Burdock Root

Burdock is a wild root vegetable that grows vertically under the ground, one of the most yang categories for vegetables. The first time I heard about burdock was in George Ohsawa's book, Zen Macrobiotics. It was listed as an ingredient in two recipes called "Tekka No. 1" and "Tekka No. 2" (pages 88 and 89) that included miso, ginger, and other vegetables.

I was very surprised, later, when I found some in my local grocery store (New Leaf Market). This was some time ago, several years in fact. It's a funny looking root — long, skinny, and brown. When I washed it, scrubbing it like I'd scrub a carrot, a lot of the brown color rubbed off, revealing a white color underneath. Was it dirt? Or just a thin skin? I don't know for sure. But nevertheless, I continued scrubbing until it looked like it was clean.

I decided to grate it like a carrot, using the larger holes in my metal "cheese grater," and then saute it, along with some carrots, in sesame seed oil and olive oil. (You can also slice it paper-thin on the diagonal and it looks really pretty that way.) Burdock needs to cook longer than a carrot does, so I started cooking it first while I prepared the carrots. After I browned all the vegetables a little, I added a few drops of water and some unrefined celtic sea salt. I covered the pan, lowered the heat, and let it cook on low for about 15 minutes. Then I turned off the heat and let it rest, without lifting the lid.

It was absolutely delicious! Very exotic and stimulating. Made me feel like a gourmet cook!

Evidently, burdock has strong medicinal benefits. George Ohsawa states that his recipe for Tekka No. 1 is good for all yin diseases, as well as anemia, and his recipe for Tekka No. 2 is good for coughs, asthma, and tuberculosis — both recipes include burdock. What I know personally is that burdock tastes unusual and very good, and especially in times of colder weather, it makes me feel good when I eat it.

Notes:
• Burdock is included in the Carl Ferre's list of vegetables for a macrobiotic centering diet. See my earlier entry, "Vegetables for Centering," for the whole list.
• Zen Macrobiotic Cooking by Michel Abehsera, has a couple of good recipes for burdock in a "nituke" and in a "tempura."
• There's a good recipe for "James and Packy's Burdock Ribs" in the French Meadows Cookbook, by Julia Ferre. You can get this book at the George Ohsawa Macrobiotics Foundation website.
• I found a website, wildmanstevebrill.com, that has a lot of useful information about the burdock plant. How it grows, what it looks like, etc. He has a couple of videos to watch about it too.

Vegetables For Centering

Carl Ferre describes a macrobiotic centering diet in his book, Pocket Guide To Macrobiotics (now revised and renamed Essential Guide To Macrobiotics), which is good for people who are just beginning macrobiotics and anyone else who wants to center themselves in a gentle, peaceful way that enables the body to heal itself naturally. The vegetables listed in this particular diet are from the most yang categories of the vegetable group. Vegetables that grow vertically underneath the ground, or horizontally above the ground fall into this list.

I did not like to eat many vegetables when I was a young kid, especially cooked vegetables! The only ones I liked were raw carrots, lettuce, and cucumber, and cooked potatoes. I've come a long way since then, and now I love to eat all kinds of vegetables, raw or cooked in all manner of ways. 

I've come to realize that the proper cooking of fresh, locally grown, organic vegetables makes a big difference in how they taste. I think that I have had just about all of the different kinds of whole grains that make up the primary portion of the centering diet, but there are still many vegetables on this diet listed below that I am looking forward to trying! 

A macrobiotic centering diet, as described in Carl Ferre's book, includes any of the following vegetables, 20% to 30% by volume daily. I've rearranged them alphabetically in the list for convenience. There are forty-four different vegetables listed here—I call that a lot of variety!

