What are probiotic foods?

(Pre + bios = promote life)

Probiotic foods are those containing living microorganisms (probiotics) which, when consumed in sufficient quantities, can prove to be beneficial to our health as they help maintain good bacterial balance in the gastrointestinal tract.

The most common types of probiotic bacteria are Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria.
Their beneficial benefits to our health are:

• Prevention and better treatment of gastrointestinal diseases
  (inflammatory bowel disease-IBD, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, diarrhea, gastroenteritis, colitis, ulcers, infections, constipation).
• Enhancement of the immune system (allergies, urogenital infections, low immunity, inflammation, food poisoning, after antibiotics’ use).
• Improvement of intestinal function (digestion, absorption of nutrients).
• Improving many parameters (cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, atopic diseases, oral health, etc.).
• Better metabolism (absorption of trace elements, vitamin production, lipid metabolism and so on).
• Anti-cancer action.
• Dealing with lactose intolerance.

How they work

Probiotic bacteria that make up our intestinal flora are responsible for the fermentation of various substances from our food or stomach fluids, producing beneficial byproducts for the body, in contrast to the non-beneficial bacteria which are toxin producing.

Why to consume probiotic foods

The beneficial bacteria contained in the fermented foods, have multiple benefits for our organism:

• They produce antimicrobial substances.
• They compete with pathogenic bacteria.
• They improve the immune system.
• They promote digestion and nourishment in the body.

Dosing!

That’s why it’s important to consume them at every meal.

One tablespoon of pickles or miso with every meal provides us with enough beneficial probiotic bacteria for good health. We mainly recommend plant origin probiotic foods to avoid any side effects from animal foods or if we follow a vegan diet.

Vegetal probiotic foods are:

• Pickles (without vinegar): Enhance digestion due to their lactobacteria. They are easily made with root or above ground vegetables such as: carrots, turnips, parsnips, daikon, cucumber, cauliflower, and onion and so on
• Pickled cabbage-Sauerkraut (without sugar): rich in vitamin C, A, E, lactobacilli.
• Miso (naturally fermented): a probiotic Superfood, rich in enzymes, lactobacteria, proteins, minerals, traces elements, isoflavones and so on.
• Soy sauce and Tamari (naturally fermented): contains a large number of lactobacilli, enzymes, proteins, lots of antioxidants, trace elements and so on.
• Tempeh: the Vegan opponent of meat, that beats it on nutritional basis.
• Natto: 1 million active bacteria per 10 gr of product.

The most common question someone has to deal with when changing into a Macrobiotic diet and lifestyle is “How do I adjust my daily routine?
How do I change my life to have the benefits of Macrobiotics?”

Usually, sudden changes are scaring.
That’s why we recommend some basic steps to start someone on the Macrobiotic path.

The path that makes us all to live with eagerness, health and a sense of freedom.

The true freedom that gives us the power to choose how we live and what health we are!

Proposals for Macrobiotic Changes:

1. Chewing well every mouthful of our food (30-50 times in the beginning, until the food is in the mouth is pureed), helps to digest and assimilate better our food.
2. If we follow the Macrobiotic Diet Standard (see HERE), we can be sure to have a holistic nutrition.
3. It is better to avoid overeating. We stop eating when we feel full about 70-80%.
4. Avoid Extreme (Yin-Yang) Foods. (Specifically: Sugar, salmon, tropical fruit + vegetables, dairy, eggs, meat), to avoid extreme behaviours and side effects.
5. Contact with nature and daily exercise (Yoga, tai chi, swimming, walking in the mountains or even walking in the city!) is essential to be able to “go with the flow”.
6. Let’s start our day with a warm miso soup and a happy tune to our lips! (Miso Soup because we prepare our body with the appropriate beneficial bacteria and enzymes for good digestion, and a happy song because we put our mood on a positive track).
7. We cook on natural fire or gas instead of electric-microwaves (the frequency of electricity breaks the food particles, making food more Yin and destroying its molecular structure. On the fire food becomes more delicious!)
8. For a good, restful, refreshing sleep, it is advisable to eat 3 hours before bedtime and to sleep before 11pm. 
9. Avoid contact with synthetic and/or chemicals, synthetic clothes and cosmetics. Reduce our exposure to electromagnetic radiation (mobile-cordless phones, TV, PC etc)
   to increase our union with the universal and earthly energy.
10. We understand that all phenomena come from the same Divine Source. We are grateful and thank the Universe for every new day of our lives.

