Sometimes we purposely want ‘em, and sometimes they just show up by mistake, but we all have leftovers sometimes. No matter how carefully we plan our recipes and cooking quantities. The trick, especially when cooking for ultimate health, and even to overcome a serious illness, is learning to deliciously prepare your macro leftovers!

My Macrobiotic Cooking Class Creative Use of Leftovers ~ Quick Easy Dishes is certainly an important way to stretch our food budget. Especially buying organic foods, and high quality Macrobiotic products, we want to use all the food we’ve prepared! And when you can truly enjoy your leftover dishes, you have a win-win, all the way!

Some diehards just toss everything out, but I even heard Michio Kushi, time and again in group and private consultations, suggest using leftover grain for breakfast porridge. Even to very ill clients. He had a reason. Maybe several.

First of all, it sure makes breakfast a whole lot easier to handle early in the morning if your grain dish is already welcoming you to your kitchen from it’s trusty little pot! Good morning to you too, dear Grain! Thanks for being here, and making my morning a little quicker! Quess the second reason. Would you believe easier digestibility? Yep, that’s it. As your grain sits overnight on your counter, covered by a bamboo sushi mat, it’s actually beginning to ferment, thus making it even more digestible than when freshly made.

This month’s Macrobiotic Cooking Class ~ Creative Use of Leftovers ~ Quick Easy Dishes addresses the big picture of Leftovers! We’ll answer your leftover questions, including excellent guidance about do’s and don’ts with leftovers! And recipes so yummy your Leftovers can shout Extra, Extra, Read All About US!

Macrobiotic Center of Atlanta

Saturday April 24              1-4 pm        $45 per person

RSVP: marsharueff@mac.com 770. 396  9413

Menu

Soup – Quick Soup, adaptable for Grains, Beans, Veg Leftovers!
Grain – Stir Fried Rice
Vegetables – Vegetable Pancake Glazed with Sweet Teriyaki Sauce
Bean – Refried Beans & Burritos!
Seitan – UnMeatball Pasta Fasta!
Noodles – 2 favorite recipes! Surprise!!!

Plus:
Additional suggestions for LEFTOVERS in many cooking styles

And, Just as Importantly:
Leftover – NO NO’s

RSVP as soon as possible!          Always a Popular Class!

Your check to Marsha Rueff holds your space:
Please mail to 1130 Trailridge Lane, Dunwoody, GA 30338

Back to Basics

A Special Macrobiotic Cooking Class

Saturday, February 20               1-4 pm                       just $45 per person

This is a very special Macrobiotic and Vegan Cooking Class!

And just may be worth the trip to Atlanta!

You may be on a Macrobiotic, Vegetarian or Vegan Diet,

and still not reaping and the most health improvement for all your cooking efforts!

This is the class for YOU to learn about the Great Life Diet*

Based on Michio Kushi teaching 6 years ago, upon discovering Kushi Institute teachers had developed their own way of teaching, and ventured away from traditional cooking methods. We will cover basics explained in The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health, by Michio Kushi and Alex Jack.

Learn the unique tips Mr. Kushi feels are important for each dish.

*Menu*

Miso Soup

Special Drink for Liver Health***

Really right way for Pressure-Cooking Brown Rice!

The Pressed Salad – Learn how it relieves PRESSURE!!!!

Kinpira Soup – the Mac-Daddy Strengthener of all Times!

Nishimi Vegetables awesomeful delishious with Kuzu Sauce!

Roots and Tops the perfectly Balanced Vegetable Dish!

Blanched Vegetables & Dressing for Expeditious Energy

Ame Kuzu, the drink to relax & sleep well through the night

Ume Sho Kuzu, the Macrobiotic Antibiotic for Immune System, Jet Lag, & Dental Appointments

Flying into Atlanta for this class? Easy Marta accessibility!

Nearby hotel, motel accommodations available!

Cooking class at the home of Marsha and Fred Rueff

1130 Trailridge Lane

Dunwoody, Georgia 30338

770 . 396 . 9413              cell: 678 . 643 . 5662           email: marsharueff@mac.com

Please RSVP asap! Your check holds your spot!

Hurry, space is limited!

*The Great Life Diet, by Denny Waxman greatly enhances your practice of Macrobiotics, and is additional text material for our classes.

