the feelings it emits of“ okay” or“ not okay.”( You will find specific instructions on just how to go about such monitoring, and how to interpret the signals.) However, there still are some basic principles of healthy eating that I’ ve found to be almost universally applicable; you will find those in the chapter entitled“ The Health- Supportive Whole Foods Eating Style.” I have touched on a few of the principles in my cookbook, The Book of Whole Meals, which has met with a most gratifying response. The book presents a simple, yet quite tasty way of cooking healthfully, and from the reactions to it I have received over the five years it’ s been out, the approach seems to work. In that book I included a number of recipes that are good for healing purposes, but didn’ t identify them as such. I didn’ t discuss healing explicitly so as not to distract from the subject of cooking. Still, the underlying intent must shine through, because I’ ve had countless requests from students and readers to elaborate on how food can be a healing tool, and I’ ve proceeded to do that here. You will find, in this book, as well as in my cookbook, that I suggest the use of some unfamiliar Oriental foodstuffs, such as miso, umeboshi plums, and kuzu. This is because I’ ve become familiar with them through my study of macrobiotics and find them extremely helpful at times; also, I have found no foods with similar effects in our Western dietary tradition. Even if you can not obtain all the foodstuffs I recommend, you can still apply most, if not all, of the basic dietary suggestions to your own life. I trust you will find, as I did, that with a solid grasp of the principles you can often find ways to balance yourself even without those foods that may be hard to get. You will also find, I hope, that with its principles well understood, the eating system I advocate in this book can be self-correcting. I believe that if we take our mistakes to be not punishment but good and valuable lessons, we can continously refine our cooking and our food choices, redefine our concepts of healing and diet, and thereby renew ourselves daily. Our greatest pitfall, in this as in all other matters, lies in thinking that we have arrived at the truth and that there is nowhere else to go. The fourteen years that I’ ve spent teaching and consulting with people have provided me with enough positive reinforcement to know that the approach I have developed works a great deal of the time. It is not foolproof, nor are the results universally guaranteed. But it is my fervent hope that this book will provide you with a new understanding of how food works, how your body works, and what steps you can take to keep yourself in physical and mental balance. And I hope especially that it will encourage you to keep developing your own judgment and consciousness, so that you can lay claim to your full potential as a truly evolved human being. * These items are available in Japansese markets or health food stores. For recipes, see The Book of Whole Meals. † Author of The Book of Judgment, Zen Macrobiotics, and other works. ‡ A form of whole wheat that has been parboiled, cracked, and dried.