Talk:Macrobiotic diet

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Contents 1 Miscellaneous 2 Nightshades, caffeine, etc. 3 "See also" for Macrobiotic lifestyle? 4 Introduction (coining of the term macrobiotics) 5 Move to macrobiotics? Merge macrobiotic lifestyle? 6 Celebrities? 7 Translate the pseudoscience. 8 Michio Kushi's current health status? 9 This article needs work 10 Macribiotics and infants

[edit] Miscellaneous

but fish are vetebrates. Glueball 00:11 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Nightshades, caffeine, etc.

What about nightshades, caffeine and pressed lettuce? The one time I had the misfortune of being hauled to a cooperative macrobiotic kitchen, there were warning labels about nightshades on the salsa bowl, since apparently some MB diets don't consume them. The lettuce was also pressed, in accordance with some MB diets, and the tea was made from stems only, apparently because of some MB caffeine issues.

It'd be cool if the article addressed some of these things, so that the unwashed beef-eating heathens like me who visit the article asking can see whatever justifications are made for these eccentricities.

-Ben

[edit] "See also" for Macrobiotic lifestyle?

Er, should I make a "See also" for Macrobiotic lifestyle? The name and concept seem similar but the origins sound quite a bit different. Are they related at all? Kent Wang 22:07, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction (coining of the term macrobiotics)

Concerning the coining of the term macrobiotics -->

C.W. Hufeland was not the first to use the term macrobiotics:

"The earliest recorded use of the term macrobiotics is found in the writing of Hippocrates, the father of Western Medicine. In his essay 'Airs, Waters, and Places,' Hippocrates introduced the word to decribe people who were healthy and long-lived.[...]Herodotus, Aristotle, Galen, and other classical writers used the term macrobiotics to describe a lifestyle, including a simple balanced diet, that promoted health and longlivity." (Stephen Blauer, in Michio Kushi (1993), The Macrobiotic Way,2nd edition,AVERY, p.xi)

blackmamba 13:05, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Hippocrates, that would be macrobios, not macrobiotics. Not sure if he "introduced the word" per se, but he is cited as the earliest recorded use. And Hufeland would have been using the term in German, i.e. "Macrobiotik". But it does seem misleading to mention Hufeland in the leading paragraph without mentioning Hippocrates or Ohsawa. --Dforest 09:18, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move to macrobiotics? Merge macrobiotic lifestyle?

I propose we move this article to macrobiotics, which is a redirect. It would be more consistent with the leading sentence, and clearly macrobiotics is more than a diet. And we should also consider merging macrobiotic lifestyle, which is basically a fork. Note the leading sentence of this article:

Macrobiotics (from the Greek "macro" (large, long) + "bios" (life)) is a lifestyle that incorporates a dietary regimen.

Comments? --Dforest 09:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Celebrities?

I was surprised to see that there isn't a listing of celebrities that did/do follow macrobiotics for a while; there had to be a few. I can recall Lennon and Ono being for it for a while (Mike Douglas show from the 70's) and surely if they did it other big names tried too? That would be an interesting thing to see, in the article--people love to see big names attached to stuff, y'know?--Tabaqui 18:12, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, John Cage even published a bunch of macrobiotic recipes in one of his books, although it isn't referred to in his article. Selfinformation 12:20, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translate the pseudoscience.

This article throws around terms that are vague and unscientific, i.e. "yin-energy foods". Instead of talking about a food as "high" or "low" energy, indicate whether that means caloric content, vitamin content, etc. Remember, neutral point of view does not mean taking pseudoscience seriously.