Let me tell you about our daughter Karyn. When our granddaughter, Brittany, was 18 months old, Karyn called me saying, I just gave Brittany her first macrobiotic cooking lesson! She cut the vegetables, stirred the food, measured the water, added the rice, and made gomashio!

Music to my ears. With all the love we have for our children and grandchildren, it’s so gratifying to know they are choosing healthy foods and lifestyle. And even teaching the next generation when kids adore playing in the kitchen with mommy! When it’s fun!

Karyn’s pantry and fridge contains all the foods on a macrobiotic diet, plus some traditional items for company. And her children know the difference. When Brittany was about 2 she declared in a children’s music group her favorite food was TOFU! All the other children claimed french fries, chicken wings or pizza. Macrobiotic food, as you learn in macrobiotic cooking classes, is very tasty, and kids love that genuine taste and aroma. It smells so good is a familiar comment in a macrobiotic kitchen.

Brittany and her sister Alyssa often participate in meal preparation, and even help select recipes, browsing macrobiotic cookbooks for some new, yummy dish. They have taken many Whole Foods cooking classes for kids, even the week-long summer camp. They assisted in these classes as well. At age 10 Brittany and Alyssa have each assisted during Warren Kramer’s cooking classes at our home, truly contributing. Kids love to help, and teaching them cooking skills while they are young and helping is fun for them is the key!

So what macrobiotic dishes are perfect kid-starters? Scrambled tofu – you get to scrunch up the tofu in your hands, and chop the veggies. Mochi waffles with Suzanne’s Maple Rice Syrup. Tempeh and seitan, deep-fried! Pasta salads with pickles and olives, blanched veggies, and yummy dressing. Kanten fruit desserts blended into a strawberry mousse or orange soufflé. Creamy pureed vegetable soups without the cream. Nori rolls with almond butter, cucumbers and whatever else your kids like. Fried fish, hummus dip and crunchy veggies. Tempura everything! Parsley’s the best, broccoli and other greens, even nori rolls. Kids love stirring the batters, and let them be inventive! Even if you are on a stricter diet, they might add coconut or healthy rice crispies to roll the battered seitan and what a treat you have!

You’ll want to buy the tiny iwachu iron pot for the deep frying, and sometimes we just keep ours on the stove. You can order this pot from Essene in Philadelphia by calling:  215 . 922 . 1146.  Sometimes you may have to describe the pot: it’s round with an iron handle, and wood lid, costing approximately $49 plus shipping. You definitely want the small size which allows you to use less oil.

Kid’s school lunches! Let ‘em look like everyone else. Sandwich, fruit, noodles, hummus and blanched veg, nori roll if they are comfortable with it. With all the sushi and nori rolls prepared at the grocers today, this macrobiotic favorite way of carrying rice and veggies might be the in thing.  And when they get home have a hearty dish to tide them over for dinner. Leftover warm soup & steamed sourdough bread may be very welcome on a cold afternoon. Or if you drive them directly to an activity, bring a favorite dish in the car. Pasta and sauce, fried tofu, warm apple juice, fried seitan, thermos of warm bancha tea. Let them request!

And making meals easier for your new attendees! Sometimes your youngsters get inquistive, asking what’s for dinner? I always just answer dinner. Especially if your kids show any resistance. Learn their favorites, and include them often!

Relax, have fun with the macrobiotic foods and let your kids have a fun ride on your new regime for health. Everyone benefits in the long run, and what wonderful peace of mind, knowing your children have the best quality food, and healthy horizons ahead! That’s Everything!

Great macrobiotic books for families with kids:

The Macrobiotic Community Cookbook, by Andrea Bliss Lerman features kids favorites made in the macrobiotic cooking style: pizza, stoganoff, lasagne, burrito, millet-cauliflower mashed potatoes that make perfect potato pancakes, without any potatoes at all. And lots more.

Sweet and Natural, by Meredith McCarty features 120 desserts without sugar, eggs, butter, cream and yeast. Pies, tarts, cakes, cookies – everyone delights in these recipes.

Grains and Greens from the Deep Blue Sea, by Mark Hanna and Sandy Purkel features recipes from the Macrobiotic Cruise. Each one becomes your new favorite! So get ready to try them all! The Millet Croquets taste just like tuna fish, and the tartar sauce is amazing! The desserts are wow! Can this really be good for us! Yes indeedy!

