Macrobiotics

Macrobiotics includes a set of lifestyle recommendations and a way of eating centered around mostly plant-based, locally sourced, seasonal whole foods that first became popular in the United States during the hippie movement in the 1960's. Macrobiotics as taught in 2021 promotes a complete system for promoting health and well being. Its approach is somewhat comparable to that of Ayurveda, encompassing everything from daily exercise to self observation to adjusting diet for individual needs to spiritual development, and with an emphasis on prevention rather than remedy. Both Ayurveda and macrobiotics claim that controlling what, when and how one eats is one of several important techniques for health maintenance, or possibly improvement, that anyone can practice with appropriate guidance.

The diagnostic roots of macrobiotics are close to that of Traditional Chinese Medicine's mapping of meridiens and far eastern yin-yang philosophy. Macrobiotics is still being taught in various training centers working in a loose coalition, with teachers in several countries, including the U.S., England, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Its cooking training, originating in Japanese cooking techniques, is especially useful as a style of low salt cooking and avoidance of processed foods and food additives.

Since the 1960's, A rich base of health food suppliers grew up around the macrobiotics movement. These included organic food producers, cooking schools, food importers, farmers, sea vegetable harvesters, urban health food stores and coops, some still extant today. This infrastructure has been important in making organic and healthy food items widely available at a time when mainstream foods were becoming more processed, chemically preserved, and tainted with fertilizer toxins and other environmental pollutants. This article will describe some of this infrastructure.

The popular cooking show Christina Cooks, shown on some public TV stations and available for streaming on the web, features a streamlined macrobiotic cooking style which Christina developed herself after extensive training in macrobiotics. On each 30-minute segment, she cooks a complete meal.

Macrobiotics has been criticized in the past because of extravagant health claims made by some proponents. Since macrobiotics is also a philosophy and a social movement, it attracts many people who are already sick, some of whom later published health claims that are not backed by evidence. However, the movement has been around long enough and proved useful to a sufficient number of people that these over-reaching claims should not prevent a clear-eyed examination of the system's many possible benefits.

Foundational teachers Ohsawa, Kushi and Aihara

George Ohsawa (1893-1966), born Nyoichi Sakurazawa in Japan, was the founder of the macrobiotics. He was an effusive, prolific author who wrote about 300 books in Japanese and, while living in France after WWII, about twenty books in French (using pen names Musagendo, Nyoiti or Yukikazu Sakurazawa). Ohsawa was one of several teachers who began introducing Western audiences to Eastern ideas in the 1940's and 1950's, but his flamboyant style and far-reaching claims, advanced during an era of maximum idealism, can no longer be taken as verbatim advice. Ohsawa's writings about health, diet, exercise and world peace, are still studied by macrobiotics followers for its useful foundational philosophy, but modern-day counselors have modified his original dietary recommendations substantially.

Many of the macrobiotic teachers and counselors now active in the United States trained originally under either Herman Aihara (1920-1998) and his wife Cornelia if on the west coast, or Michio Kushi (1926-2014) his wife Aveline if on the east coast. Both couples benefited from extensive contact with Ohsawa during his lifetime. The current generation of teachers are all at least third generation teachers, and some even later.

Food Markets, Suppliers, Distributers, Organic Farmers

A number of natural and health food businesses sprang up in part as a result of the growing interest in macrobiotics in the 1960's.

Gold Mine Natural Foods

Gold Mine Natural Foods was founded in California in the 1980's in an effort to make more organic food available to the public.

Eden Foods

Eden Foods was founded as a coop by macrobiotic young people in Michigan in the 1960's to fill a void availability of healthy foods. Eden is now an organic and macrobiotic food packager and distributor with warehouses in Michigan and California.

Essene Market

Essene Market & Cafe was founded in 1969 in Philadelphia, PA, by macrobiotic counselor Denny Waxman. For about four decades, Denny's brother managed it and it grow to be one of the premier health food markets in the region.

