Macrobiotics is a lifestyle that incorporates living close to nature. It involves eating foods that are not tampered with, refined, processed, or sprayed with chemicals. In this lifestyle you eat foods in their whole form. Also incorporated in the lifestyle is eating locally grown and seasonal foods. It is a very healthy way of eating, akin to the way our ancestors use to eat.

The diet is centered around whole grains: brown rice, millet, oats, quinoa,
buckwheat, amaranth, barley and corn. These are your complex carbohydrates, what gives your body energy, long sustainable energy to last throughout the day. This food group is very high in fiber and full of minerals and vitamins. Unfortunately, most people get their grains in the form of refined grains, cereals, flours, breads and pastas, most of which have severely diminished nutritional value.

Also centered in the diet is beans: kidney, pinto, black, white, chick peas, lentils and soy. This is where you get your protein which helps keep you strong. The diet also includes a wide variety of vegetables, naturally fermented foods, nuts and seeds, sea vegetables and fruit. Sea vegetables are a family of vegetables that are the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. They are high in calcium, protein, iron, minerals and trace minerals. They are grown in the ocean and you buy them dried.

All these foods were consumed by our ancestors. They ate a wide variety of whole foods and unless they were dried and non perishable, they ate what was local. For instance, living in Michigan our ancestors would not eat bananas because they do not grow here. Bananas would be ideally suited for people who live where they grow, but not so much for people here in Michigan. We would be better off eating foods like pears, blueberries, squashes, onions, wild rice, root vegetables and cabbage.

Also because we have different seasons here, we eat according to the different seasons. In the winter time we want to eat foods that will help keep our bodies warm. Such foods include winter squashes, hard root vegetables, warming stews, casseroles, thick hardy soups and hot oatmeal. In the summer time we eat more foods that help cool our bodies down to help deal with the heat. We can consume more raw foods such as salads, also fruits are available, summer squashes, leafy greens and cucumbers.

Macrobiotics involves looking towards nature. Living a lifestyle and eating according to what nature has provided us and what is available around us from nature. The macrobiotic lifestyle also involves the study and understanding of energy. Here is a part of the introduction of my cookbook, Perceptions In Healthy Cooking, that explains it briefly.