Cooklets by Melanie Waxman. All Melanie’s recipes are terrific, and you might want to get the complete bound issue. Having seven children of her own, Melanie has excellent recipes for children in Cooking for Children section, and throughout all the cooklets! Try the Soba Knots in Oodles of Noodles! With 7 children of her own, Melanie is the expert  keeping kids interested in their health eats!

Cooking the Whole Foods Way, by Christina Pirello. Delish cuisine, kids will enjoy & request their favorites!

Cook Your Food to the Life You Want, by Christina Pirello. Christina Pirello’s recipe books are quite excellent, as she has taken traditional European recipes and perfected the macrobiotic conversion for you.  Amazing variety to delight all your family!

In every macrobiotic cooking class when kids are still within the home, my clients ask, what do I feed my children? It’s a huge concern. Young women diagnosed with breast and other cancers, and researching alternative cancer treatments, invariably worry this dilemma. Realizing they want to change their eating, but not wanting to make waves within their home. Not wanting to impose their needs on their husband and not wanting to worry their children or make any noticeable fuss at home. In fact, Warren Kramer, our Senior Macrobiotic Counselor says one of the reasons young mothers get sick, and often develop breast cancer is they don’t take the time to take care of themselves; they are so busy taking care of everyone else.

I always encourage my clients to cook one way. Let the family eat macro too. Kids adore this food. It’s nothing new under the sun. The macrobiotic diet goes way back to eating a more natural, common sense cooking style, like our great, great, great grandparents. Before packaged food. Before frozen foods. Before microwave and health bars. True food, cooked well, but not overcooked. Actually it’s exquisitely prepared cuisine.

Have you ever heard the person wearing the apron strings in the home controls the health of the family? That’s the ticket! While your children are still living at home, you get the perfect chance to influence and improve their health. What better gift for your spouse and children than to effectuate the way they eat. You’ll get to influence your kids’ food choices for all the times in their lives away from home –  school, camp, college, and restaurants just to name a few.

As you experience macrobiotic diet benefits firsthand, you will learn even more reasons to feed your family the same balanced meals you eat. Letting your kids assist you in the kitchen truly lets them participate in your healing process in a very personal and special way. They will feel better too. Skin problems, fatigue, easier concentration at school, improved athletic performance are just a few of the benefits they will enjoy right away. I always say, as you see them improve, you’ll know you are on the right track too.

And your spouse. Well, some of my clients say, my husband is wonderful and supportive, but he’s a meat and potato man. Okay, but he’s your biggest cheerleader too, your partner, so invite him to participate. When you set up your kitchen, set up two complete workstations: 2 wood cutting boards and 2 chef’s knives. And double some of the other kitchen gadgets you learn to use in our macrobiotic cooking classes. And voila, you immediately have a partner in the kitchen! What I call romancing the stone after Michael Douglas’s films. Our CD’s are nearby, and we always have a favorite song we are dancing to. Kids enjoy this too. I always say our kitchen is really a wonderful dance floor that just happens to have a stove in the middle of it!

Just have a taste, or try this, honey, it’s so delicious. New phrases for introducing dishes to your family. One of my clients had a everyone has to taste everything on the plate rule. When they did, a quarter went into this huge jar. When the jar filled they went on a trip somewhere. Or did something special. You should have heard her sons urging each other to try the food! And some 14 years later her health has improved, and all three sons & their wives eat very healthy. And their own children. You can snowball this very same effect.

What a wonderful legacy to give your family! I think it’s the best information we’ve given our own children, and set the pace for future generations. And it’s been very empowering when health issues arise to be able to reach for The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health, by Michio Kushi and Alex Jack, and tell our daughters what page a specific home remedy is on. If a situation is new to me, I suggest a call to Warren Kramer for his advice. Because we’ve established that direct tie with our children and Warren too. I’ve gotta say strengthening the bond with your kids & your Macrobiotic Counselor has to be one of the most satisfying moments of all! And one of the greatest benefits of our being on a Macrobiotic Diet! Getting our kids on it too! This is the one of the greatest gifts you can give your children: their ability to choose a healthy lifestyle.

