The Macrobiotic Connoisseur

One way I have found to make changes I want in life is to become a connoisseur of the thing I want to move to. The word connoisseur originally comes from the French word to know.

We can easily develop strong habits and varying degrees of addictions to foods and find it very challenging to make changes. Obvious foods examples would be alcohol, coffee, sugar, fats, processed baked foods and salt.

HOW DO WE BREAK FREE OF HABITS AND ADDICITIONS?

It seems that when we become interested in something our pleasure of experiencing it increases. Wine would be an obvious example, where investing some time in exploring the where the grapes grow, the conditions, the fermenting and so on, we perceive drinking the wine as being more special and we feel we get more pleasure from drinking it.

We can apply the same principle to anything we want to bring into our lives. If I wanted to drink less coffee and more herb teas, one strategy would be to research particular herb teas and find out as mush as possible. For example, there are several types of green tea, depending on the season it is picked. Each type of green tea can be roasted, creating very different tastes. Connoisseurs even claim it makes a difference whether the tea is picked in the morning or afternoon. Loose teas consisting of larger leaves can be considered more desirable, and so it goes on. We can experiment with letting the water cool to between 70-80 degrees C before adding the tea. How long do we leave the tea in? With very little effort with can become knowledgeable about green teas, increasing the pleasure we get from drinking them.

We could enhance this process further by ensuring each time we drink our tea we make the whole experience emotionally enjoyable. This will help us establish positive emotional associations with our herb tea. So we could put on our favourite music, look at inspiring images or laugh with friends as part of our tea experience. We can extend the tea experience to include the ritual of buying the best tea, storing it, serving and tasting it.

MACROBIOTIC FOODS

We can become connoisseurs of miso, shoyu, sea salts, brown rice, vinegars, olive oils, herbs, sea vegetables, various vegetables and fruits. With enough interest we can become fascinated with any of the foods as well as the subject as a whole. So if you want to make a change to more healthy natural foods try learning as much about them as possible, tasting the subtle differences between one variety and another, as well as being able to describe the characteristic of the foods.

BELIEVING THE ILLUSIONS?

Blind tests suggest that wine connoisseurs find it difficult to distinguish the difference between a relatively cheap bottle of reasonable wine and an expensive bottle of alleged quality wine. So perhaps it is best to focus our exploration, research, knowledge and experience on increasing our own pleasure and as a means to open ourselves up for changes in diet, rather than judge and think that some versions of our natural foods are superior to others.

We might think we have found the ultimate miso, however we can also train ourselves to appreciate a more humble miso just as much.

FLEXIBILITY

It is being flexible enough to engage, experience, enjoy the insights and realisations along the way, and then let go, that I think potentially makes this journey most enlightening. Otherwise we risk creating new habits and addictions.

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