Group 1: "Less Yang" Category
burdock
carrots
cress
lotus root
parsnips
rutabaga
salsify
turnips

Group 2: "Less Yin" Category
acorn squash
buttercup squash
butternut squash
celery
daikon
green cabbage
Hokkaido squash (kabocha)
Hubbard squash
kale
leeks
onions
turban squash
watercress

Group 3a: (eaten more often than others in Group 3)
broccoli 
leafy greens

Group 3: "More Yin" Category
beets
bok choy
broccoli
cauliflower
Chinese cabbage
cilantro
collard greens
corn on the cob
dandelion greens
endive
escarole
green peas
kohlrabi
leaf lettuces
mustard greens
parsley
purple cabbage
radishes
scallions
snow peas
string beans
turnip greens
yellow wax beans


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What Is The Macrobiotic Centering Diet?
Whole Grains For Centering
Beans, Beans, The Musical Fruit
Ten Macrobiotic Diets By George Ohsawa

Dinner Impossible?

I've been enjoying a t.v. show on the Food Network channel called "Dinner Impossible," starring Robert Irvine. I just watched an episode where he went to a college, had only 6 hours to prepare a gourmet meal for something like 100 students, and he could only use the food that he could find in the student's campus housing. Most of it was junk food; a lot of it was ramen noodles. He also had a very limited "kitchen," located outdoors in a parking lot, and a deep fryer that kept breaking down.

The show was very entertaining to watch. He has a good sense for how to combine foods and flavors, he really knows how to cook, and he has a method and a system that's very adaptable. He seems to have an open mind!

I would love to see him do a Dinner Impossible show that involved macrobiotics. I can picture him going to the Macrobiotic Summer Camp or another macrobiotic gathering place where all of the macrobiotic foods are provided for him (according to the season and what is available fresh, locally). Grains would be pre-soaked and rinsed for him in advance, and items like pickles and pressed salads would be made ahead of time. I would have Julia Ferre, author of Basic Macrobiotic Cooking and French Meadows Cookbook (if she were willing) decide what the list of supplies would be.

Robert's mission (should he choose to accept it) would be to create a gourmet macrobiotic menu that would win over the most skeptical food critics. (I suppose that could include him too! He seems to think that a good meal needs to have a lot of "proteins," a term he uses when he means meat and other animal products.)

Another part of his mission might be to tell us what the percentage ratios were of grains, beans, and vegetables in each dish that he made. Or maybe he'd be required to provide at least ten dishes that correspond to George Ohsawa's macrobiotic diets #7 through #-3...

Who would be his dinner guests? What if we invited all the country's food critics from television, newspapers, and food magazines to attend?

It would also be fun to see if Robert could convince the master macrobiotic chefs of the world that he can cook delicious, gourmet, macrobiotic food for them. (Kind of like an "Iron Chef" challenge.) Who would be included on that guest list?

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Adapting Our Diets To The Situation

Today I decided to have a bowl of barley-miso soup with wakame seaweed to break my fast in the morning. My body has been signaling me that I need more salt. (Certain macrobiotic books, such as Zen Macrobiotics, by George Ohsawa, and Pocket Guide to Macrobiotics, by Carl Ferre, explain how to read and interpret your body's signals.)

I thought it was interesting that my decision to have miso seaweed soup should be on a day that we may possibly receive some nuclear fallout on our West coastline from Japan. I believe that this salty alkalyzing soup is an excellent way to help counter the effects of radiation. I remember reading that a friend of George Ohsawa's who was a doctor in Japan during World War II was able to protect himself, his staff, and all the patients in his hospital from radiation sickness after the United States bombed Japan because he knew about and practiced macrobiotics.

In his introductory book, Essential Guide to Macrobiotics, Carl Ferre talks about two approaches to healing with a "basic macrobiotic diet" and a "macrobiotic centering diet." Both diets are comprised of eating whole grains, certain vegetables, beans (including miso), and seaweeds — the difference being in the proportions, the time lengths, and the types of restrictions. Both dietary approaches help you restore your body's own natural healing powers, which will keep you balanced, clear-headed, and more able to protect yourself in any situation.

Whole-barley miso soup with wakame seaweed like I had this morning for breakfast, by the way, is fortifying and very delicious! I talked about it in an earlier posting too: Whole Grain Barley Miso.

Julia and Carl Ferre are writing about "Macrobiotics and Radiation" on the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation website (you can download a PDF page from there) and in "Macrobiotics Today." (You can subscribe to an online version or a printed hardcopy version of the magazine at the website.)

