Macrobiotic Treatments for Colds and Flus

South Florida seems to have had a slight uptick in the number of people suffering from colds and flu lately. It seems to have started soon after the Easter and Passover holidays, perhaps because people traveled and brought germs with them from up north. But whatever the reason, lots of people seem to have the flu lately, a type that is not especially severe but that hangs on seemingly forever.
If you or someone you know is suffering from this malady, you may want to know how to treat it without resorting to drugs, prescription or otherwise, or the time-tested remedy of a bottle of scotch.
Macrobiotics, a system of natural eating that originated in Japan and that emphasizes whole grains like brown rice, vegetables, sea vegetables, and small amounts of natural soy products and fish, has some remedies designed for colds and flu.
;f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"> Here is the advice this blogger got from one of America's best macrobiotic teachers, John Kosinski, about how to combat colds and flu.

• Clean up your diet. Avoid dairy products, baked flour products like bread, muffins, cakes, cookies, and pies. Avoid margarine and trans-fats. These foods make it hard for your lymphatic system to function and can increase the possibility of contracing a cold or flu.
• Rest. Three to five days of rest at the onset of a cold can prevent it from hanging on for a month or more.
• If you have a severe cough, make lotus root tea. The most effective tea is made from fresh lotus root, which is often available from Asian food markets. Grate a 2-inch piece of lotus root. Wrap the grated lotus in a cheesecloth and squeeze out the juice. Then grate a small amount of ginger and squeeze out 2 or 3 drops of giner juice. Add a pinch of sea salt. Add an amount of water that is equal to the amount of lotus root juice and simmer the mixture gently for 2 or 3 minutes. Drink hot. If fresh lotus root is unavailable, you can use dried lotus root, but in this case, boil 1/3 oz of the dried root in 1 cup of water for 15 minutes. Add 2-3 drops of ginger juice and dirnk hot.
• Lotus root was traditionally used in Asia for sinus congestion and infections, cough, bronchitis, and asthma.
• Drink ume-sho-kuzu. Prepare this by dissolving one teaspoon of kuzu power in two tablespoonds of cold water. Add the water a little bit at a time. Mash 1 umeboshi plum, a type of Japanese plum that is red, tart, and salty. Add 1 to 1 1/2 cups of water to the kuzu and umeboshi. Simmer this mixture until it is mostly transparent. Add 1-3 drops of tamari soy sauce to the mixture. Drink immediately. (I want to credit Michio Kushi's book Macrobiotic Home Remedies for the recipe.
• A soothing practice is to wrap hot towels around the back of your neck and shoulders. This eases the head and neck pain that often accompany colds and flu.
• You can always resort to "macrobiotic penicillin," which is miso soup. Add daikon radish to the soup. If you can find daikon greens, add those too. Even though you probably won't feel much like cooking, do try to add some lightly steamed leafy green vegetables to your diet.

Macrobiotics and Prostate Cancer

Cancer patients considering macrobiotics often face an agonizing choice between conventional medicine, which is backed by solid medical research but has grueling side effects, and macrobiotics, which lacks solid medical support but has no harsh side effects and many beneficial ones. However, now that the treatment of choice for many cases of prostate cancer is "watchful waiting," men with this disorder don't have to make this choice. They can adopt the macrobiotic diet knowing that they are doing themselves no harm and may in fact be improving their chances of having a good outcome.

If you want to use macrobiotics to treat prostate cancer, first educate yourself about the standard macrobiotic diet, which consists of 50% by volume of whole grains, 30% vegetables, 10% beans, and 10% of fish, sea vegetables, fruits, and condiments. If you are eating a macrobiotic diet, it is important to avoid any processed or chemicalized foods, refined grains, sugars, artificial sweeteners, mammal meat, and dairy products.

In addition, modify the diet in the following ways:

