Hello kittens! How are you? It’s finally getting colder and it makes me so happy! It’s time for cozy clothes and comforting food and after the madly hot summer, Autumn couldn’t come any quicker! And while I was enjoying the mindless scrolling on Instagram of a weekday night, I found this account of a vegan macrobiotic person and she was suggesting that in order to prepare our bodies for the colder months, it would be good to do a “detox” for a week following a macrobiotic diet. Since it was ages I wanted to go back to my macrobiotic practice, I thought this would have been a good time to do that. I signed up for the detox, and decided to extend it to the whole month.

Years ago, in 2012) I attended a course on Macrobiotics and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t quite agree with the teacher of said course as he said that it’s difficult to be a vegan Macrobiotic: bizarre because Macrobiotic is very much a pescatarian diet that can easily be turned into vegan. The course itself had a nice structure with a theory part followed by a dinner and lo and behold, all the dinners had only vegan dishes! I liked the theory part, very holistic and made you understand the interconnection of how what we do and what we eat has a significant impact on our lives. After the course was finished, I tried to maintain some of the Macrobiotics principles, but I slowly lost touch with it. The occasion of this detox was the perfect chance to go back and refresh my practice.

Why have I done this? I thought “I can do the Limpia for 50 days, meaning not being able to eat chickpea flour, so I can do this”. Mmmh, well. It’s not that easy. True, I can make vegan omelets but I can’t have potatoes! Oh goodness.

This is difficult. And I’ve fallen into the temptation of chips, once a week – potatoes are a big no-no in macrobiotic! But before I talk about this experience, I’ll explain what a macrobiotic diet entails.

Principles of Macrobiotics

Macrobiotic is a philosophy that takes a lot from the principles of yin and yang. The world and everything in it need balance in order to function properly. When there is a good balance between yin and yang in an organism, then it will have a good energy. For example, people should also have a balance, but many times they might have an imbalance and be too yin or too yang. Then there are also the dichotomy of acid and alkaline and the 5 elements (Earth, Fire, Water, Metal and Wood) – if you want to learn more about all this, the Macrobiotic.org.uk website has a clear and short page on the Principles of Macrobiotic.

The very positive thing about Macrobiotics, is that it’s basically intrinsically pescatarian so it’s very easy to make it into a vegan diet.

A Lifestyle, not just a Diet

You can see that Macrobiotics is much more than a diet – it is a lifestyle. It seeks to create a balance in your life and in your body by thinking of what is your body type (are you more yin, or more yang?), and then by thinking of the characteristics of what we ingest and how we cook this food.

We should open at least one of the three main meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) with a miso soup so to prepare our digestive system to receive the food. It shouldn’t surprise that there is also a lot of mindfulness involved in Macrobiotics because we should eat without distractions and very importantly we should chew each bite for a long time – possibly more than 20 times, until the food is smooth and the digestive system won’t have to work for too long, in doing so to make digestion easier. One “experiment” or “exercise” when starting Macrobiotics is to chew a spoonful of plain boiled/steamed whole rice for 100 times!

Main Foods for a Macrobiotic Diet

When preparing a Macrobiotic dish, another big rule is to compose the food as 1/3 cereal, 1/3 protein, and 1/3 veggies. For example, at dinner, you could eat wholegrain rice, sauteed tofu and onion, celery, carrot.

So, what can you eat?

All the wholegrains: rice, millet, pasta too if wholegrain;
All veggies;
All legumes (especially adzuki beans and chickpeas);
Seasonal fruit;
Fermented dressings (i.e.miso);
Seaweed;
Brine food (Olives, sauerkraut);
Gomasio;
Ginger and turmeric.

What can’t you eat?

White flours;
Nightshades (potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant);
Refined oils;
Meat;
Cheese;
Dairy products;
Tropical fruits and vegetables (bananas, avocados, mangos etc.)
Coffee, tea and alcohol;
Refined sugar.

In moderation

Olive and sesame oil;
Tofu and Tempeh;
Good quality bread like sourdough;
Raw fruit;
Wholegrain pasta, cous cous and bulghur;
Cereal malts;
Nuts.

Methods of cooking

There is some theory also on how to cook stuff. In order to maintain or alleviate the yin/yang characteristics of the foods, the best way to cook is by steaming or lightly sauteeing. Baking is another acceptable cooking method.

When preparing any combination dish using more than one ingredient (i.e. soup), we should start with the ingredients that are closer to the soil and going up: for example, the order in which we would make a soup would be to start with onions and carrots (closer to earth) then celery, cabbage, broccoli etc (above earth).

What Have I Been Eating?

Breakfast

• Porridge with apples and raisins
• Rice pudding with seasonal fruit and raisins
• Baked oats with apples and raisins

Lunch

• Wholegrain rice with veggies and hummous;
• Pumpkin soup with cereals + sauteed tofu and veggies
• Millet with spiced chickpeas and steamed veggies

Dinner

• Broccoli soup + sour and sweet tempeh and baked onions
• Miso soup + scrambled tofu and steamed veggies
• Chickpeas and broccoli soup

These are just some examples of what I have been eating: there are many different things that you can do!

My Findings

The “Not so good”

I have tried to follow this detox as best as I could, although I found some difficulties: it was really difficult to let go of coffee especially because I had 3 big events just after the start of the detox and I needed all my mental faculties to organise stuff at work. The potatoes (or more correctly, the lack of) were another issue for me – as I said, I fell into the temptation of chips once a week. I love potatoes, in every form and I use them to make cozy soups as well as roasted or mashed, etc. So that was difficult, but except for the Friday chips I haven’t used any.

The “Very Good”

Despite these little setbacks, I quite enjoyed the simplicity of the dishes and I liked to think more about what I was going to make, how it was going to affect me, was I making something too yin or too yang? Did I do a lot of exercise and so I was too yang? Was it cooler or warmer outside? And so on.

The past weeks I have also used a lot of apples, a fruit of which I am not too fond, but using them in porridge and rice dishes made me appreciate them more.

Energy-wise I wasn’t totally 100%, but again I had a lot on my plate at work, so that surely impacted how I felt.

Conclusion

While I wouldn’t follow a Macrobiotic lifestyle full-time, would definitely recommend this detox. The Macrobiotic lifestyle is something that adheres to principles of balance and mindfulness, something that most of us need to lead a healthy life. Similarly to the Limpia, you can try it for a short period and see how you feel.

Let me know what you think or if you would like to see other Macrobiotic recipes!

By for now 🙂

Love,

TVCL xx