Should I go Macro?
I've been debating for some time now whether I should switch over to the macrobiotic diet. This diet is not for losing weight. It is a new way of eating and promotes a yin yang balance in the foods that you intake. This diet eliminates foods that are extremely yin or extremely yang. Yin foods include sugar, alcohol, coffee, chocolate, hot spices, dairy, some vegetable oils. Yang foods include poultry, meat, eggs, and salt. This diet either eliminates or limits your intake of these extreme foods to keep your qi balanced, since everything you eat affects the qi that enters your body. So what are you actually supposed to eat, you ask? What should you worry about?
Whole grains should be 50-60% of what you eat.
Vegetables: 25-30%
Beans: 5-10%
Miso: 5%
You need to make sure that you are balancing your intake of these items proportionally. The remaining percentage of your diet is made up of fish, nuts, fruits and beverages.
You should do your research and have many macrobiotic cookbooks available to you. If you don't eat from all of the above categories in the exact way that you are supposed to, you should watch out for deficiencies of certain necessary nutrients; protein, vitamin b12, magnesium, calcium, and iron. If you are worried about this, you should talk to a nutritionist or consult your cookbooks. Most of the macrobiotic cookbooks have an introduction section that talks about the restrictions and also the necessities of the diet.
