Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach
by John Kozinski MEA, FSMA
We can define a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach as the new 21st century version of the age old study and practice of longevity throughout the world. The term macrobiotics (Macrobios) was first used in ancient Greece to describe people who were healthy and long lived by following the laws of nature. In ancient China, macrobiotics was practiced as Yang Shen Tao and in India as Ayurveda, the science of long life.
After 40 years + of teaching an experimental 20th century macrobiotic approach brought to the west by eastern teachers, I realized the need for reeducation. This was spurred on by the deaths of long time macrobiotic teachers and others from cancer, heart disease and more after following a primarily vegan style macrobiotic diet.
Another aspect in reaching this conclusion was extensive clinical experience in my health counseling practice and my observation of poor health in long and short term students of the 20th century macrobiotic approach. 40 years of health research while teaching and counseling thousands of people brought me to the understanding that reeducation was imperative to bringing the universal macrobiotic philosophy of balance into the new century without repeating the past mistakes.
My reflections on the successes and failures I witnessed led me to develop a new Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach to diagnosis and healthcare for the 21st century. This new system is being taught on line at www.macrobiotic.com and at in person training's in different locations beginning in Chicago, Illinois in May 2016.
I coined the term Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach and created it as a system that is a current, progressive and integrative approach to health and well-being.
Vegan, Vegetarian and Natural Diets with Animal Foods
From the view of a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach the question becomes “how do we stay healthy eating vegan, vegetarian or a natural diet with good quality animal foods?” Diet has been present both in macrobiotic teachings and natural health as a black and white issue when it really is related to personal preference, desire and health needs.
A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach recognizes that certain nutrients and a specific type of calorie density is present in natural animal foods that traditional longevity cultures valued and are essential to maintaining good health. This idea has been confirmed by modern nutritional research.
A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach to diet for vegans and vegetarians emphasizes a certain type of healthy vegetarian calorie density along with the judicious use of nutritional supplements as a substitute for missing nutrients. B12, adequate amounts of complete proteins, amino acids, iron, zinc, calcium and more may be recommended according to an individual’s unique needs and diagnosis.
This is a specialized vegan and vegetarian dietary approach that I developed along with my IDx Diagnosis® evaluation of the overall condition of the individual. This method of diagnosis leading to specific treatment with food and lifestyle recommendations has helped promote self-healing and create overall good health for my clients who choose this lifestyle.
Basic practices of a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach to diet and lifestyle:
1. A dietary approach that is truly universal is based upon what people really ate in healthy cultures throughout the world and what they ate before civilization existed. The root of this understanding is based on the knowledge that cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other modern maladies did not exist in hunter gather societies or in traditional cultures living in smaller villages.
All modern diseases appeared with the beginning of cultivating and eating grains, along with the development of cities and agriculture. As people adapted to eating grains and city living improved, health became excellent as long as an adequate volume of a variety of natural foods were available. All varieties of natural foods were valued in traditional cultures. These native foods fostered high levels of health. Healthy animal foods such as fish, meats, eggs, poultry, and dairy products were an important daily part of people’s diets along with vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, seeds, natural salts, flavorings and seasonal fruits. A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach to diet does not demonize healthy foods such as grass fed meats, pastured poultry and raw grass fed dairy products. Instead these are valued as important foods for regular consumption in moderate amounts.
Multiple researchers and teachers have documented that people eating traditional diets that included animal and vegetable foods were disease free. Outdated macrobiotic books blame animal foods for all of our modern illnesses. This is not accurate. At best, an argument can be made that some of our modern sicknesses can be blamed on the over consumption of factory farmed animals that have been raised in ways that make them physically and emotionally sick while contaminated with industrial pesticides, hormones and other drugs. Traditional people that ate healthy animals were disease free.
One of the researchers who studied the value of native vegetable and animal foodstuffs was Weston Price. He was a Cleveland dentist who in the 1930’s traveled around the world on his summer vacations visiting isolated traditional peoples. Price wanted to know if people were eating a different diet than his Cleveland patients who had very poor dental health, would they have better dental health.
He picked groups that had been isolated enough so that they were eating a similar diet for a few thousand years. He traveled to Northern Canada and Alaska, Africa, the Swiss Alps, and numerous other locations. Price found incredibly good dental health among these peoples. He noticed that the condition of the teeth reflected overall health. He found entire cultures with neither tooth decay or children with misshapen dental arches and crowded teeth.
Price interviewed an American doctor living among the Eskimos and northern Indians who reported that in thirty five years of observation, he had never seen a single case of cancer among the natives eating their native foods. In every culture where people were immune to dental disease and degenerative disease, analysis of the foods showed the diets to be rich in nutrients poorly supplied in modern diets.