Books with wonderful recipes for families

• The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health, Michio Kushi and Alex Jack
• Sweet and Natural, Meredith McCarthy
• The Macrobiotic Community Cookbook, Andre Bliss Lerman
  
• Grains and Greens from the Deep Blue Sea, Mark Hanna & Sandy Pukel

Warren Kramer internationally-known Senior Macrobiotic Counselor will be in Atlanta July 15-20, 2009. Teacher for the Kushi Institute, Strengthening Health Institute, the Macrobiotic Cruise, and New England Macrobiotic Center, Warren brings a wealth of knowledge gained from the eleven years he served as Michio Kushi’s private assistant, as well as over 25 years counseling throughout the world.

In Atlanta Warren will be giving private consultations, macrobiotic cooking classes, and evening  lectures in the Dunwoody area. Attend all events & have a private consultation, and you will receive 15% savings on lecture and cookings classes Thursday through Sunday.

Please contact Marsha Rueff to reserve consultation time with Warren and your choice of venues  at marsharueff@mac.com .

Phone contact: 678 . 643 . 5662 or 770 . 396 . 9413.

For Warren’s bio please visit www.macrobioticsnewengland.com

Friday July 17, please join us for a special evening’s lecture, Menu Planning Essentials, July 17, 7:30-9 pm The Rueff Home, 1130 Trailridge Lane, Dunwoody, Georgia 30338

Always participants request this menu-planning class every time Warren visits. It truly is one of the most important lectures. Why? Because all the theory from macrobiotic books has to actually happen in the kitchen. In YOUR kitchen, to be exact. And Warren’s Menu Planning Class is key! Based on his years of working with Michio Kushi and Denny Waxman, Warren guides us step by step using the principles of yin and yang according to Macrobiotic guidelines. Involving our input in the process. Yes, this is an interactive lecture.

See it this way: we’re implementing a new way of eating, and especially considering we have health concerns to correct, eating well-planned meals becomes essential. The hit-or-miss-grab-whatever-is-ready-to-gulp-down when we come home from work is history. We can do better than being too famished and tired to cook. Now we want a welcoming meal, featuring the best food choices. Because now we know better. And now we are using macrobiotic principles to enhance our health and well-being. You see, macrobiotics is a way of eating based on the energetics of food. That is to say, it’s based on how the foods make us feel after we eat, and what kind of energy we have the next day, too. What kind of energy the food charges our bodies with. Way different than a calorie or carb or protein based diet like most of the new-fad diets circulating the last few years, don’t you think?

Your macrobiotic diet is very special, and Warren’s presentation of developing macrobiotic menus for you and your loved ones is truly an art, and it’s very easy to adapt. From this plan you will learn to shop for your week. Even how to substitute foods according to the season and what’s available organic. Plus you reap the benefits of being with this group and hearing their keen experiences cooking macrobiotic diet. Warren actually plans with the group a whole weeks worth of meals! Yep, we do it together, so turn your thinking cap on. You’re going to experience where to start when planning a meal, and the logical steps from there. It’s way different than you may think, much easier, and funner too!

Warren Kramer internationally-known Senior Macrobiotic Counselor will be in Atlanta July 15-20, 2009. Teacher for the Kushi Institute, Strengthening Health Institute, the Macrobiotic Cruise, and New England Macrobiotic Center, Warren brings a wealth of knowledge gained from the eleven years he served as Michio Kushi’s private assistant, as well as over 25 years counseling throughout the world.

In Atlanta Warren will be giving private consultations, macrobiotic cooking classes, and evening  lectures in the Dunwoody area. Attend all events & have a private consultation, and you will receive 15% savings on lecture and cookings classes Thursday through Sunday.

Please contact Marsha Rueff to reserve consultation time with Warren and your choice of venues  at marsharueff@mac.com .

Phone contact: 678 . 643 . 5662 or 770 . 396 . 9413.