• If you crave fish, eat white meat fish once per week. The fish should never be baked, broiled, or grilled. From a macrobiotic point of view, prolonged cooking times and very high heat are "yang." Yang foods like meat and salt or yang cooking methods like baking and broiling cause a tight, contracted condition in the body and can exacerbate prostate cancer.
• Eat whole grains like brown rice, whole barley, and hato mugi, which is sometimes called pearl barley and should not be confused with pearled barley, which is a refined grain. Never eat non-organic grains grown in China, even if they are less expensive, because Chinese agriculture uses large amounts of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.
• Drink organic whole barley tea or hato mugi tea. These teas are reputed to help dissolve fat deposits in the body.
• Emphasize leafy green vegetables. Two-thirds of your vegetable intake should be leafy green vegetables like collards, kale, mustard greens, turnip greens, daikon greens, and dandelion.
• One-third of your vegetables should be root and round vegetables.
• NEVER use kombu seaweed if you have prostate cancer. Other forms of seaweed are fine and are a valuable source of trace minerals.
• Certain types of sprouts are good for this condition, particularly barley, broccoli, and daikon radish seeds. Be sure to use organic seeds.
• You may occasionally use small amounts of oil. Brush the skillet with small amounts of organic sesame oil.
• If you crave sweets, use small amounts of brown rice syrup. Desserts should be cooked on top of the stove, not baked.
• Beans are excellent foods for the prostate cancer patient because they contain phytoestrogens which can counteract the effects of testosterone, which stimulates prostate cancer.
• Use lots of daikon radish and shiitake mushrooms in your diet. Donko shiitake mushrooms are the highest quality and the best to use for medicinal purposes. About 3 to 4 dried shiitake mushrooms per week are plenty. Use them to make teas or add to broth that you serve whole grain noodles in. They are very relaxing and will add a subtle taste to your food.

In addition to diet, there are other practices that are useful as well.

• Walk daily. It is especially beneficial to walk barefoot on the grass or beach.
• Scrub your body daily with a cotton washcloth dipped in hot water. This should be done immediately before or after the bath. This practice stimulates circulation and helps discharge toxins.
• Avoid electromagnetic radiation from TVs, computers, cell phones, and wireless routers. While the jury is still out on whether or not these fields can cause cancer, err on the side of caution and avoid them as much as possible.
• Wear clothing made of natural fibers like cotton, linen, silk, and ramie. Avoid synthetic fibers.
• Avoid food packaged in plastic or in cans. Cans are lined with plastic.

If you follow these dietary and way of life suggestions, you are tilting the odds in your favor. However, you should still have regular medical checkups. Remember, the goal of macrobiotics is to have the healthiest and longest life possible. While the first approach should always be the natural one, you also want to use every tool at your disposal to improve the odds.

Save a Woman's Sight

Save Bonnie's Sight:Please Donate Now

I am writing to ask you to donate money to save a woman's sight. She has lost 95% of her vision and needs expensive surgery. Because of her vision loss, she is unable to work and thus has no insurance. Her medicare will not start until October. While she waits for medicare to kick in, she will lose even more vision. I have set up a donations page and am asking everyone who reads this to donate a dollar from their paypal account.

Thanks.

Jessica Ramer

Healthy Sunscreens

Now that summer is here--and it is here in Florida, where I write, it is time to start thinking about healthy sunscreens. This is a surprisingly difficult issue for a variety of reasons:

• Chemical sunscreens have been shown to have significant negative effects on ocean reefs. The sunscreen on your skin washes off in the salt water and is carried to reefs, where cause bleaching of the coral. This bleaching is caused by the loss of photosynthetic organisms called zooxanthellae that live on the coral and provide nutrients through photosynthesis. Loss of these organisms can eventually lead to the death of the reef.
• Another study found that these common chemicals in sunscreens: paraben, cinnamate, benzophenone, and camphor derivatives—can stimulate dormant viral infections in zooxanthellae, thus endangering the reef that depends on these organisms for food.

If concern for the environment prompts you to use natural sunscreens, you may want to be aware of the following potential problems according to a study published in a Brazilian dermatological journal:

• Zinc Oxide is more effective against UVA radiation--the kind that causes skin aging--than is titanium dioxide. Therefore, be sure your sunscreen contains at least a 3% concentration of this mineral.
• SPF ratings apply to UVB protection only and tell you nothing about UVA protection.
• Apply chemical sunscreens at least 20 minutes before sun exposure in order to allow the chemicals to interact with the skin and form a protective barrier.
• Titanium Oxide and Zinc Oxide particles have often been "micronized" to make them smaller. Smaller particles are less visible and therefore more cosmetically acceptable. However, this process may reduce their effectiveness as sunscreens. The article describes it this way:

Micronized forms of titanium dioxide and zinc oxide can undergo photochemical reactions that jeopardize their effectiveness, causing damage to genetic material or changing cell homeostasis. The coating of particles with dimethicone or silica promotes their stability, reducing such drawbacks.3,13,1 4

• For the above reason, make sure your sunscreen is made with silica or dimethicone. 
• Chemical sunscreens have been found in the urine of users, meaning that they are absorbed by the skin into the body. These studies used very high concentrations that are not usually found in commercial sunscreens; however, this issue is one to be aware of.