The Eskimos and Northern American Indians valued meat from healthy animals. Throughout the world, Price found where people had excellent dental health and were free of our modern degenerative diseases, they valued the meat of healthy animals so much that they considered these types of foods to be sacred.
Price looked for vegetarian populations throughout the world. He couldn’t find totally vegetarian cultures. In Africa, he found cultures that were more vegetarian. Their health was inferior to societies where they ate adequate animal source foods. Price wrote “It is significant that I have as yet not found a group that was building and maintaining good bodies exclusively on plant foods. A number of groups are endeavoring to do so with marked evidence of failure.” I highly recommend Weston Price’s book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
Hunter Gatherers were also known to be free of the modern diseases that we have. Early farmers got the worse of it. Researcher Mark Cohen ticks off the list of diseases and conditions evident in the skeletal and fecal remains of early farmers, but absent among hunter gatherers. The list includes malnutrition, osteomyelitis and periostitis (bone infections), intestinal parasites, yaws, syphilis, leprosy, tuberculosis, anemia, rickets in children, retarded childhood growth and short stature among adults.
Other researchers have found that when hunter gathers made it to old age (by avoiding infections and accidents) they are consistently free of cancer and heart disease.
The illnesses that appeared after grains were introduced to larger populations a little over 10,000 years ago disappeared for the most part after humans adapted themselves to eating grains. There is information accumulated that aspects of our genetics altered in cultures that have been eating grains regularly. This made it possible for most cultures to not only tolerate grain eating, but also thrive on it as long as the rest of the diet had adequate nourishment from both animal and vegetable foods. Grain eating and agriculture led to the specialization that developed cultures throughout the world for both good and bad.
Reeducation in Modern Nutrition + the Energetic Effects of Foods
2. An energetic understanding of the effects of foods can guide us in our daily choices. A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach to diet teaches the overall effect of various foods on physical and mental health, and well being. For example, all foods with carbohydrates such as grains, sweet vegetables and fruits have different degrees of energizing effects. On the other hand, animal products such as eggs, fish and meat, have varying degrees of building and strengthening effects. A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach and understanding combines the views of modern nutrition with an energetic view of food. An energetic view can aid in choosing foods that have the effects we need while avoiding or minimizing foods that have detrimental effects on health.
3. Beneficial lifestyle practices are those that help us to create balance in daily life. These include eating practices, body care methods, daily contact with nature, appropriate exercises, balancing exercises such as qigong and internal martial arts, muscle relaxing exercises, posture correcting, harmonious relationships and family life, the importance of play, practices that offer relief from isolating consumerism and economic bondage, and spiritual studies and practices.
4. In a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach and view, lifestyle practices can be understood according to their energetic effects on the body and mind. Practices can be viewed as to how they deplete the body or build energy, and relax or contract the body causing tension or release.
5. Healing strategies would include all aspects of daily life that would help to create balance as well as diet, nutritional supplements, herbs, energetic exercises and healing modalities such as acupressure bodywork, qigong exercises, and when needed, appropriate modern medical therapies. Healing strategies are seen from the view of how they correct imbalance in the body to create harmony by their overall energetic effect on health.
Physical Longevity, Mental Longevity, Emotional Longevity and Spiritual Longevity
6. Macrobiotics as a noun is defined as the way of longevity. Physical longevity arises from sustainable health. Mental longevity arises from seeking and discovering more universal or lasting truths. Emotional longevity derives from the experience of long lasting happiness. Spiritual longevity arises from our connection to something greater than ourselves that never dies.
7. Macrobiotic as an adjective has a different, but related meaning. Macrobiotic means according to the philosophy of balance and a wider view. A macrobiotic approach is applying the philosophy of balance to understanding and harmonizing any aspect of life or society. From this view, there is not a macrobiotic diet (one diet), there is a macrobiotic approach (applying the philosophy of balance) to diet and other parts of life.
8. Macrobiotic approaches are universal in that humans have been applying the philosophy of balance to various aspects of daily life since humanity first appeared in order to create harmony and balance. Greater harmony in daily life brought happiness, health, truth, wisdom and spiritual insights.
The Big M macrobiotics versus the Small m macrobiotics
9. We can further define macrobiotics as a small m macrobiotics or a big M macrobiotics. A small m macrobiotics focuses on diet with a set of rules and regulations that make one’s diet and thus life experience very limited. Big M macrobiotics is a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach that sees that macrobiotics is a system not created by one person, but something that has been practiced and studied throughout the world under many different names.