Erewhon Market

• Erewhon (Boston, MA)

Maine seaweed

• Seaweed from Maine

Blue Moon Acres

• Organic farm in Bucks County, PA and central NJ, Blue Moon Acres grows low-arsenic organic brown rice and other organic vegetables and products central to a macrobiotic lifestyle. Since the 2020 pandemic began, they have been delivering their vegetable boxes to residents within about a fifty mile radius of their location.

The Bridge

The Bridge makes tofu, seitan, amazake and other fermented macrobiotic foods.

Training institutes

G.O.M.F. and Macrobiotics Today

The George Ohsawa Macrobiotics Foundation, aka G.O.M.F., was founded in 1970 by Herman and Cornellia Aihara in San Francisco. It was officially incorporated on March 2, 1971 and is still operating in 2021.

G.O.M.F. publishes a quarterly all-digital bulletin called Macrobiotics Today, which serves as an information hub to share news across all practitioners of Macrobiotics. The first edition of Macrobiotics Today was published by Herman Aihara as Macrobiotics News by the Ohsawa Foundation of New York in Mary of 1960. As of 2021, the newsletter's editor is Carl Ferre (California).

Kushi Institute

• Kushi Institute (Boston, MA) - established 1978, now defunct

Natural Gourmet Cooking School

The Natural Gourmet Institute for Health & Culinary Arts was a mostly vegetarian cooking school in Manhattan, New York City, founded by Annemarie Colbin, Ph. D in 1977. The Natural Gourmet Institute taught cooking techniques from a variety of cuisines around the world, teaching that the food should be whole, fresh, traditional, balanced, local, seasonal and delicious. The menus were largely, but not exclusively, plant-based. In early 2019, the Natural Gourmet was subsumed by the Institute of Culinary Education, which announced its intention to keep the Natural Gourmet education track available as a separate option.

SHI

• Strengthening Health Institute (Philadelphia, PA) - active

Macrobiotic Association

• The Macrobiotic Association (London, England) - active, provides classes and an accreditation process for macrobiotic health coaches, cooks and consultants

Third generation teachers and counselors

As of 2021, contemporary senior counselors in the United States are older and originally trained at a time when macrobiotics became suddenly of more widespread interest during the upheaval of the 1960's. The following list is not complete, but contains important examples.

Melanie Brown

• Melanie Brown (formerly Waxman)

Simon Brown

• Simon Brown - author of Modern Day Macrobiotics and Macrobiotics For Life; macrobiotic consultant and teacher living in London UK as of 2021

Bob Ligon

• Bob Ligon - acupuncturist, herbalist, author, life-style counselor, life coach, practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Annemarie Colbin

Annemarie Colbin, Ph. D., campaigned against overly-refined food and taught about its connection to poor health. She was the author of Food and Healing and other books, and founded the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health & Culinary Arts in New York City in 1977.

Edward Esko

• Edward Esko - macrobiotic educator

Wendy Esko

• Wendy Esko - macrobiotic chef, author, now employed by Eden Foods

Carl Ferre

• Carl Ferre - macrobiotics teacher, and editor of the Macrobiotics Today magazine published by the G.O.M.F. (George Ohsawa Macrobiotics Foundation)

Alex Jack

• Alex Jack - co-author of The One Peaceful World Cookbook: Over 150 Vegan, Macrobiotic Recipes for Vibrant Health and Happiness (2017)

Sachi Kato

• Sachi Kato - co-author of The One Peaceful World Cookbook: Over 150 Vegan, Macrobiotic Recipes for Vibrant Health and Happiness (2017)

Warren Kramer

• Warren Kramer - macrobiotic health counselor

Christina Pirello

• Christina Pirello - whole food chef, author, macrobiotics teacher, and host of a public television cooking show ("Christina Cooks") featuring plant-based whole foods

Patrick Riley

• Patrick Riley - macrobiotic health counselor, shiatsu master

Michael Rossoff

• Michael Rossoff - acupuncturist and health educator

William Speer

• William Speer - macrobiotic health counselor

Bill Tara

• Bill Tara - macrobiotic educator

Jamie Trevena

• Jamie Trevena - macrobiotic health coach

Denny Waxman

• Denny Waxman - macrobiotic health counselor at SHI

Susan Waxman

• Susan Waxman - teacher at SHI