Notes:
• The books Zen Macrobiotics by George Ohsawa and newly revised Essential Guide to Macrobiotics (formerly called Pocket Guide to Macrobiotics), by Carl Ferre are both available from the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation website.

• My favorite organic barley miso is from the Great Eastern Sun company.

• I get my favorite wakame seaweed from the New Leaf Market grocery store, provided by Rising Tide Sea Vegetables in Mendocino, California.

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What Is True Fasting?

Today is the first day of Lent, a season of 40 days for fasting, praying, and preparing for the Spring, or Easter. I always thought that "fasting" meant basically starving — not eating or drinking anything. But George Ohsawa proposes a different meaning of fasting in his book, Zen Macrobiotics. He says,

"True fasting is not detachment from all eating and drinking. On the contrary, it is strict and absolute attachment to that only which is absolutely necessary to sustain life."
— George Ohsawa, page 127, Zen Macrobiotics.

"You cannot detach yourself from air, water and light, the synthesis of which are the cereals [whole grains] that form the true foundation of our very existence. The use of cereal, fire and salt distinguishes man, his civilization and his culture from all other living things. Without recognition of this basic fact, he is lost in his quest for well-being."

He says also,

"You will see improvement by simply observing the macrobiotic way (Diet No. 6 or 7) without the help of others or of any device or medicine on your own. You will have discovered the real meaning of prayer and fasting."
Notes:
• The macrobiotic Diet #7 is 100% whole grains and Diet #6 is 90% whole grains and 10% vegetable nitsuke.
• I talk a little about vegetable nitsuke in an earlier posting: Diet #6 by George Ohsawa (What Is Nitsuke?).• You can buy the book, Zen Macrobiotics, by George Ohsawa, on the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation website.

Lessons From A Coyote

I saw a magazine article recently about how the actor Jeff Bridges is working on a cause to stop hunger for kids in America. The numbers of how many children are going hungry was staggering. No one should have to go hungry, especially children, who need food even more than adults do because their bodies are growing and developing.

The other day, a very skinny, very hungry, coyote was on our deck in broad daylight, eating dry catfood from the bowl while the cat sat watching on the railing nearby.

We are all changing and adapting to our environments, doing what we must in order to live and to survive. Sometimes, like the coyote, we miss the chance to eat the foods our bodies need naturally.

I'm finding that as I continue to eat a strict Macrobiotic diet (Diet #7, Diet #6, and Diet #5), my body is adjusting, healing, and re-learning how to metabolize food naturally. Sometimes I've felt light-headed and very hungry, because my blood sugar was low, and so I've rested — giving my body a chance to heal. But then, every morning, I wake up feeling great — energized, optimistic, and ready to meet the new day.

I don't think it takes a lot of money to provide our bodies with the food that they need to survive and be healthy. Whole grains (like rice, oats, wheat, barley, millet, rye, and quinoa), vegetables (fresh, locally grown, in season), water, daylight, and fresh air — this is all that our bodies need. They don't even need fruit or animal products to survive!

But the thing is, our bodies have to be taught how to metabolize foods. I have to teach my body all over again how to chew, chew, and salivate — how to digest carbohydrates in my mouth — and how to derive energy from the whole grains that I'm chewing.

The natural food for a cow is grass. Isn't it amazing how big a cow can grow just from chewing, chewing, and chewing more grass!


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Ten Macrobiotic Diets By George Ohsawa

Whole Grains In Restaurants

I had a wonderful bowl of brown rice at Linda's Seabreeze Cafe this morning. I wonder, how many restaurants in Santa Cruz serve brown rice? Seems like there should be a lot of places, especially since this is Santa Cruz, but I can only think of three... Little Shanghai's, Linda's Seabreeze Cafe, and Dharma's.

Besides brown rice, what other kinds of whole grains can be found in restaurants? Oatmeal for breakfast is the most common, then there's polenta (Gayle's Bakery has that), and Dharma's also has quinoa. If I can't find any whole grain, then toast made with whole wheat flour, whole wheat tortillas and burritos, or corn tortillas would be my next choice. Also, in some restaurants, like Rosie McCann's, I can get a veggie burger. If I'm lucky, the veggie burger has whole grains in it, like the original "Garden Burger."