10. Broader guidelines about diet and lifestyle are useful in Big M macrobiotics. Big M macrobiotics is what I’m calling a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach. If guidelines are too narrow, no one can make it to the eventual goal of a person knowing for themselves what to eat and how to live.
11. A limited hierarchy or authority in teaching is beneficial for all learning. Someone who has studied long and hard can impart his or her knowledge. Since we have so many experts today telling us how to live, the knowledge they have has to be explained clearly. Only then can a person decide if they want to follow it. After deciding what makes sense to practice, a person’s experience and growing understanding can eventually guide them. This process of self-knowledge takes time to develop. There will always be a place for a more experienced person’s guidance.
Conclusion
Various health teachings, religions, proverbs and teachings, philosophies and religions are based upon a macrobiotic philosophy of balance. When these systems become rigid and unchanging, they violate a central premise of the philosophy of balance, change. When these systems adapt, with society and the environment, they are following the philosophy of balance. In this sense, the macrobiotic philosophy of balance has always been a part of human wisdom. It is sorely needed in today’s world.
The Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach is based upon a greater understanding of what traditional people ate and how they lived to stay healthy. Traditional wisdom can be blended with new information from science in order to make a more complete approach to health. Only then, can we adapt this combined knowledge to modern environmental and lifestyle conditions, and apply the philosophy of balance.
The goal is to create long lasting sustainable physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. The main method of this approach is educational through experience and study. In my teachings and educational approach, I employ the findings of modern science and nutrition through the lens of the philosophy of balance. Combining these two poles make it easier for modern people to grasp the sensibility of what traditional practices can be adapted to modern times and which one’s must change for the times.
A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach can encompass any aspect of life, and society under the banner of being guided by the philosophy of balance. In the 70’s, when I was first exposed to macrobiotic teachings, I was inspired by a vision that the concept of balance applied to life and society can improve people’s lives. I still believe this is true.
The difference in my understanding that has led me to the creation of a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach is that the philosophy of balance is a tool that can be applied correctly or incorrectly. If applied in a very narrow and limited way in diet or any realm of daily life, its benefits are limited and the results can be dangerous. When applied in broader way, balance and harmony can be achieved which will lead people to good health and well being.
4-28-16 original publishing date
1-25-17 update
8-14-17 update
7-4-18 update
2-5-20 update
by John Kozinski MEA, FSMA
We can define a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach as the new 21st century version of the age old study and practice of longevity throughout the world. The term macrobiotics (Macrobios) was first used in ancient Greece to describe people who were healthy and long lived by following the laws of nature. In ancient China, macrobiotics was practiced as Yang Shen Tao and in India as Ayurveda, the science of long life.
After 40 years + of teaching an experimental 20th century macrobiotic approach brought to the west by eastern teachers, I realized the need for reeducation. This was spurred on by the deaths of long time macrobiotic teachers and others from cancer, heart disease and more after following a primarily vegan style macrobiotic diet.
Another aspect in reaching this conclusion was extensive clinical experience in my health counseling practice and my observation of poor health in long and short term students of the 20th century macrobiotic approach. 40 years of health research while teaching and counseling thousands of people brought me to the understanding that reeducation was imperative to bringing the universal macrobiotic philosophy of balance into the new century without repeating the past mistakes.
My reflections on the successes and failures I witnessed led me to develop a new Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach to diagnosis and healthcare for the 21st century. This new system is being taught on line at www.macrobiotic.com and at in person training's in different locations beginning in Chicago, Illinois in May 2016.
I coined the term Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach and created it as a system that is a current, progressive and integrative approach to health and well-being.
Vegan, Vegetarian and Natural Diets with Animal Foods
From the view of a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach the question becomes “how do we stay healthy eating vegan, vegetarian or a natural diet with good quality animal foods?” Diet has been present both in macrobiotic teachings and natural health as a black and white issue when it really is related to personal preference, desire and health needs.
A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach recognizes that certain nutrients and a specific type of calorie density is present in natural animal foods that traditional longevity cultures valued and are essential to maintaining good health. This idea has been confirmed by modern nutritional research.
A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach to diet for vegans and vegetarians emphasizes a certain type of healthy vegetarian calorie density along with the judicious use of nutritional supplements as a substitute for missing nutrients. B12, adequate amounts of complete proteins, amino acids, iron, zinc, calcium and more may be recommended according to an individual’s unique needs and diagnosis.
This is a specialized vegan and vegetarian dietary approach that I developed along with my IDx Diagnosis® evaluation of the overall condition of the individual. This method of diagnosis leading to specific treatment with food and lifestyle recommendations has helped promote self-healing and create overall good health for my clients who choose this lifestyle.