UV filters, such as benzophenones and 2ethylhexyl 4-methoxycinnamate, can be detected in plasma and urine of individuals who used them topically. However, most studies related to this were conducted with formulations having a high concentration of these substances, differently from the concentration found in commercially available products. In Brazil, ANVISA regulates the use and concentration of sunscreens in photoprotective formulations. Resolution 47 of 2006 lists the sunscreens that have been approved for use and their maximum concentration. Therefore, research on the systemic absorption of sunscreens must be conducted with formulations having the maximum concentration of sunscreens allowed by responsible agencies.^3,24,31
Factors involved in the systemic absorption and chronic toxicity of UV filters have been intensely debated, but it is necessary to investigate the commercially available sunscreens to assess the degree of absorption of UV filters and the consequences of this absorption.

As it stands, your most effective means of sun protection are:

• The use of non-chemical sunscreens containing zinc oxide and titanium oxide. Two products I like are Jason's, which is sold in most health food stores, and Fallene, which is sold on Amazon.com and other sites.
• If you are female, use makeup foundation containing iron oxides, which have been shown to be photoprotective on its own. Iron oxides also greatly increase the effectiveness of zinc and titanium.
• Cover creams work better than clean sunscreens
• Use protective clothing such as wide-brimmed hats, sunglasses, and gloves. The more tightly woven and darker the material, the greater the photoprotection is.

My personal recommendation is this: women should use natural, chemical-free makeup containing zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, and iron oxides for pigments. This will do an adequate job of protecting your skin when you are not in the water. However, makeup is not waterproof. For those times, use either Fallene Cotz or Jason's. Both contain zinc and titanium, but do not contain iron oxides.

Women at the beach should wear a waterproof sunscreen while in the water and reapply their sunscreen and follow it with a foundation containing iron oxides. This will afford the highest level of protection. Be sure to apply sunscreen to your neck and hands as well. In addition, wear a hat with at least a four-inch brim and a tightly-woven, long-sleeved shirt.

With proper suncare, you can look young and beautiful for decades.

Raw Milk or Not?

There is a great deal of debate within the natural living community over the advisability of consuming dairy products. Proponents of macrobiotics claim that drinking milk or eating foods made from milk violates the order of the universe. In this view, living things should consume milk from their own species and only during infancy. Humans should be breast-fed, and consumption of any and all milk products should stop with weaning. A leading macrobiotic teacher, Michio Kushi, argues that consumption of milk products is linked to higher rates of cancer, especially of the breast, and that populations that tend not to consume milk are often more intelligent than populations that do.

The Weston A. Price Foundation offers another point of view: that milk is an appropriate food for human beings as long as it is organic and unpasteurized. They argue that pasteurization destroys the naturally occuring enzymes needed to digest milk proteins, and that it is pasteurization--not milk itself-- that makes dairy consumption problematic for so many.

In many respects, their view is the opposite of macrobiotics, as it advocates consumption of meat, especially organ meats, raw milk and cheeses, and vegetables. Members of this foundation also advise against eating large amounts of grain and believe that unfermented soy products are harmful.

Before deciding to use raw dairy products, be sure to do your research. Be aware of the fact that the Centers for Disease Control warns against its use and has released a study showing that food-borne illnesses are more prevalent among people using raw milk as opposed to pasteurized milk. Raw milk may be especially dangerous for infants and young children. However, these argumenst depend on the relative cleanliness or lack thereof of the dairy from which the milk is obtained. Raw milk obtained from farmers who follow careful sanitation practices is probably safe. The key is to know where the milk is coming from.

As a starting point in your research, you may want to watch the embedded video, which is a debate on the question hosted by the Food Law Society at Harvard University.  

Food Politics

One of the unhealthy shocks about turning macrobiotic is just how expensive this diet is, even if you don't buy exotic Asian food like lotus root seeds and Japanese yams. The price of ordinary vegetables, especially if they are organic, is enough to make you head to the nearest McDonalds for food that is cheaper and that doesn't require cooking and cleaning up after.