For Warren’s bio please visit www.macrobioticsnewengland.com

Thursday July 16, please join us for a special evening’s lecture, Sweet Seductions – Breaking the Sugar Addiction, July 16, 7:30-9 pm at the Rueff Home, 1130 Trailridge Lane, Dunwoody, Georgia 30338. A special topic for Warren is a natural from his intense research on hypoglycemia which earned him great respect from his colleagues and clients. This incredible expertise extends to the amazing material Warren has gathered to speak on sugar addiction. So vital today! Can you believe the average person today consumes 147 pounds of sugar annually? Yes, people are caught in a sugar addiction – as Warren explains, take that morning sugar away, and watch people barely being able to move in the morning. One of the worse foods we can consume, Warren explains how to step off the sugar roller coaster ride once and for all. He will describe the difficulty our health endures when we consume sugar. Knowing this valuable information is very helpful when we are choosing a different and healthier macrobiotic diet and lifestyle. You will learn healthy alternative sweetners as well as satisfying sweet dishes and beverages far easier on our bodies, relaxing and helpful to our health. We will serve a delicious non-sugar dessert and tea recommended on the macrobiotic diet! Maybe you can even guess the source of minerals in this yummy dessert! You’ll find out in Warren’s lecture!

Suggested reading: Sugar Blues, by William Dufty, journalist and husband to Gloria Swanson, writes the history of sugar, and how the ill effects of sugar have been known hundreds of years.

The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health, by Michio Kushi and Alex Jack

Warren Kramer internationally-known Senior Macrobiotic Counselor will be in Atlanta July 15-20, 2009. Teacher for the Kushi Institute, Strengthening Health Institute, the Macrobiotic Cruise, and New England Macrobiotic Center, Warren brings a wealth of knowledge gained from the eleven years he served as Michio Kushi’s private assistant, as well as over 25 years counseling throughout the world.

In Atlanta Warren will be giving private consultations, macrobiotic cooking classes, and evening  lectures in the Dunwoody area. Attend all events & have a private consultation, and you will receive 15% savings on lectures and cookings classes Thursday through Sunday.

Please contact Marsha Rueff to reserve consultation time with Warren and your choice of venues  at marsharueff@mac.com .

Phone contact: 678 . 643 . 5662 or 770 . 396 . 9413.

For Warren’s bio please visit www.macrobioticsnewengland.com

Join us for our Opening Event: First, we’ll gather & enjoy a delicious vegan Buffet Dinner at the new Mellow Mushroom Restaurant, 6100 Roswell Road, Sandy Springs, at 6:00 PM. Featuring the hummus, amazing vegan pizzas overflowing with fresh veggies, tofu and tempeh hoagies and field green salads! And a most informative lecture,  Supporting a Healthy Heart. The charge for the entire event is specially priced at $20 for the dinner/lecture. Warren’s lecture from 7:30 – 9:00 PM is at the Rueff home in Dunwoody, where a macrobiotic dessert will be served, vegan of course! Warren will share such enlightening information regarding the heart, including visual diagnosis of heart health, healing foods, remedies and activities supporting the heart. He will also discuss how this amazing organ, known as the fire element of our body, increases in activity for the summer  – and what this means to each of us. Especially as we near late summer. And of course we’ll also learn how the heart is the rhythm keeper in our lives, affecting our love and joy.  Warren will answer your questions, and even more special, he always tells us the why and how of everything. That’s one of his specialties, and you’ll hear me introduce him as the Why Man of Macrobiotics!

How special an evening this will prove! And we thank Wendy Steinbaum, long-time macrobiotic supporter for recommending Mellow Mushroom, a favorite of her’s and Aubrey’s! We look forward to seeing you  July 15!

Bonus! Bring a friend New to Macrobiotics and YOU attend 2 lectures half-price Thursday  - Sunday.

Suggested Reading: The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health, Michio Kushi and Alex Jack.

Doesn’t everyone take their copy of the newest macrobiotic diet book to their cardiologist’s visit? Or do you just take the coumadin they suggest, and be done with it?

Last month once again my husband and I were ever so grateful for our knowledge and 17 year-long practice of following the macrobiotic diet and lifestyle. Fred had open-heart surgery June, 1992 – actually on our anniversary, and we promised each other we would find a way to avoid multilple surgeries the education nurses at St. Joseph Hospital said likely occur within the next 5 years. Our research led us to Dean Ornish’s program, and then the Macrobiotic Diet, which we learned Dean actually followed himself. With eating a macrobiotic diet, Fred was only on medication 6 months following the initial surgery, which was quite an accomplishment. Why? Because the medication usually recommended following heart surgery actually weakens the heart, contributing to additional surgeries.

