User:Pat Palmer/sandbox/todo list/Macrobiotics notes

Macrobiotics involves a set of choices in nutrition and lifestyle designed to bolster health and minimize the likelihood of illness. Macrobiotics is a small but resilient movement, led by a loosely connected coalition of trained counselors who learned from a lineage of teachers reaching back to Japan around 1900.

These teach nutritional principles, cooking skills, menu planning, and the use the diagnostic principles similar to those used in Traditional Chinese Medicine to monitor one’s self and diagnose one’s own physical and spiritual condition, adjusting cooking, diet and lifestyle for each individual’s need. that includes a mostly plant-based, whole foods diet and also includes a view of food as medicine based on the energetics of foods and cooking styles as originally conceived in Traditional Chinese Medicine,

Macrobiotic coach:

Has a broad understanding of macrobiotic diet, cooking, and lifestyle practices

• Helps people establish a clear direction for their health and life
• Helps to improve life of oneself and others through creating order and structure in diet, cooking, and lifestyle practices
• Provides support for creating order and structure
• Can provide a combined plan for what to do and how to do it based on the goal
• Can help with shopping, setting up a kitchen, menu-planning, and guidance on cooking and lifestyle practices
• Can offer support and encouragement, positive guidance, and lifestyle practices

Macrobiotic counselor:

Able to offer guidance for those with cancer, advanced cardiovascular problems, HIV, Lyme disease, serious psychological, addiction or nervous system problems, and other immune issues.

the International Macrobiotic Conference 2017 in Berlin, with 45 macrobiotic teachers, along with the Strengthening Health Institute, GOMF, Macrobiotic Association, IMP, IME, Chi Energy, IMS and other schools, institutes and organizations.

https://timeline.com/george-ohsawa-macrobiotic-diet-e8d76614597d

https://timeline.com/george-ohsawa-macrobiotic-diet-e8d76614597d

George Ohsawa, tuberculosis survivor and father of macrobiotics.

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Sagen Ishizuka (March 6, 1850 – October 17, 1909) In the late 1800’s, a high-ranking Japanese army doctor named Sagen Ishizuka fell ill, and in order to restore his health, he studied both Western and Eastern medicine extensively. He compiled the information and conclusions of his lifelong study in two books, 'Chemical Theory of Longevity' published in 1896, and 'Diet For Health' published in 1898.

In 1907, several Ishizuka disciples founded an association called Shoku-Yo-Kai in Tokyo, Japan. The purpose of this organization was to educate the public about health issues. Ishizuka’s foundation criticized the adoption of the West's modern medicine and dietary theories, and recommended the Japanese traditional diet of whole, unrefined foods, with very little or no milk or animal foods. His preventive living technique was based on the recognition of five very important principles: 1. Food is the foundation of life, character, constitution, happiness and health or sickness. 2. Food should be unrefined, whole, and natural. 3. Foods are best if they are grown locally and eaten in season. 4. In traditional Chinese medicine, foods are prescribed as medicine. Sagen Ishizuka died on 17 October 1909. After his death, the organization was led by his son-in-law Takao Okabe.

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Suffering "incurable" diseases at the age of 18, George Ohsawa learned about this approach to diet from two of Mr. Ishizuka's disciples, Manabu Nishibata and Shojiro Goto. After completely restoring his own health, Ohsawa joined Shoku-Yo-Kai. He was later elected the association's President. Before Ohsawa started his prolific writing career there were only a few books in Japan on the subject of diet and health. Mr. Akira Iida was a director of Shoku-Yo-Kai, and one of the editors of the magazine published by that organization. About 1925 Mr. Ohsawa wrote many articles for the magazine, and in 1928 his first books, 'Physiology of Japanese Mentality' and 'Biography of Sagen Ishizuka' were published. When Ohsawa's activities started to gain recognition he was excluded from the association, which some believe was due mainly to the jealousy of some of the directors. He then focused more on the teaching of the yin (yeen) and yang philosophy rather than the direct treatment of the sick as Ishizuka had done. From that point on Mr. Ohsawa devoted his life to lecturing around the world and to writing on macrobiotic philosophy and its application until his death. In 1948, three years after World War II ended, Mr. Ohsawa established a school in Kanagawa Prefecture, an outskirt of Tokyo. He called his school Nippon C.I. an abbreviated name taken from the French translation "Le Centre Ignoramus" which meant that this is the house of the ignorant. Ohsawa named his school the house of the ignorant because if you knew everything, you didn't need to stay.

