Elements of Macrobiotics

Through my long journey with mainstream, Integrative and Functional Medicines, I've applied self-taught dietary precepts with input from the doctors.  Somewhere in my vegan years I learned a lot about Macrobiotics.  A fully macrobiotic diet wasn't accessible for me for many reasons, but the yin/yang energies of foods and the spiritual parallels with our bodies' meridians did resonate.  Also, since I was raised in the Wisdom of the Edgar Cayce Readings, much of the information on food combinations in macrobiotics rang true to me.

In macrobiotics, combining all parts of a plant is considered the best way to fully integrate the nutrients and energies of it into the body.  The upward growing leaves are the yin of the plant (aspiring, expanding, upper chakras) and the roots of the plant are the yang (dense, contracting, grounding, steadying, lower chakras).  My personality tends to live in the yin, which helps my outlook, but my sometimes air-headed nature is an obvious detriment, so I could use some grounding. 

When I found the loveliest bunch of beets the other day, the idea of combining all parts of the food immediately came to mind.  It was a huge bunch, and I didn't think I'd be able to eat it all at once, so I used a couple of the beets in a roasted vegetable melange for dinner last night, including sweet potatoes, garlic, shallots and dried apricots. 

This morning, I cleaned up the leaves and stems of the beets, and fried them in duck fat, along with the cold leftovers of the garnet-tinged root veggies.  Finally, realizing I'd probably never be able to eat the whole panful at one sitting, I topped it all off with a fried egg, figuring it would be enough to have leftover-leftovers (a third meal).  Well, I did eat the whole thing at one sitting -- mindfully, slowly, over the course of 45 minutes or so.  I will say that the yang-ish shift is palpable.  I'm feeling pretty steady now and able to think.  I'd better get to work before it wears off! 

Oh -- and this was really delicious!