you can always take a seed out of the fruit and plant it to grow again or submerge beans or grains in a liquid and they will start sprouting. Also fermented foods are alive because millions of healthy microbes flourish in them producing important enzymes. Meat, diary products, processed foods and fish are not alive anymore. They can’t grow but still they have some of the remaining vital energy and probably that’s the reason why fish is allowed in a diet. Macrobiotics believes that food has an energy and depending what kind of food we eat we might energize out body or deplete it out of its energy. If we eat a lot of meat we probably don’t feel energized and I am not talking about the energy in form of calories. It’s a different type of energy, internal, vital and emotional. Food can affect how we feel, it affects our mood and our health. If we eat a lot of living foods we gain a lot of vital energy that fills us from within. Living foods are high in enzymes and have impact on all our body cells giving them power to do their job the best they can. Meat does not have any enzymes and it cannot give us that kind of energy.

Macrobiotics also prefers using local, seasonal foods rather than foods that are not from your  geographical region so for example if you live in the area where oranges don’t grow, they won’t be as beneficial for you as for the person living in Florida. To be honest I don’t really believe in that part of the diet. I do believe in using seasonal foods but I don’t think that just because I don’t live in tropics, I shouldn’t be consuming exotic fruits.

It seems to me like a fantastic way of eating especially if you’re already following vegan or vegetarian diet. However  I don’t think I will completely convert to macrobiotics because of the same reason I’m not vegan, I eat cheese and eggs, but I do want my menu to be at least partially macrobiotic due to its profound health benefits. Some people who follow macrobiotic lifestyle claim that the diet is able to heal serious diseases like cancer and it aids in tissue renewal.

I realized that I already made some macrobiotic recipes like my Miso Soup and Arame Edamame Cucumber Salad and I will definitely be making more. I really want to learn how to prepare delicious and healthy living food recipes and I would love to share them with you like the rest of my cooking.