After the War, Ohsawa changed the direction of his education. In other words, he started teaching the philosophy of Oriental medicine and yin (yeen) and yang as the principle of world peace as well as the principle of health. His students were not sick people but younger people who were interested in philosophy, social affairs, and health in general. He educated many young Japanese at Nippon C. I. or as it was also called, Nippon M. I. (Maison Ignoramus). Many of them went abroad and started macrobiotic centers in Europe, U.S.A. and Brazil. Michio Kushi was the first such student who left Japan from his school in 1949. In Greek, macro means big or great and biotic means concerning life, so the word refers to the "big view of life." This meaning suggests that we should relax our small, rigid views of the world so that the underlying unity of nature can be sensed. The word macrobiotic was originally used in literature by the German scholar Christophe Wilhelm Von Hufeland in Das Makrobiotik (1796). George Ohsawa met a descendant of Hufeland in Germany in 1958. Ohsawa first mentioned the term macrobiotic in his Japanese translation of Alexis Carrel's 'Man, the Unknown'. It did not appear in the main text but rather in his postscript. His first textual usage of the term was in 'Zen Macrobiotics', which he wrote in 1959. It was published in English by Nippon Centre Ignoramus, in 1960. During his lifetime Ohsawa wrote more than 300 books and pamphlets, in Japanese, French, English, and German. He also published a monthly magazine for more than 40 years, and today more than 30 of his books have been translated into English, German, French, Swedish, Flemish, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and Vietnamese. After Ohsawa died at the age of 74, in 1966, his disciples continued to teach macrobiotics in Japan, Europe, North America, and South America. It is currently being practiced virtually all over the world, including the Eastern European countries. In America thousands of people are using the principles of macrobiotics in their daily lives in all the major cities, and the number of people practicing this way of life is increasing across the country. Thousands of health and natural food stores throughout the nation now sell the basic foodstuffs commonly used in macrobiotics, such as organically grown grain and produce, sea vegetables, and special condiments. A growing number of macrobiotic publications are also appearing. A positive sign is that some medical doctors are now recommending the macrobiotic diet to their patients. Since the publication of Dr. Anthony Sattilaro's recent book 'Recalled By Life', many people have opted for this natural method of healing which simply involves providing the proper material and allowing the body to heal itself. Many of these people have had good results. However, macrobiotics is not primarily a diet for relieving sickness, nor is it a new fad. Macrobiotics is a way of life based on an understanding of the rhythm, the ebb and flow of nature. Its roots can be traced back through civilization to the beginning of human tradition. Although it requires study and seemingly very big adjustments, macrobiotics is a practical way of living towards happiness.

Herman Aihara was born on September 28, 1920. Along with many others I had the great good fortune to have him as one of my macrobiotic mentors. I only wish that more of today’s macrobiotic teachers, counselors and individuals would have studied with him in-depth during his lifetime. I believe this would have very much deepened and broadened the view of macrobiotics for so many. Herman was unique Like he did with all of his students, he showed me the necessity of finding real freedom through personal happiness and creativity. Many have commented over the years that the following definition of macrobiotics by Herman is their very favorite. So, I want to share it with you on this day, his birthday. A Definition of Macrobiotics by Herman Aihara “Macrobiotics amounts to finding our physiological limitations and trying to live within them. This is the cultivation of humbleness. When we think that we can do anything we want, we become arrogant. This arrogance causes sickness. When we are living within our physical limitations, then our spirituality is free. Macrobiotics seeks freedom in spirit. Freedom exists in our spirit – so we can think anything. But biologically, physiologically we are unfree. We can wish to eat anything we want, but we cannot do it and still live within our natural physiological limitations. Disciplining physical unfreedom is the foundation of spiritual freedom. God didn’t give us unlimited biological freedom, but appreciating and taking into consideration our unfree physical condition leads us to greater freedom, both physically and spiritually.” – Herman Aihara author of Acid & Alkaline Basic Macrobiotics Learning from Salmon and other books

• Ronald E. Kotzsch (1985) Macrobiotics: Yesterday and Today, Japan Publications, New York ISBN 0-87040-611-6. [1] • Clim Yoshimi: Une Vie de Rêve et de Poésie, in Ignoramus, C.I.M.O., París, 1997–1998 (volS. 36 to 40).