Basic practices of a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach to diet and lifestyle:
1. A dietary approach that is truly universal is based upon what people really ate in healthy cultures throughout the world and what they ate before civilization existed. The root of this understanding is based on the knowledge that cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other modern maladies did not exist in hunter gather societies or in traditional cultures living in smaller villages.
All modern diseases appeared with the beginning of cultivating and eating grains, along with the development of cities and agriculture. As people adapted to eating grains and city living improved, health became excellent as long as an adequate volume of a variety of natural foods were available. All varieties of natural foods were valued in traditional cultures. These native foods fostered high levels of health. Healthy animal foods such as fish, meats, eggs, poultry, and dairy products were an important daily part of people’s diets along with vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, seeds, natural salts, flavorings and seasonal fruits. A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach to diet does not demonize healthy foods such as grass fed meats, pastured poultry and raw grass fed dairy products. Instead these are valued as important foods for regular consumption in moderate amounts.
Multiple researchers and teachers have documented that people eating traditional diets that included animal and vegetable foods were disease free. Outdated macrobiotic books blame animal foods for all of our modern illnesses. This is not accurate. At best, an argument can be made that some of our modern sicknesses can be blamed on the over consumption of factory farmed animals that have been raised in ways that make them physically and emotionally sick while contaminated with industrial pesticides, hormones and other drugs. Traditional people that ate healthy animals were disease free.
One of the researchers who studied the value of native vegetable and animal foodstuffs was Weston Price. He was a Cleveland dentist who in the 1930’s traveled around the world on his summer vacations visiting isolated traditional peoples. Price wanted to know if people were eating a different diet than his Cleveland patients who had very poor dental health, would they have better dental health.
He picked groups that had been isolated enough so that they were eating a similar diet for a few thousand years. He traveled to Northern Canada and Alaska, Africa, the Swiss Alps, and numerous other locations. Price found incredibly good dental health among these peoples. He noticed that the condition of the teeth reflected overall health. He found entire cultures with neither tooth decay or children with misshapen dental arches and crowded teeth.
Price interviewed an American doctor living among the Eskimos and northern Indians who reported that in thirty five years of observation, he had never seen a single case of cancer among the natives eating their native foods. In every culture where people were immune to dental disease and degenerative disease, analysis of the foods showed the diets to be rich in nutrients poorly supplied in modern diets.
The Eskimos and Northern American Indians valued meat from healthy animals. Throughout the world, Price found where people had excellent dental health and were free of our modern degenerative diseases, they valued the meat of healthy animals so much that they considered these types of foods to be sacred.
Price looked for vegetarian populations throughout the world. He couldn’t find totally vegetarian cultures. In Africa, he found cultures that were more vegetarian. Their health was inferior to societies where they ate adequate animal source foods. Price wrote “It is significant that I have as yet not found a group that was building and maintaining good bodies exclusively on plant foods. A number of groups are endeavoring to do so with marked evidence of failure.” I highly recommend Weston Price’s book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
Hunter Gatherers were also known to be free of the modern diseases that we have. Early farmers got the worse of it. Researcher Mark Cohen ticks off the list of diseases and conditions evident in the skeletal and fecal remains of early farmers, but absent among hunter gatherers. The list includes malnutrition, osteomyelitis and periostitis (bone infections), intestinal parasites, yaws, syphilis, leprosy, tuberculosis, anemia, rickets in children, retarded childhood growth and short stature among adults.
Other researchers have found that when hunter gathers made it to old age (by avoiding infections and accidents) they are consistently free of cancer and heart disease.
The illnesses that appeared after grains were introduced to larger populations a little over 10,000 years ago disappeared for the most part after humans adapted themselves to eating grains. There is information accumulated that aspects of our genetics altered in cultures that have been eating grains regularly. This made it possible for most cultures to not only tolerate grain eating, but also thrive on it as long as the rest of the diet had adequate nourishment from both animal and vegetable foods. Grain eating and agriculture led to the specialization that developed cultures throughout the world for both good and bad.
Reeducation in Modern Nutrition + the Energetic Effects of Foods
2. An energetic understanding of the effects of foods can guide us in our daily choices. A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach to diet teaches the overall effect of various foods on physical and mental health, and well being. For example, all foods with carbohydrates such as grains, sweet vegetables and fruits have different degrees of energizing effects. On the other hand, animal products such as eggs, fish and meat, have varying degrees of building and strengthening effects. A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach and understanding combines the views of modern nutrition with an energetic view of food. An energetic view can aid in choosing foods that have the effects we need while avoiding or minimizing foods that have detrimental effects on health.