There are two reasons for this. One is inherent in the nature of vegetables. Unlike twinkies, which have achieved culinary immortality--you could bury the things in a time capsule, dig them up a hundred years later and they would still be edible--vegetables spoil rapidly, a fact that makes them more expensive to produce, ship, and store. The second reason has its roots in U.S. farm policy. Corn, wheat, soybeans and rice are heavily subsidized, while vegetables are not. This policy not only makes corn, wheat, and soy cheaper, it reduces the cost of products made from them, like cereals made of refined grains and corn syrup as well as meat from animals who are fed a diet based on these products. This policy also means that any farmer who wants to switch from growing corn to growing carrots would pay a substantial economic penalty.

The net result of these policies is that, according to journalism professor Michael Pollan in his article "You Are What You Grow," the price of vegetables, after adjusting for inflation, has increased 40%, while the adjusted price of corn-syrup-sweetened beverages has declined 23%. This price differential, of course, goes a long way to explain why the American poor are so frequently obese and are more likely to suffer from diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. It also explains why poor people so frequently seem listless and exhausted and are labeled by the uninformed as "lazy."






Another factor is that if everyone in America started to eat the recommended five servings of vegetables per day, there would be a 24% gap between the amount of vegetables required and the amount produced in this country.

One way of altering your personal situation is to grow your own produce. I am currently experimenting with a plan to grow most of my own produce within three months. I live in South Florida, an area with poor soil derived from coral, which seems to leach the nutrients out of anything that grows, brutally hot summers, and dry winters. I also live in a townhouse, which means that I have no ownership over any land outside my house, other than a concrete patio in the back of the house and two very narrow strips of soil on either side of it.

I am constructing a frame of untreated wood that will hold enough soil to grow both greens and some root vegetables. Later, there will be a second, shallower frame for greens and herbs. The frames will be filled with organic potting soil and heat-treated cow manure for fertilizer.

Vegetables of choice will include plants that are able to survive the rather harsh Florida climate, which is hospitable to insects but not so hospitable to cultivatable crops. Foods of choice will include collard greens--which do reasonably well down here--and dandelion greens, which are blessed with the ability to survive anywhere. I have no plans to grow tomatoes, not only because nightshades are not a macrobiotic food, but also because Florida tomatoes often don't taste good and require far more pesticides to survive than tomatoes grown in California.

Another problem I am trying to solve, in addition to the economic one, is the difficulty I have, as someone who lives alone, of finishing off large bags of produce--often, the only sizes available where I live--before they go bad. In order to finish off a bag of collards, for example, I would have to eat them at three meals per day for three or four days at a time, something I really don't want to do. With a garden, I can go outside, pluck a few leaves and have just enough. It will also be easier to vary the greens between collards, dandelions, turnip greens, and mustard greens, which will lead to more dietary variety.

Any vegetables that I can't consume personally will either be sold at local green markets or donated to local food banks. I am acquainted with a food bank run by a local church whose members understand the need poor people have for fresh produce and who started an experimental garden that, unfortunately, had to be stopped after financial problems forced the church to lease the land to a charter school. In this way, a garden can sow the seeds of nutritional change for the people who most desperately need it. Yet another issue is that, with food prices expected to rise, home gardens offer an economic buffer against inflation in food prices.

I encourage you to begin growing at least some of your vegetables. Even if you have only a window, buy some clay pots--small ones cost fifty-two cents at Home Depot and plant some parsley, chives or sage. Dandelion greens do well in slightly larger pots, as do green onions. If nothing else, buy some jars and some cheesecloth and produce some dandelion and broccoli sprouts. The health benefits are enormous, the time requirement is small, and you will save money while adding nutritious foods to your diet.

More on Electromagnetic Fields and Alzheimer's Disease

Macrobiotics, as a system rooted in traditional Chinese medicine, emphasizes energy rather than biochemistry as a way of understanding health and disease. The downside to this is that this point of view often makes macrobiotics seem silly and non-sensical to people unfamiliar with this way of thinking. The positive side of this is that macrobiotics has often been ahead of its time when addressing issues concerning electromagnetic pollution. Macrobiotic instructors have been warning about the risks of electromagnetic fields for decades by, for example, urging people to cook with gas rather than electricity and counseling cancer patients to avoid television viewing and choose recreation that brings them in contact with nature.

In the last few years, modern science has started to catch up to what these "unscientific" macrobiotic teachers have been saying. Here is a link to research on the  connection between magnetic fields and Alzheimer's disease.

The research may be summarized as follows: while low levels of magnetic field exposure seem to have little impact on the development of this condition, moderate and high levels of exposure seem to play a role in early-onset Alzheimer's disease. This may possibly explain the link between this illness and work as a manual laborer, since many such workers are exposed to high magnetic fields because of machines in factories, for example.