Fred experienced two instances of TIA during the last year – and never mentioned it to me – but casually told our opthamologist who adamantly urged see your cardiologist immediately. The initial cardiologist’s sonogram showed mitral valve regurgitation for which he strongly recommended Coumadin. So picture this: we‘re sitting in the office of a leading Atlanta cardiologist, who is respectful of our  following the macrobiotic diet and lifestyle. And we are very grateful for his expertise, listening skill and kindness to fully explain Fred’s condition. But he is actually apologizing that Coumadin is the best he has to offer because of the harmful side effects. And because of the danger of its usage, he explains they actually have a person in the office designated to monitoring patients on coumadin. He then ushered in perky Miss Coumadin Girl, and left the office.

Perky Miss Coumadin Girl has a name – but I forgot it! She was so all about Coumadin, that for Fred and I she just may have been named Miss Coumadin Girl, or Miss Coumadin Cheerleader or the whole cheerleading squad. How could she be so exuberant about this drug while admitting it’s in rat poison? She proceeded telling us how Fred could not eat most green vegetables – staples on a macrobiotic diet – casually listing Coumadin’s adverse side effects on the liver, the kidneys, sleep and lack of energy. Green vegetables of course benefit all these organs, and contribute calcium. We voted for the greens!

I stopped her flat saying Fred is not taking Coumadin. What she blurted, he has no choice. Yes, I think he does. We’ll find the macrobiotic diet recommendation instead. We courteously thanked her and promised to be in touch, and Miss Coumadin Cheerleader slumped from the room as if her team had lost the world championships. Once again we were so grateful for every macrobiotic cooking class and lecture, summer conference and study to which we’ve been privileged. And all our macrobiotic teachers, for their research and shared knowledge which gave us the information to make this important choice.

On the drive home we called & updated our Macrobiotic Diet Senior Counselor, Warren Kramer. Warren said okay, this is do-able; take the Macrobiotic Diet Heart Drink daily for 3 weeks. It’s on page 470 in Michio Kushi and Alex Jack’s most recent book, Macrobiotic Path to Total Health.

Now one wonderful thing about these Macrobiotic Diet Home Remedies is you usually already have your kitchen set up to follow a macrobiotic diet. So, you already own the ingredients. And there is no huge expense to heal yourself, whereas some of the new medications are over the top. And the best part, and this is most important to all of us, there are no adverse side effects. Instead, the whole body benefits. Because truly everything, every organ has a connection within our body. And that is exactly what happened to my dear Fred.

So guess what the ingredients of this heart drink are? Just 5 ingredients from your fridge and pantry:

• Daikon tops & other hard leafy greens ( exactly what coumadin doesn’t allow!) 2 parts
• Dried shiitake mushroom (what Fred uses as a blood thinner instead of coumadin) 1 part
• Corn or corn product, as corn grits – 1 part
• Cabbage – 1 part
• Wakame (a sea vegetable, high in minerals) 1 part
• Water 4-5 times as much, cook 20 minutes, strain & drink.
• Note: one part is the size of 1 dried shiitake mushroom, which measures 1 Tablespoon

And that’s it folks! So, we are scheduled to revisit this esteemed cardiologist in 6 months, but already we have seen some dramatic changes that a macrobiotic counselor would notice using oriental diagnosis to examine the facial features. The nose shows the condition of the heart. And here’s what we notice about Fred’s nose: it looks smaller, and has more definition, as if someone has pinched the bridge of his nose. Could that signal the mitral valves have come together, and are not regurgitating as much as before?

Also, Fred had a space between his two front top teeth. Dentists have always said leave it alone because any change would create too much movement. I noticed the other day, 3 weeks after this drink the space was eliminated. The gap closed overnight. No way I thought. I looked at my book on Chinese meridians and saw at the very top point way up under the lip is a point for the Heart Governor, so maybe this too shows the valves are closing up.

I called Warren, and told him, and teased him about now doing orthodontia work. He laughed, and said it’s very possible. Hmmmm, macrobiotic diet side effects. Sure beats the worrisome list of the ones Miss Coumadin offered.

You’re in the dentist chair and your dentist starts asking do you have a heart condition or any implant surgery, and if you say yes, they will only proceed if you have taken antibiotics – or they may give you a high dosage of antibiotics right then so as not to lose chair time. What to do if you prefer avoiding pharmaceutical medicines and their side effects?

