WHAT I LEARN FROM WRITING MODERN DAY MACROBIOTICS

Having written so many books on feng shui, nine ki, face reading, chi energy and Do In it was very exciting to finally write a book about macrobiotics, my introduction to all the other subjects.

In particular I wanted to write a book that shows just what an excellent way of eating macrobiotics is. In every way you could test a diet, whether using sodium and potassium, acid and aline, nutritional content, glycaemic index or load, macrobiotics excels.

I learnt a lot during my research and as a result have altered my practice since 2003 to include a higher proportion of vegetables and fruit with slightly more raw foods. There is a wealth of positive information on the benefits of eating whole living grains and this inspired me to go back to eating more whole grain but whereas I ate more brown rice than anything else I now enjoy a much bigger variety of whole grains.

Working on the GI section was a revelation as some of the foods like rice cakes, puffed rice and syrups raise your blood sugar almost as quickly as refined sugar. The more whole the food is, the less it upsets your blood sugar. Many fresh fruits lead to better stability than refined grains.

I now am more careful with fried foods as the oils we use break down under the high temperatures introducing free radicals into your body. I now probably have more oil but eat it raw on vegetables (apparently increasing our absorption of nutrients) or add it to soups or stews where it cannot exceed 100C.

The results of all my research are in the book. In addition it was important to me to explain how the living energy of the foods we eat interact with our own emotional energy in a clear understandable way. Here I have tried to focus on the essence without bringing in too many potentially confusing concepts. If you get the chance to read the book, please let me know if you think I have succeeded!

I am very keen for macrobiotics to be seen as a more open, flexible approach to eating and that it is something you can do now and again to feel good, use to recover from a health problem, eat in a relaxed way for general well being or dip into when you feel like it. This is reflected in the macrobiotic diet plans I designed.

I also wanted readers to understand that macrobiotics is not an all or nothing, fanatical diet and I hope this is reflected in the diet for life section where I point out that anything can be macrobiotic it is more a question of knowing the likely effect of eating a food and deciding whether that is something you want.

One of the biggest criticisms is that eating macrobiotically means you spend most of your time in the kitchen and I have tried to dispel this myth by showing how many foods can be prepared in ten minutes and how with a bit of organisation you can spend one hour cooking and enjoy a complete whole food macrobiotic meal with leftovers for the next meal. It was my intention that the recipes would reflect the latest practice and here I had some welcomed help from Dragana and my sister Melanie Waxman.

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