 

It is possible to be vegetarian … and healthy! It’s enough to learn how to balance the foods you eat to be and stay healthy.

 

Here, Macrobiotics can be very useful.

 

Meat, poultry and fish offer a Yang counterweight for Yin foods such as sweets, pastries, dairy, soft drinks, etc. A problem is that our body cannot always process such foods unless we are very active to metabolize them normally.

 

When someone stops eating meat, he gradually discovers that he must also stop eating the Yin foods we mentioned; otherwise he will not feel well. I have seen this in people who like the idea of ​​vegetarianism and try it, but over time they get digestive problems, etc. Following a diet with many Yin foods slowly weakens the digestive tract and makes it unable to digest sufficient nutrients from vegetables, Fruit and dairy products. Weakness and loss of energy can also be the result of insufficient digestion and absorption of food.

 

A balanced vegetarian diet is possible if it is based on whole grains, seeds, legumes, seafood (for metals), and nuts and contains roots and green leafy vegetables. These foods, when properly cooked / prepared, can provide a balanced diet for a healthy, energy-filled life.

 

Many may ask why they should go through all this learning process that follows successful vegetarianism … but the benefits are many and not just limited to personal health. Being a vegetarian has a clear and positive environmental impact, it is more economical, humanistic and socially sensible, since the available sources of plant food are far more than the sources of animal feed in most areas.

 

Vegetarianism is a way of life that can solve the food crisis that occurs in many places on the planet. As waste and livestock waste and the inhumanity of animal exploitation when we can get what we need from plants is becoming more and more evident … the logic and wisdom of vegetarianism is emerging ever more clearly.

 

If this way of life interests you, but you still feel the need to eat animals for strength, you can make the transition to vegetarianism more gradually. Indeed, this may be the best way for the body of some people is accustomed to absorbing the nutrients needed by the animals and needs a smooth transition so that health is not put at risk.

 

As the land becomes more and more expensive, the cost of livestock farming will continue to increase. At some point the meat will become a kind of luxury and few will be able to have it. Then vegetarianism will not be just a choice, but it will be needed.

 

Fred Pulver

 

[Translate Vasilios Maurikius]

 

Cravings from the past

We do not need to be ashamed, but to treat them smartly!

 

“It’s in your kitchen, not in your mind!”

 

By making a dramatic change in our lives and nutrition, most people are confronted with the experience of missing some food from their old habits or having cravings for food that they did not imagine before.

 

By making better and healthier choices in place of our old desires, we can more quickly and easily “get rid of these crap and their consequences.

 

In Macrobiotic cuisine we use these materials and cooking styles, and as we become more familiar with them, the faster we will … end our past!

 

Fat for fat

 

Tofu sauce and / or Tempeh, vegetables salted with some oil, fried rice, fried noodles

 

Lime for bakery

 

Pickles, marinated (pressed salad), Seitan, pasta

 

Instead of dairy

 

Amazake, Miso as a seasoning, tofu cheese with Miso, fried Tempe, tofu as a base in sauces and sauces, nuts / seeds, tempura (deep frying),sauce with Miso-onion, seasoning Natto with mustard.

 

Instead of meat / poultry

 

Tempeh fried with onion, in sandwich

Vegetable or cereal burgers (millet-rice), e.g. Rice with beans

Sitting with salted vegetables, Seitan fried with pasta and tomato sauce, Seitan in Kimpira

Tofu, fried, salted or in the oven

(For those who are not ready to leave the animal ingredients) Boiled (or steaming) white-squeezed fish with ginger, onions and grated daikon (long-cut) and vegetables.

 

Healthier proteins

 

Soups of Legumes, Tempe, Seitan, Natto, Soup with Miso / Tamari

 

Healthy sweets without sugar

 

Vegetable butter (onion / pumpkin), chestnut cream, apple / pear juice, Amazake cream, cooked or baked fruit, rice cream, seasonal fruit tarts, sugar-chestnut balls.

Sweet vegetables, Nishime style, carrot soup, sweet corn.

Carrot cake, couscous cake, fruit jelly – rice cake – rice milk.

 

Other factors that help manage the crap:

 

Schedule your meal. Prepare your snacks and meals so you will not resort to ready solutions. It is also more economical!

Variety, variety, variety! Different materials, spices and cooking patterns will satisfy the palate and make it easier to feel satiety. Incorporate all tastes into your everyday life.