3. Beneficial lifestyle practices are those that help us to create balance in daily life. These include eating practices, body care methods, daily contact with nature, appropriate exercises, balancing exercises such as qigong and internal martial arts, muscle relaxing exercises, posture correcting, harmonious relationships and family life, the importance of play, practices that offer relief from isolating consumerism and economic bondage, and spiritual studies and practices.
4. In a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach and view, lifestyle practices can be understood according to their energetic effects on the body and mind. Practices can be viewed as to how they deplete the body or build energy, and relax or contract the body causing tension or release.
5. Healing strategies would include all aspects of daily life that would help to create balance as well as diet, nutritional supplements, herbs, energetic exercises and healing modalities such as acupressure bodywork, qigong exercises, and when needed, appropriate modern medical therapies. Healing strategies are seen from the view of how they correct imbalance in the body to create harmony by their overall energetic effect on health.
Physical Longevity, Mental Longevity, Emotional Longevity and Spiritual Longevity
6. Macrobiotics as a noun is defined as the way of longevity. Physical longevity arises from sustainable health. Mental longevity arises from seeking and discovering more universal or lasting truths. Emotional longevity derives from the experience of long lasting happiness. Spiritual longevity arises from our connection to something greater than ourselves that never dies.
7. Macrobiotic as an adjective has a different, but related meaning. Macrobiotic means according to the philosophy of balance and a wider view. A macrobiotic approach is applying the philosophy of balance to understanding and harmonizing any aspect of life or society. From this view, there is not a macrobiotic diet (one diet), there is a macrobiotic approach (applying the philosophy of balance) to diet and other parts of life.
8. Macrobiotic approaches are universal in that humans have been applying the philosophy of balance to various aspects of daily life since humanity first appeared in order to create harmony and balance. Greater harmony in daily life brought happiness, health, truth, wisdom and spiritual insights.
The Big M macrobiotics versus the Small m macrobiotics
9. We can further define macrobiotics as a small m macrobiotics or a big M macrobiotics. A small m macrobiotics focuses on diet with a set of rules and regulations that make one’s diet and thus life experience very limited. Big M macrobiotics is a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach that sees that macrobiotics is a system not created by one person, but something that has been practiced and studied throughout the world under many different names.
10. Broader guidelines about diet and lifestyle are useful in Big M macrobiotics. Big M macrobiotics is what I’m calling a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach. If guidelines are too narrow, no one can make it to the eventual goal of a person knowing for themselves what to eat and how to live.
11. A limited hierarchy or authority in teaching is beneficial for all learning. Someone who has studied long and hard can impart his or her knowledge. Since we have so many experts today telling us how to live, the knowledge they have has to be explained clearly. Only then can a person decide if they want to follow it. After deciding what makes sense to practice, a person’s experience and growing understanding can eventually guide them. This process of self-knowledge takes time to develop. There will always be a place for a more experienced person’s guidance.
Conclusion
Various health teachings, religions, proverbs and teachings, philosophies and religions are based upon a macrobiotic philosophy of balance. When these systems become rigid and unchanging, they violate a central premise of the philosophy of balance, change. When these systems adapt, with society and the environment, they are following the philosophy of balance. In this sense, the macrobiotic philosophy of balance has always been a part of human wisdom. It is sorely needed in today’s world.
The Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach is based upon a greater understanding of what traditional people ate and how they lived to stay healthy. Traditional wisdom can be blended with new information from science in order to make a more complete approach to health. Only then, can we adapt this combined knowledge to modern environmental and lifestyle conditions, and apply the philosophy of balance.
The goal is to create long lasting sustainable physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. The main method of this approach is educational through experience and study. In my teachings and educational approach, I employ the findings of modern science and nutrition through the lens of the philosophy of balance. Combining these two poles make it easier for modern people to grasp the sensibility of what traditional practices can be adapted to modern times and which one’s must change for the times.
A Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach can encompass any aspect of life, and society under the banner of being guided by the philosophy of balance. In the 70’s, when I was first exposed to macrobiotic teachings, I was inspired by a vision that the concept of balance applied to life and society can improve people’s lives. I still believe this is true.
The difference in my understanding that has led me to the creation of a Universal Full Spectrum Macrobiotic Approach is that the philosophy of balance is a tool that can be applied correctly or incorrectly. If applied in a very narrow and limited way in diet or any realm of daily life, its benefits are limited and the results can be dangerous. When applied in broader way, balance and harmony can be achieved which will lead people to good health and well being.
4-28-16 original publishing date
1-25-17 update
8-14-17 update
7-4-18 update
2-5-20 update