On a Macrobiotic Diet it’s so easy! Three simple, magical words: ume sho kuzu! What’s that? A very soothing drink, easily made, in about 7 minutes. Three ingredients plus water: umeboshi plum, shoyu – a special soy sauce, and kuzu – the harvested root of the kudzu plant.

And the added benefit: it’s very soothing for your nerve endings, so you are more relaxed for that probing needle, good for the gums – which reflect the condition of our intestines. So we always take this drink before any dental cleansing or other appointments. It just eases our comfort level with the additional probing and vibrational sensations of the cleansing tools and uncomfortable pressure of x-ray filming.

I love teaching this drink in my macrobiotic cooking classes because it is helpful for so many health conditions. The recipe as found in Michio Kushi and Alex Jack’s book, The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health, page 505-506:

• Just dissolve 1 teaspoon of kuzu in 1 cup cold spring or filtered water.
• Bring to a boil, stirring continually to avoid lumping.
• Add one-third umeboshi plum
• Once the water becomes transparent, add 6 drops shoyu.

Drink while hot. Enjoy this drink daily two days before your appoinment, and the day of your appointment. If your dentist procedure involved novacaine, carbocaine or other numbing medication, use this drink the following two days.

Since this drink is considered the Macrobiotic Antibiotic we can answer yes to the above questions with confidence of protection, and knowing as well, there are no adverse side effects of our choice of this macrobiotic diet version of an antibiotic. In fact, since it’s good for so many conditions, we always feel better after taking it.

*Top quality ingredients can be ordered from Natural Import Company at 800 . 324 . 1878

• 89500 Sakurazawa Shoyu 5 oz.
• 89333 Mitoku Umeboshi Plum 6 oz
• 89408 Mitoku Kuzu 3 oz

For more information on the benefits of Ume Sho Kuzu, please check our website:  www.atlantamacrobiotics.com

You’re on a macrobiotic diet and you just ordered a beer? You’re having sake? But I thought you were on a macrobiotic diet? Did I see you having some wine, and you claim to eat so pure? Now I’m not going to believe anything you say about food anymore. Do you hear comments like these? I just did, and from a close family member.

A standard macrobiotic diet includes whole grain, beans, selected vegetables, soups, sea vegetables, sometimes recommended fish, seeds, nuts and fruit. And each category has special preparations. So why add alcoholic beverages to this healthy lifestyle? Is this hypocritical?

Not when we consider the yin and yang of it all, and how the macrobiotic diet is based on energetics – not calories, carbs, or weight. But how eating this food makes us feel. What is our energy like. Relaxing in this fast pace world is challenging, so we intentionally include relaxing foods and beverages.

Fruit kantens, pureed soups, warm fruit cooked in kuzu relax; try some warm apple juice, warm carrot juice and feel yourself relax deeper inside than biting into a cold apple. Sliced apples cooked in little apple juice is far sweeter and more relaxing too.

Sometimes a little stronger yin is called for, and that bit of warm sake relaxes our core being, or a glass of wine at your favorite Italian restaurant. Or, you’re out with friends at a local seafood restaurant – relax, enjoy a local beer with fish and chips. Why local beer? It aligns you with your environment. In fact, Warren Kramer suggests ordering local beer balances the yang of traveling. And it gets you in the groove of wherever you visit.

And when you want a milder yin? Adding apple juice to your bancha tea is very relaxing, or rice syrup. You can dilute the apple juice with water if you are limiting your fruit intake.

Sometimes try this special remedy drink, Ame Kuzu, which can actually be made three ways. Each achieves a stronger level of yin. The mildest is with rice syrup, a little stronger version uses barley malt, and the most yin is with apple juice. Warm and sweet, it relaxes your mind, settling down after a busy day, or having too much on your mind, and insures a good night sleep. Sometimes it’s an effective muscle relaxer.

The Ame Kuzu recipe is found in The Macrobiotic Path to Total Health, by Michio Kushi and Alex Jack, page 446.

• Dilute 1 teaspoon kuzu in 1 cup cold water
• Stir constantly over a medium flame, until the milky white liquid becomes transparent.
• Add 1-2 Tablespoons Suzanne’s Genmai Brown Rice Syrup
• Bring to a gentle boil*, and drink warm. *kuzu must boil to be effective.
• Or, the following:
• Prepare the Barley Malt version the same as above.
• Substitute Apple juice instead of water, or you can dilute with half juice, half water.