Relax. Sleep, meditation, yoga, resting body, mind and spirit to ask for less food for our energy needs.

Conscious choices. See how your food affects and rank it in the desired or not. Thinking only on the basis of taste, we continue the vicious circle. Nutritional change also requires mental work. By altering our eating choices, you will soon see a change in taste preferences! Choose healthier, discard unhealthy.

Watch the next Macrobiotics Basic Education cycle to learn how to use the above ingredients and how to make them to balance your diet according to your needs:

 

Macrobiotic & Vegan Cuisine for Everyone Flowidity | Series of seminars

Many times when we post news or comments about Macrobiotic cuisine on social networks and groups of people engaged in vegan diet, many people react by saying that Macrobiotic is not vegan but contains fish or other animal food.

Then there are endless discussions on information from sources that mention Macrobiotics on the Internet or elsewhere and actually say about the use of animal materials.

 

What is the reality then?

Reality is analogous to each one’s view.

 

So I quote you our point of view. The Macrobiotics of ONE Project…

 

What do we consider Macrobiotic?

 

Macrobiotics is a way of life, a system that leads to a healthy, balanced and joyful everyday life. It includes a nutritional model, daily activities, self-diagnosis and self-esteem techniques, exercise, meditation and relaxation techniques, astrological predictions and many other applications.

 

At the core of Macrobiotics is the diet, where we learn how to make tasty, nutritious and healthy meals based on raw foods such as cereals, organic-seasonal-local vegetables, pulses, and algae, natural fermentation products (Miso, soy sauce, Cranberry and cranberries). Suggests abstaining from artificially-processed foods, sugar, non-seasonal and tropical fruits and vegetables.

 

Many of the flavorings and culinary methods used are from Japan, a place with a long, rich tradition in the processing and production of foods beneficial to our health.

 

These ingredients enrich our diet with probiotic bacteria and enzymes, minerals and trace elements, vitamins, antioxidants and plant proteins, producing an enhancing, relaxing and antioxidant effect.

 

Macrobiotic nutrition has the capacity to adapt according to our needs, the place of residence, the climate, our state of health, our goals, and so on.

 

It teaches us how to understand the energy status of each food and how it is produced, and how it affects us, so that we can tailor our diet accordingly and have the results we need, considering our environment.

 

It is not based on emotional criteria for choosing our food, but rather in practical terms.

 

Thus, it is natural for a person living in a polar climate to feed on animal foods that he hunts and catches and which dominate in his area (against the lack of plant) and make him adapt to the cold climate. Respectively, someone living in a tropical climate makes it more sensible not to consume any animal feeds, since they will be unbalanced, causing him to become too warm and have a great mental worry. This does not mean that an Eskimo is less human than a Greek!

 

This is the traditional way that people feed on the planet over the centuries.

 

Furthermore, changing the way of life today also changes the nutritional data since it is not the same to eat animal foods; someone who moves, hunts, sports, has a very energetic life, with someone working in an office, walking in the center of the city, Go to gym or do yoga 2-3 times a week coke.

 

With regard to areas characterized by a temperate climate of 4 seasons, such as Greece, Macrobiotic (and ONE Project) incitement is to avoid animal food from everyday life, especially dairy, meat, eggs, poultry , Oily fish and seafood. In people who already consume such foods, we suggest replacing them with plant replacements such as Tempe, Seitan, Natto, butter / milk nuts and cereals, or if they have difficulty initially, prefer less harmful to human and global health, food, like white fish.

 

Our goal is to attract more people to vegetarianism and not to scare them – and to remove them – with descriptions and criticisms. Let’s show them that the transition to a vegetarian diet is a delightful experience for themselves, the planet, and the animals. Let’s give them the opportunity, the opportunity to change according to their degree of readiness. Just as we were given this “margin” by our teachers when we were eating animal feeds while they did not…

 

On the other hand, the Mediterranean diet is famous for its macrobiotic properties and for protecting our health from modern pathogens such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, gastrointestinal or digestive problems, because of the richness of fiber, complex carbohydrates, Vitamins and antioxidants that include its essential ingredients.

So, in the college of ONE Project, we have been experimenting for more than 6 years, following the Macrobiotics system, and creating a blend of Mediterranean and Japanese cuisine that combines the above-mentioned benefits.

 

This is what we share in our seminars and workshops. Our experience of joining our Mediterranean heritage with the long wisdom of the Far East.

 

We invite you to come and share this wonderful challenge with curiosity, open mind and heart.