I disagree completely. If (ascientific) philosophical or religious theories are the main motivation for macrobiotic diets, they should be presented as such. Demanding that yin/yang terminology be translated into actual nutrituional information is a classification error: the same rule would rewrite the Kosher article from a bacteriological perspective. The article as it stands makes clear that macrobiotic dieting has its origins in philosphy, and (in the criticism section) that a nutritional analysis shows there to be no scientific or nutritional basis whatsoever for following one. -Ben 16:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Now hold on a sec. The thing is that a lot of people take Eastern philosophy as gospel, scientific and otherwise; otherwise nobody would take the concept of qi seriously. The fact is that the very name of the diet is a health claim, and it's something of a copout to analyze it any other way. Vegetarianism in general is a philosophical diet for many, especially for religious groups such as the Jains and the Hindu Brahmans, as well as ethical vegetarians in Western cultures. Macrobiotics is a bit different -- it equates philosophy with science, and it's disingenuous to claim anything else. (In any case, if macrobiotics is viewed solely from a philosophical view, it provides an unfair out to those who need to explain the death of Aveline Kushi several years short of the normal female life expectancy. But that's argument from adverse consequences.) Haikupoet 01:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

So what kind of clarification do you propose to an article that doesn't claim MB to be scientific in the normal sense of the word, and points out the nutritional consensus that MB is similar to Breatharianism? Certainly, if it weren't for NPOV, you and I could simply reclassify it as "Dangerous Nonsense", then get into a big edit war. But the fact is that a Japanese philosopher founded it as a philosophical tool, and a lot of people practice it for the same reasons. This should be presented clearly, and I believe the article does that. It's also a fact that the medical/scientific community views MB as having no health benefits whatsoever at best, and fatal consequences at worst. I think the article also presents that, though perhaps doesn't go into enough depth. Do you not think my comparison with Kashrut valid? -Ben 02:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't (Kashrut makes no specific health claims, it's simply a set of rules followed by one particular religion), although you have a point overall. What I'm saying is that if scientific claims are made (and the name Macrobiotic is a scientific claim in and of itself) then the product should be viewed according to a scientific standard. And yes, that does mean coming up with a scientific equivalence to yin and yang or whatever, but the onus of that is on those presenting the theory in the first place. I do agree that there could be more discussion of scientific criticism of the subject, but then I think that's the case about a lot of articles on Wikipedia about the paranormal and "alternative". Haikupoet 02:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... You have a point. The article does state (albeit not very explicitly) that the macrobiotic diet people lifted the term "macrobiotic" from a proto-scientific usage to apply to their own eccentric eating habits. That might be worth clarifying. Other than that, the article does state that practitioners think the diet improves their health, but that's coupled with it improving their happiness. I still find it hard to imagine anyone could read the article and come away seeing MB as anything like a nutritional recommendation. -Ben 19:53, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the basis of macrobiotics might not be "scientific", but "philosophical". However, if it is so, pseudo-scientific terms should be removed. For example, what on earth are "organically-grown whole grain cereals,..."? Are there cereals, vegetables, fruits or any other somesuch that is INORGANIC or INORGANICALLY-GROWN? Either the term "organic" should be used within its correct and scientific meaning (and accept corrections based on science), or not used at all. It is very biased to use pseudo-scientific terms to fool readers into believing a scientific base for something (and silently claiming credibility for that), and then not accepting scientific rigor as a judge of that "something". Isilanes 11:53, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

"what on earth are "organically-grown whole grain cereals,..."?" Seems pretty obvious to me. Please see Organic farming and Organic certification. --Ds13 17:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand the (incorrect and pseudoscientific) use that is made of the "organic" word, in contexts like "organic farms" or "organic food". But understanding doesn't equal aggreeing. Using "organic", to mean "natural" or to opose it to "synthetic" is misleading, at best. DDT, for example, might well be a synthetic pesticide, not to be seen near any "organic farm". However, DDT is as organic as it gets. OTOH, I don't think "organic farmers" opose to the use of common salt as edible condiment, or refuse to water their plants, however inorganic sodium chloride and hidrogen oxide might be. Carbon dioxide and oxigen are also inorganic, but vital for plants, so why the "organic" label? Its use in this article might be seen as justified by widespread use, but to some extent any encyclopedia should try to dispell ignorance, not help spread it. Isilanes 13:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, such as dispelling ignorance of the fact that a single word can have several meanings and uses. Your substantive advocacy of a prescriptive, normative stance is contrary to your above assertion. Knowledge is descriptive. What you want to do is erase or ignore a substantial portion of reality by dismissing it as "pseudoscientific." If a philosophy touts itself as a pseudoscience, then it should be portrayed as it portrays itself and then a "criticisms" section can be added, eg, to dispute specific claims such as the origin of red blood cells. However, you come across as someone who feels threatened or offended by macrobiotics, and spending a lot of energy here at that. If you're really interested in debating whether something is a "pseudoscience" there are better places to look.72.244.201.27 08:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You can confirm the myriad of correct meanings of the word organic in many places:

