this page) both cooked and raw, fresh fruit, nuts, sea vegetables, soy products, unrefined oils, a minimum of seasonings, and fish if desired. It is therefore one of the more balanced and healthful ways of eating among all the alternatives we can choose from. In fact, the Dietary Goals points in its direction( see this page, this chapter), as do most other recent official communiqués on the subject of health and diet. With or without nightshades, with or without sea vegetables, it is a way of eating increasingly adopted by many people who may not even have heard of the term macrobiotics. From what I’ ve seen and experienced, one of the first and most unexpected consequences of going on a macrobiotic diet is a feeling of inner balance and centeredness. This is a most elusive and hard-to-define feeling. Those who don’ t have it know they don’ t have it, search for it, and complain about the lack of it, whereas those who naturally have it don’ t know they have it and wonder what the fuss is all about. This newfound centeredness is the result of the contractive effects of eating whole grains and beans, the nervecalming action of the full vitamin B complex present in those foods, and the slow metabolizing of their complex carbohydrates. At the same time, avoiding foods that are more expansive and uncentering( sugar, large amounts of fruits, juices, and salads) reduces“ spaciness” and unfocused thinking. Calmness sets in, we can say, as craziness dissipates for lack of fuel. Another effect reported by many is a new, holistic view of life, encouraged, apparently, by eating whole foods, especially whole grains. It is not that the food itself has such a direct effect; but by healing the body, making it whole and well, it leads us to view external reality in similar terms. A number of people on a macrobiotic diet have reported the remission and / or disappearance of a variety of illnesses and disease conditions, including acne, weight problems, dandruff, depression, hemorrhoids, even cancer. This has been documented in one popular book and many case history reports. 33 Skeptics and scientists may question the value of testimonials, but the fact remains that with this regime, as with some others, many people have experienced remission of disease as an immediate consequence of dietary change, and this cannot be ignored or dismissed. Strictly controlled studies of these claims are unfortunately almost impossible to conduct, as the range of variables in any change of diet is too broad. They include not only food choices and cooking styles, but also expectations, beliefs, subconscious desires to heal or not to heal, native constitution, environment, and many others. Macrobiotics is no panacea, however, and in fact can be just the opposite. For many people the standard macrobiotic regime is too restrictive, too high in grain, and too alien culturally. Some women gain weight instead of losing it; some people, especially men, lose an excessive amount of weight and are constantly hungry because they don’ t metabolize the grain protein well and don’ t absorb enough nutrients. In some instances the macrobiotic approach has been applied in an extremely restrictive manner, requiring brown rice twice a day, only cooked vegetables( even the salads are briefly boiled!), only salty condiments, no aromatic herbs or spices, a minimum of raw fruit, and fish only sporadically. While this regimen is often of benefit initially, when followed for a length of time it can become too contractive. Reaction-cravings for expansive foods set in, and secret ice-cream and beer binges are not uncommon as the pendulum swings. Overeating is another result of too contractive a diet. A better balance can be obtained by increasing the amount of fish, beans, fruit, and salad, by using grains other than rice more often, by decreasing the overall proportion of grains and salty condiments, and by seasoning foods with herbs and spices. Because macrobiotics as philosophy deals not only with proper eating, but also sets up general rules of conduct and judgments about the“ true” conditions of health and the evils of the world, it often gives rise to arrogance in the teachers, fear and guilt in their followers— the very qualities that it pretends to abolish. It can thus defeat its own purpose, while proving true one of its own maxims:“ Everything turns into its opposite.” One of the clearest critiques of the macrobiotic movement comes from Leonard Jacobs, publisher of the macrobiotic magazine East-West Journal. He writes, If someone fails to measure up to our ideal model of health, we may mentally relegate that person to a position of inferiority. It hardly matters to us whether or not they are healthy and enjoying life. We“ know” they have fatty deposits around something or other, that they have a heart murmur, that they are constipated, that they have weak kidneys, and no sexual vitality. We“ know” these things about others, and we constantly judge and criticize them and ourselves. Of course, we also have the answers, and we either try to make everyone accept these answers, or we consider them too low in judgment to ever attain our widsom. 34 Food serves us best not as our master, but as our tool and instrument, our helper and facilitator. The most valuable information I found in macrobiotics is the concept of opposites as applied to food( see chapter three). Not that it is anything new, but no other food philosophy uses it, to my knowledge. It also seems to me that Messrs. Ohsawa, Kushi, Aihara, and many other macrobiotic teachers have been profoundly