 

Take part in our seminars, come to our meetings, read our articles and recipes, contact us and change your life in a natural, peaceful and joyful way.

 

Yours sincerely

 

The ONE Project team.

Part A | The nutritional evolution of the species

Part B The basis of human nutrition

Part C Cereal types and their characteristics

 

Part A | The nutritional evolution of the species

 

Food is the foundation of life … and life is the foundation of food.

This is the approach of Macrobiotics to the evolution of species. In essence, it states the interactive and bi-directional relationship of the species (plants and animals) that had their evolution over time, their adaptation to the natural environment and the climatic changes.

 

Chronology

4.5 billion years ago the Earth was covered with water and minerals. 3.5 billion years ago, some of the minerals were converted to carbohydrates, fat and protein – an organic substance. Three billion years ago the bacteria appeared in the water. Some form of high intensity energy, such as lightning and activity near the Earth’s core (volcanoes), may have been the cause of organic matter change in bacteria. These simple plants were the first form of life on Earth.

 

From these simple plants the first photosynthetic plankton developed. Part of this plant plankton became more active (Yang) to survive the cold weather (Yin). In cold weather, the most Yin of the plant species die while the most Yang survive. The living organisms that fed with Yang Plankton naturally became Yang’s more. As the plant plankton became more and more Yang, at some stage it was transformed into animal plankton. This happened on a large scale about 1.5 billion years ago. Spongies (which belong to the animal kingdom) sprang up 1 billion years ago, 500 million years later followed by shellfish, and after another 100 million years, various species of fish began to appear.

When large masses of land were created between the oceans some 300 million years ago, some species of plants were adapted and established on the land. As some fish adapted their survival in both environments, they evolved into amphibians. After about 50 million years the ferns and mosses were in abundance, the reptiles appeared, and then the insects appeared. In this period, about 200 million years ago, the climate was warm (Yang) and Yin life styles such as dinosaurs and huge ferns dominated.

 

Then the climate started to cool, about 150 million years ago, and the ferns began to decline and replace the first barefoot – plants whose seeds are exposed. Then there were animals that could feed on these seeds, birds and mammals.

More than 100 million years ago, angiosperms – plants whose grains are enriched in the ovary – made their appearance in the forefront, offering a more Yang form of animal feed. As some animals became and the more Yang began to hunt and feed on other animals, making them even more Yang. That’s how the carnivores evolved. The other, most Yin, animals fled to the trees. It was the beginning of the first mammals that fed almost exclusively fruitarian primates 75 years ago. After 25 million years, mainly due to the dilution of the vegetation, the first monkeys and monkeys appeared. These species, while continuing to feed on the trees, could also live on the ground.

The different species of herbs and herbs began to grow about 25 million years ago. Fruit-eating monkeys began eating cereals 10 million years ago. Bringing more carbohydrates into their diet, essential for the development of the brain and the nervous system. For many, that is why they managed to stand up as a natural consequence of the change in their diet. By changing their attitude, their hands were freed from the function of body support and became more skillful. This was the appearance of the homofaber, 5 million years ago, which made the first tools. About a million years ago, the fire was discovered, marking the origin of Homo sapiens, the kind of modern man we are. Fire has given people the power to transfuse food, unlocking and making their energy available.

The cultivation of the earth came a long way. Until then, the survival of the Paleolithic man was not based on his physical strength and armament, but on the tools and the power of his mind. It was the result of its nutritional support for cereals.

At the end of the glacial period, the ice collapsed and new conditions were created in the wider region. The challenge of this environmental change has exhale people to find ways to control their environment and food, so that they cannot be exposed again. She began to grow plants and has domestic animals. It was the beginning of agriculture and livestock farming. In this way it no longer needed to move seasonally, managed to stabilize their dietary supplies, creating the first settlements, at first, and then the first cities and the first major cultures.

 

Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome were based on the cultivation of cereals such as wheat, oats and millet. In India, China and Japan the crop was mainly concentrated on rice. The Incas, the Mayans and the Aztecs mainly used corn for their daily bread. In all these ancient civilizations we find mythologies that recognize cereals as divine gifts from life-giving deities.

 

All this ancient tradition has been forgotten by most, except for a few who have managed and kept it alive such as George Oshawa, which he spread through the consolidation of Macrobiotic as a way of life.

 

[Free translation from Basic Macrobiotics | By Herman Aihara | Revised edition 1998]