What is Macrobiotics?

by Alex Jack

“Let food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be food.” - Hippocrates

“Macrobiotics” comes from makro bios, the Greek words for “Long Life” or “Great Life.”

Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, coined the term, and in the modern era it has been developed by Michio Kushi and other educators in Japan, America, Europe, and around the world. By creating our bodies and minds from natural foods in a spirit of thankfulness, we can contribute to personal health, social well being, and planetary health and peace.

Over the last generation, macrobiotics has been the catalyst for many of the dietary and lifestyle changes now taking place.

Macrobiotics has introduced and popularized organically grown whole foods and naturally processed foods, including brown rice, millet, whole wheat, and other whole cereal grains; adzuki beans, chickpeas, and other beans; miso, tofu, shoyu (natural soy sauce), tempeh, and other traditionally processed soy foods; nori, kombu, wakame, hiziki, and other mineral-rich sea vegetables; daikon, kale, burdock, kuzu, and other fiber- and mineral-rich vegetables; white sea salt, toasted sesame and other unrefined vegetable oil, umeboshi plums, and other seasonings and condiments; amasake, brown rice syrup, barley malt, and other natural sweeteners; bancha twig tea (kukicha); and other healthful foods and beverages.

The benefits of a macrobiotic diet are now widely recognized. At Harvard Medical School, cardiovascular researchers found that people eating a macrobiotic diet for an average of two years had virtually no risk of coronary heart disease, the major cause of death in modern society(1).

Macrobiotics can also help prevent and relieve cancer. Scientists at the University of Southern California in San Diego and the National Tumor Institute in Milan, Italy, reported that a macrobiotic diet may help reduce the risk of prostate and breast cancer, the two most prevalent types(2).

Scientists at Tulane University in New Orleans found that pancreatic cancer patients who observe a macrobiotic diet lived five times longer than patients eating the modern diet(3).

Researchers at the New England Medical Center in Boston concluded that macrobiotic women process estrogen better than others and this may explain their low incidence of breast cancer(4). The National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine funded a study documenting the recovery of 76 patients who recovered from cancer with the help of a macrobiotic diet(5).

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. National Cancer Institute, and the American Cancer Society have also observed the health and psychological benefits of the macrobiotic approach.

Other medical studies have shown that a macrobiotic way of eating is beneficial for improving childhood nutrition(6), reducing violent and aggressive behavior among young juvenile offenders(7), controlling T-cells in young men with AIDS(8), improving geriatric and psychiatric health(9), and reducing multiple chemical sensitivities(10).

The U.S. government officially recognized the contributions of Michio and Aveline Kushi, the founders of the Kushi Institute, to modern society by creating a permanent collection devoted to macrobiotics and alternative and complementary medicine at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

In the new 25th Anniversary Edition of The Cancer Prevention Diet, Michio Kushi and I describe macrobiotics in these words:

Macrobiotics today is a unique synthesis of Eastern and Western influences. It is the way of life according to the largest possible view, the infinite order of the universe.

The practice of macrobiotics is the understanding and practical application of this order to our lifestyle, including the selection, preparation, and manner of eating of our daily food, as well as the orientation of consciousness.

Macrobiotics does not offer a single diet for everyone but a dietary principle that takes into account differing climatic and geographical considerations, varying ages, sexes, and levels of activity, and ever-changing personal needs. Macrobiotics also embraces the variety and richness of all the world’s cultures and heritages.

Broadly speaking, dietary practice according to macrobiotics is the way of eating that flourished from before the time of Homer to that of our grandparents or great-grandparents. It is the diet that Buddha ate under the tree of enlightenment and that Jesus shared with his disciples at the Last Supper.

It is the diet that helped Moses free his people from bondage and that sustained the Pilgrims upon their arrival in the New World. Most of all, macrobiotics is the way of life followed by ordinary people throughout history: farmers, shepherds, fishermen, merchants, traders, artisans, scribes, monks, bards. From the earliest campfires in the Ice Age to the latest space launches in the Atomic Era, countless mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, babies, and grandparents have shared nourishing food together and saved the seeds to plant the following spring.

Under many names and forms, macrobiotics will continue as long as human life continues to exist, as it’s most fundamental and intuitive wisdom. It offers a key to restoring our health, a vision for regenerating the world, and a compass for charting our endless voyage toward freedom and enduring peace.

by Alex Jack © Macrobiotic Shop

References:

1. F. M. Sacks et al., “Blood pressure in vegetarians,” American Journal of Epidemiology 100:390-98, 1974; F. M. Sacks et al., “Plasma lipids and lipoproteins in vegetarians and controls,” New England Journal of Medicine 292:1148-51, 1975; F. M. Sacks et al., “Effects of ingestion of meat on plasma cholesterol of vegetarians,” Journal of the American Medical Association 246:640-44, 1981.
2. G. A. Saxe et al, “Potential Attenuation of Disease Progression in Recurrent Prostate Patients with Plant Diet and Stress Reduction,”Integr Cancer Ther5(3)206-13, 2006. 1993. F. Berrino et al., “Reducing bioavailable sex hormones through a comprehensive change in diet: the diet and androgens (DIANA) randomized trial,” Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention 10:25-33, 2001.
3. James P. Carter et al., “Hypothesis: dietary management may improve survival from nutritionally linked cancers based on analysis of representative cases,” Journal of the American College of Nutrition 12:209-226.
4. B. R. Goldin et al., “effect of Diet on excretion of estrogen in pre- and postmenopausal incidence of breast cancer in vegetarian women,” Cancer Research 41:3771-73, 1981.
5. L. H. Kushi et al., “The macrobiotic diet in cancer,” Journal of Nutrition 131:3056S-3064S, 2001.
6. V. Ventura, “A comparative study of the meals provided for pre-school children by two day nurseries,” Department of Nutrition, Queen Elizabeth College, U.K, 1980.
7. S. Schoenthaler, Ph.D., “The effect of sugar on the treatment and control of antisocial behavior,” International Journal of Biosocial Research 3(1):1-9, 1982.
8. E. Levy et al., “Patients with Kaposi sarcoma who opt for no treatment,” [letter] Lancet July 1985.
9. Jonathan Lieff et al., “Study results of dietary change in shattuck hospital geropsychiatric wards, 5 north and 6 north,” in M. Kushi, Cancer and Diet, Japan Publications 1987, pp. 229-34.
10. Sherry A. Rogers, M.D., “Improvement in chemical sensitivitywith the macrobiotic diet,” Journal of Applied Nutrition 48:85-92, 1996.

The Macrobiotic Shop offers the highest quality organic and natural foods available by mail order throughout the UK, Europe, and abroad. We also sponsor consultations, classes and instruction in macrobiotic theory and principles, macrobiotic cooking and meal preparation, and related topics. We are dedicated to creating a healthy, peaceful world in which nourishing, affordable food is available to all.