Preface
It is beneficial in understanding the unity of macrobiotics' principle and practice, as set forth in Matrix of Nutrition, to first dispel misconceptions about macrobiotics. Macrobiotics is not a diet, philosophy, or system of belief. Diets fail to have the foundation of a principle that is credible and inclusive, or a practice of nutrition that is viable and sustainable. Diets tend to be rigid, incomplete, and unscientific. Philosophy is subjective and hypothetical. Belief fails to do its homework and lacks the science of research and verification.
The practice of macrobiotic whole food nutrition is practical, flexible, and changing. The nature of macrobiotics is broad and informative. The way of macrobiotics does not require belief or agreement but promotes independent thought, study, learning, and self-determination. Macrobiotics is a cognizance of life that improves judgment and the ability to valuate and discern information. Macrobiotics separates information from misinformation and disinformation in the field of nutrition and in the controversy of the correlation of food and health.
The intention of the word "matrix" in the title is to indicate an environment and condition in which the source of nutrients and their biochemistry originate at the conception of their formation. The matrix of nutrition, for all living organisms on Earth, begins at the core of vegetation, or for humans, crops of vegetal whole foods. The etymology of the word "macrobiotic" indicates life is abundant and whole. Macrobiotics is the concept and practice of creating a life that is efficient and inclusive, thus dynamic and generous. The principle of macrobiotics reveals the order of the universe, while the practice of macrobiotics sets a performance of life that is holistic, thus nurturing and fulfilling in the balance of its application.
Macrobiotics is a concept and a construct in its principle and practice of life. Macrobiotics' Unifying Principle of yin-yang originates with the concept of Dao. The concept of Dao formulates the physical manifestations of yin-yang and applies a balance of nutrition that guides macrobiotics' selection, preparation, and proportions of whole foods. The practice of macrobiotics becomes a synthesis of the balance of activity its principle directs. Macrobiotics' principle, furthermore, unfolds as a construct that is a blueprint for the theory and manifestation of the properties and influences of yin-yang. Macrobiotics' classifications of yin and yang, through its Unifying Principle, reflect the nature and properties of food and its influences.
Macrobiotics studies, however, expand beyond that of concept and construct. Macrobiotics is a state of cooperation and harmony, rather than opinion, discipline, or diet. Macrobiotics' principle and practice merge in unison and mutuality. To embrace and practice macrobiotics is not to follow a diet rigidly but to assess and live life accurately, holistically, inclusively, and joyfully. The macrobiotic practice of whole food nutrition and the lifestyle it fosters tend to adjust human physiology to any climate on Earth as we pass through a continuum of time and space that changes. Macrobiotics' Unifying Principle of yin-yang directs such adjustment to moderate and balance changes in the physical world (seasons/temperatures) that affect physiology and health.
Food plays a central role in the practice of macrobiotics. We have a responsibility when we cook, to the integrity of self and to those for whom we cook. Processed foods are the foods humans eat the most worldwide, including billions of people who eat refined white rice, refined flour noodles, and white bread daily. Masses of humanity place their health and their lives at the feet of industry and the status quo of conformity when daily food is processed and refined. Unnatural and adulterated food accounts for more illnesses and health problems than anything else. The majority of what medical science considers "natural" deaths today are the result of health debilitation that processed/refined foods cause prematurely. Food can deteriorate and kill life or promote and invigorate life.
Progressive nutritional science and major health organizations expose processed/refined foods, fatty animal products, and simple sugars as the foods that cause or contribute to the greatest portion of illness and health debilitation. Macrobiotics' redirection of daily food has a history of healing illness and realigning lives. The performance and efficiency of physiology can recondition and stabilize when vegetal whole food nutrition balances optimally. The most important decision everyone makes every day is what to eat at the next meal.
Popular information about food and nutrition today falls into the realm of entertainment that serves advertising for masses of population and is more about market economics and corporate profit than public health. TV programing about food panders to food addictions as TV promotes unwholesome processed foods, fatty animal foods, and sugar. Examine popular culture and the business of TV advertising to understand the political and economic implications of the commerce of food and pop nutrition. Neglect of the correlation of food and illness by TV, pop culture, and education further retards the advancement of health awareness and the condition of public health.
Commerce has a history of circumventing the value of so-called "health foods," "natural foods," and agendas of vegetal whole food nutrition, holistic health, and natural healing. "Alternative foods" (unprocessed real food) pose a threat to the profit and credibility of industries' processed/refined foods. Real natural and health foods, however, at their basics are the vegetal whole foods humans have been eating for millennia.
Critics of macrobiotics, uninformed and misinformed, are unaware of the influence macrobiotics had on the formation of today's new science of nutrition. Today's progressive nutritional science, since 1980, is the source of dietary guidelines for major health organizations, including the US Department of Health and Human Services with its Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). Major health organizations advise the reduction of processed/refined foods and fatty animal products and the elimination of all simple sugars in daily eating. The following health institutions promote the predominance of vegetal whole foods in daily eating: American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and American Diabetes Association.
Macrobiotics pioneered the concept of the correlation of food and illness and brought it into the light of day. Macrobiotic teachings opened the door for progressive nutritional science's determination of the correlation of food and illness. Major health organizations today recommend reducing the same processed/refined foods and fatty animal products macrobiotics has been recommending eliminating since the 1950s in the USA and longer globally. The Smithsonian Institution recognizes macrobiotics and its influence on nutrition, holistic health, and the natural food movement. The National Museum of American History, in a presentation of the contributions of Michio and Aveline Kushi to macrobiotics, displayed publications, photos, articles, teaching materials, and video recordings detailing macrobiotics' principle and practice.
All major health organizations, following the lead of progressive nutritional science, are unanimous in their recommendations to eliminate all simple sugars from daily eating. All such sources advise eating daily the same vegetal whole foods macrobiotics recommends, thus countermanding the credibility of any refute and criticism of macrobiotics' agenda of vegetal whole food nutrition. Macrobiotics' practice of whole food nutrition was the model for today's progressive nutritional science that displaces old-school nutrition's obsolescence. Macrobiotics' agenda of whole food nutrition is the cutting edge of today's progressive nutritional science.
The commerce of industry strives to influence consumers but keep them uninformed. Advertising agencies in the 1950s discovered that with television they could sell more products to consumers by using techniques of mind control through programming, repetition, and disinformation. Advertising inflates the nutritional value of the processed-food industry's adulterated products, through health promotions that deceive and misguide public health worldwide. A processed-food industry invented the "fragmentation of nutrition" that focuses on adding man-made nutrients that are low-grade and excessive to processed foods stripped of their natural nutrients. Such an aberrant and destructive focus of nutrition, while offsetting the health of consumers, misleads public health and misaligns for consumers the concept and understanding of what constitutes the balancing of nutrition.
At the age of twenty-five in 1970, I walked into a bookstore in Hilo, Hawaii. The recent publication, Zen Macrobiotic Cooking, by Michel Abehsera, led to the discovery of George Ohsawa's trilogy at an obscure bookstore in Honolulu. The three blue softcover books were Ohsawa's first English-language books in the West. Ohsawa's books opened a floodgate of studies that changed the disposition of my and my partner's lives. We learned that...
