About Me
Our Pharmacy
Friday, November 20, 2009
Beating Cancer With A Macrobiotic Diet
Elaine Nussbaum, author of Recovery from Cancer: The Remarkable Story of One Woman's Struggle with Cancer and What She Did to Beat the Odds, now in remission from an especially aggressive form of uterine cancer for 30 years, chronicled her story of defeating cancer with a macrobiotic diet. Although her book is the bestseller on macrobiotics, macrobiotic diet was originally popularized by Michio and Aveline Kushi.
These original advocates of whole foods diets also founded Erewhon Natural Foods. Their approach to healing emphasizes the eating of whole, natural, plant foods in season.
Macrobiotic meals combine foods according to the principles of yang and yin. Yang substances energize the body and mind. A standard, industrialized diet is so full of yang foods that it creates a state of constant over stimulation. Among the everyday yang substances are:
- Alcohol
- Chemicals and preservatives
- Chocolate
- Coffee
- Commercial milk, yogurt and soft cheeses
- Drugs
- Honey
- Poor quality vegetable oils
- Refined flour products
- Sugar
- Very hot spices
Yin substances, as they are identified in macrobiotics, are concentrated, dense, and heavy. They are strengthening, but can cause or aggravate stagnation if they areconsumed in excess. These yin substances "clog" not just the circulation of blood and immune cells but also the normal clearance of emotions. The yin substances in everyday life include:
- Eggs
- Meat
- Poultry
- Refined salt
Even these foods can play a role in correcting imbalances, but maintaining balance is easiest through the regular consumption of locally grown whole grains, chewed thoroughly, beans and peas, vegetables, fermented soy products such as miso, nuts,seeds, and fruit. It permits a small amount of fish weekly and allows for eating meat when there is a severe yin deficit, that is, such as the wasting that often follows cancer. Beverages are water and a caffeine-free bancha twig tea.
The macrobiotic diet also follows the seasons. The best winter foods arec oncentrated sources of nutrition. They are round, succulent, and a little saltier than the foods for other seasons. The winter macrobiotic diet emphasizes root vegetables, pickles, and heavier grains such as buckwheat, fried rice, and millet.
The macrobiotic diet in spring is lighter. This is the time to add wild greens to the menu, especially dandelion and purslane. It is the time for herbal tonics. It is the time to use lightly fermented foods and lighter cooking methods, such as steaming instead of frying.
The summer macrobiotic diet is a time for more raw foods and some naturally sweet foods, such as sweet corn and pumpkin. It is the time to eat larger-leaf greens, such as Mirabar "spinach" and chard. Summer meals feature lighter grains such as barley, bulgur, and couscous.
Autumn is a time for heavier grains such as millet, mochi, and sweet rice. It is the perfect time for winter squashes and a variety of root vegetables. As the weather gets colder and the root vegetables naturally dry, their nutritional content becomes more and more concentrated, preparing the body for the rigors of winter.
There is no shortage of testimonials for the curative power of macrobiotic diet in cancer. Actor and author Dirk Benedict claims to have cured himself of prostate cancer without any chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery, solely through the power of macrobiotic diet. His adoptive mother, actress Gloria Swanson, was also cured of cancer with the diet in lieu of medical intervention.
Phiya Kushi, son of Michio Kushi, even commented that the macrobiotic diet seems to offset the damage that might have been caused by the elder Kushi's decades of smoking. The elder Kushi had maintained for many years that " that dairy food and other fatty, mucous-producing, and sticky foods are the primary cause of lung cancer and other smoke-related problems, trapping tar and other tobacco particulates in the lungs and other organs."
Michio's son Phiya claimed in 2004 about his then 78-year-old father's "lungs were like those of a 20-year-old," as his doctors had put it. The younger Kushi pointed out that the ancient Ayurvedic medical text, the Caraka Samhita, even recommended smoking as a cure for lung ailments (a medical practice that persisted in the United States until about 1920). Kushi's point was not that smoking cigarettes might really be good for health, or that the massive evidence on the dangers of smoking was wrong, but that a variety of outcomes may be possible with basic good health practices. As this book is being written in 2009, Kushi is now 83 years old and currently cancer-free.
To give a balanced review of macrobiotics, however, it is necessary to note that some its most prominent practitioners have had of cancer. Aveline Kushi, wife of Michio, succumbed to cervical cancer in 2000 at the age of 78. Anthony Sattilaro, author of Recalled by Life, died of cancer, as did macrobiotics teacher Cecile
Levin. What critics of macrobiotics overlook, however, is that these macrobiotic experts all lived a decade or more beyond the life expectancies they were originally given. Macrobiotics does not ensure immortality, but in many cases it appears to extend life.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comments:
Ya can't beat death at this time, it is nice to be your own advocate, pro-active and die healthy.
Having a healthy wife helps,
too.
Ken Wilson (still healthy and alive at 68)
Post a Comment