Announcing a very long overdue Medical Breakthrough from the founder of "Macrobiotics" in Japan, Dr. Sagen Ishizuka (1850-1910), a Western-trained MD in the Japanese Army. The movement he founded in 1909 was originally called Shoku-Yo, "Food Cure", before George Ohsawa (1893-1966) changed the designation to "Macrobiotics." https://www.macrodiet.com/Contributors/Kulungian-SagenIshizuka.shtml

Here from Ronald E. Kotzsch, PhD (Harvard, 1981), are 3 paragraphs exposing Ishizuka's central discoveries, MACROBIOTICS YESTERDAY AND TODAY (Japan Publications, NY, 1985), chapter 2: "Sagen Ishizuka: the Founder of Modern Macrobiotics", p.29:

"Ishizuka's theory is based on several simple concepts. First, he maintains that human health and longevity are dependent on a proper balance in the body between the salts of sodium and potassium. While western nutrition (then as now) was emphasizing protein and carbohydrates, Ishizuka maintains that MINERALS, especially sodium and potassium, are most crucial. The ratio between them determines the body's ability to absorb and utilize the other nutrients. The healthy functioning of the entire human organism depends on their being in proper balance.

A second principle is that food is the most important factor in determining this critical balance. Other factors, such as geography and climate and the amount of physical activity play a role as well. Living by the sea or in the mountains, in a dry or moist climate, being sedentary or hard working all have an effect. But it is what a person ingests through the mouth that is the main determinant of the Na/K ratio in the body.

Hence, thirdly, human health and sickness depend on diet above all. The basis for physical well-being is daily food that provides a proper balance of minerals. Such a diet will give one a long life, free from disease On the other hand, all sickness begins with an imbalance of Na/K caused by poor diet. Both contagious and degenerative diseases, Ishizuka asserted, originate in food. Bacteria and viruses afflict only those who are weak and susceptible because of their Na/K imbalance. A truly healthy person, even coming into contact with such pathogens, will not become sick. Thus allopathic medicine, seeking only to destroy disease-causing micro-organisms, rather than strengthening the person against them, is based on a total misconception."

"A total misconception": that is the Western approach of making war on viruses, which can never succeed. That is also the literal Chemical Warfare against the human body in cancer, which only shortens human lives.

Ishizuka's magnum opus was published in Japanese in 1897: "A Chemical Nutritional Theory of Long Life." It has never been translated into Western languages; so Western medicine has no access to the ten years of scientific experiments that Ishizuka conducted, in his own body as well as in his laboratory.

It can safely be predicted--on the basis of my 28 years of intense involvement with Macrobiotic natural healing, based on Ishizuka's discoveries--that the translation of his opus will enable Western medicine to undercut and overcome the simplistic germ theory of disease by Louis Pasteur.

Indeed, the late Rene Dubois (1901-82), who wrote a standard biography, LOUIS PASTEUR: FREELANCE OF SCIENCE (1949, 1976), declared: "The germ theory of disease has been the greatest impediment to medical progress for a hundred years."

I shall be submitting a series of grant applications to NCCAM, under the sponsorship of Dr H. Robert Silverstein's Preventive Medicine Center in Hartford, designed to implement and demonstrate the natural healing of both what we call infectious and degenerative diseases. This will be done by exactly the same simple commonsense dietary and lifestyle corrections for both types of diseases, undercutting the specious difference between them.

Especially am I eager to demonstrate that AIDS can be cured by the creation of natural immunity to HIV--and to every sort of microorganism--by practicing a diet and lifestyle that gives the same internal hygiene that those 25 prostitutes found in Nairobi, Kenya, have. See TIME MAGAZINE, Dec. 6, 1993. Though they have sex every day with HIV-infected men, these women all test HIV-negative after many years of exposure to HIV.

How have they achieved their invulnerability to infection? The Western medical researchers who have tested them remain completely baffled by the natural immunity that is the inherent result of a macrobiotic diet and lifestyle, which is what these women have, living on "a skimpy diet of cornmeal mash", as the article states. Yet that diet was the everyday traditional diet of both North and South America for thousands of years before the arrival of the white man. It is still the most cleansing diet there is, as I know from experience, having grown Indian maize, and roasted and ground it in a hand grain mill.

So here again, once more, we have an example of what Oriental philosophical medicine calls a "Reversal of the Tao": The most ancient and primitive and utterly simple diet, cooked in iron pots, has a natural healing power to cure so-called "incurable" diseases--which none of the Wonder Drugs can do anything but worsen.

George Ohsawa, in ZEN MACROBIOTICS (1960, 65), invites his readers to discover within themselves the natural immunity that is everyone's birthright if you are willing to practice some dietary self-discipline:

"Give up everything [in the way of food and drink] that is not absolutely necessary to your life for at least a week or two. You will catch a glimpse of freedom, happiness, and justice. You may soon understand why Macrobiotic persons are completely immunized from disease. The decision is yours." (p.57)

Harold Kulungian