I've often day-dreamed of starting up a chain of veggie-burger diners (Alice's Brown Rice Diner!) sweeping across America, and starting a competition for veggie burger recipes -- I can think of so many different kinds! made with rice, beans, different kinds of veggies, barley, oat groats, whole wheat berries, millet, quinoa... and besides veggie burgers, each diner would also have simple side dishes like a bowl of whole grains, soup, or vegetable in season. Every ingredient would be fresh, organic and GMO-free. And you'd have your choice of wheat bun or lettuce wrap to hold the burger.

Wouldn't that be fun! I wonder how feasible it would be... I can imagine little old houses or buildings converted and fixed up to look like old fashioned diners with black & white checkerboard tiles and chrome bar stools with red seat cushions and planter boxes with tall bamboo (what?) and pink & white checkered gingham curtains. I think it would be fun to decorate with a mixture of yin and yang, east and west, old and new -- in simple, pure, and clean lines. Oh well, I can always have fun dreaming!

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Whole Grain Barley Miso

Still feeling chilled and a little "under the weather" today, I decided to have a small bowl of whole-grain miso broth with my dinner, because it is a tremendous help in staving off colds. I had some last night too and when I woke up this morning, my congested sinuses and slightly sore throat were completely cleared up. This stuff really works! (Better than chicken soup, I think!) If you've never had it before, I recommend that you taste a tiny bit of it first with your spoon to see how salty and rich it is. (It's very good combined with nut or seed butters as a spread on thin slices of whole rye toast.)

Whole Grain Barley Miso Broth:
• 1 cup of hot water
• 1 teaspoon of Miso Master's Barley Miso
Mix them together with your spoon and eat!

It's important to not actually cook the miso because hot temperatures will kill off all the beneficial aspergillus spores and lactobacillus bacteria.

Miso works well with various seaweeds as well as land vegetables, which makes for some great soup recipes:

George Ohsawa has several recipes for soup and sauces using miso in his book, Zen Macrobiotics (pages 87 and 88). You can buy the book from the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation website. The foundation's web site also has lots of other recipes and information about miso (just type in "miso" in their Search box).

The web site for the Great Eastern Sun company includes
• a very informative description of their MISO MASTER® Organic, Kosher Traditional Country Barley Miso, and
• miso recipes — even a recipe for "Under The Weather Miso" soup!

I just heard on the news this evening that breast cancer is on the rise, especially with women who are post-menopausal. This barley miso is very helpful for preventing cancer on account of its "potent phytoestrogens known as isoflavones" content.

Written on a paper inside the lid of the miso container:

"Miso Soup Consumption
linked with up to
50% Reduced
Risk of Breast
Cancer*

*As reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Vol. 95, Issue #12"

That's very nice to know! Especially since miso tastes so good, and provides an excellent source of salt that's easy to digest. I like the barley miso the best, but the brown rice miso is also quite good—I highly recommend them both.


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Oatmeal On A Cold, Rainy Morning

Good morning! It's raining and cold outside, warm and cozy inside. My macrobiotic diet is going well. I'm switching between Diet #7 100% whole grains and Diet #6 90% whole grains, 10% vegetable nitsuke from meal to meal. This morning I had hot oatmeal cooked from scratch.

Oatmeal from Scratch
• First I lightly toasted 1/2 cup of rolled oats on a pan in my toaster oven.
• Then I cooked it in 1 1/2 cups of water with a teaspoon of organic seaweed gomasio (Eden Foods) on a low boil in a pot on the stove.
• When most of the water had boiled away and it started to stick to the bottom of the pot, I covered it with a lid, turned off the heat, and let it sit for awhile (about ten minutes).

Chewing each biteful more than 100 times was easy. It's almost like a form of meditation, calming me down, getting my brain to stop racing away with one thought after another. As I chewed, I looked around me and saw how complex and beautiful the world is, and did not feel overwhelmed by it. And as I chewed more, I noticed how the flavor of the oatmeal changed in my mouth, intensifying and becoming more delicious. It blows me away!