• Dictionary.com
• Encyclopædia Britannica
• organic (Wikipedia disambiguation page)

Cheers. --Ds13 16:46, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I bow to the accepted use of the term, however incorrect it still seems to me. The inclusion of e.g. definition 3. in Dictionary.com, is an example of commonplace (mis)use of a term leading to acceptance by "authorities". If you see the definitions in that 3rd entry, you'll realize they are vague, at the very least:

• "Of, marked by, or involving the use of fertilizers or pesticides that are strictly of animal or vegetable origin: organic vegetables; an organic farm." Water, oxigen and salt are mineral, not animal nor vegetal. Do they not use them in organic farms? Animal feces might be used as fertilizers... would a human drying these feces (say, over a bonfire) still qualify them as "natural", or "processed"? A substance ("artificially") distiled (by evil humans) from the leaves of a certain tree would still be "strictly of animal or vegetable origin"? A substance obtained by mixing two "organic" substances (say, the blood of a pig and the meat of an apple) would still qualify as "natural"? Would it be different if such a mixture was made by aunt Polly in her shack or a large-scale reactor of a multi-billion company?
• "Raised or conducted without the use of drugs, hormones, or synthetic chemicals: organic chicken; organic cattle farming." Drugs? Anything is a drug. An organic farmer can not take LSD, but can lick the back of a certain frog to hallucinate? The farmer can ingest the bark of a willow to have its salicilin cure her headache, but can not have an aspirin (chemically derived from salicilin)? Hormones? Do organic chickens not have hormones? Hormone abuse is certainly bad, but even human kids take them when they have e.g. growing problems, or women in their menopause. Most popular contraceptives are hormones, or molecules that mimick them. Synthetic chemicals? Who wrote that dictionary? Is there still anybody who thinks a synthetic sugar molecule is in any way "different" from the same "natural" sugar. Nature in itself is a huge chemical lab, as "artificial" as you can get, and more complex and error prone than many human labs. Also natural venoms kill as effectively as any artificial one, and most animal and vegetal derivatives are actually toxic. Having a walk in the forest and eating whatever you came accross is as dangerous as doing so in the center of a city.
• "Simple, healthful, and close to nature: an organic lifestyle." Yeah, right. They could as well have said "organic=good", and save space. The guy who equated "natural" and "simple", simply (not naturally) has no idea of what nature is. Healthful: as in cocaine or heroin, or alcohol, or tobacco, or mescaline, or marijuana, or poisonous fish and snakes, or toxic plants. Close to nature: as in not using a shovel to dig a hole to plant the organic vegetables, not using gloves to avoid hurting your hands, not using motor vehicles to transport your products, not using the phone to contact your buyers, or not making a call with Skype to your son, who is studying in France.

From whatever side you see it, "organic" is just a scientific word, borrowed by pseudoscientists to gain credibility, streching its meaning to what they will then label as "good". Isilanes 23:26, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

"From whatever side you see it, "organic" is just a scientific word, borrowed by pseudoscientists to gain credibility" It's not so simple. Science borrowed the word from Latin, where it meant something else again, so science changed the word to suit its own purposes. Then a later special interest group of environmentalists or food-obsessives (starting in 1942) used the word in a new way. And so it goes. We're all just borrowing words from someone before and changing them to suit our purposes.

You seem interested, so here's a bit of the etymology of "organic": 1517, "serving as an organ or instrument," from L. organicus, from Gk. organikos "of or pertaining to an organ," from organon "instrument", obviously related to the word "organ". In this light, some might see "organic chemistry" as a misleading change in meaning. Then there's the Ph.D.'s in economics who speak of "organic growth" within an organization, referring to not requiring injections of external capital, etc. All quite different, but I don't see big problem. --Ds13 01:56, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Michio Kushi's current health status?

I attempted to verify the statement that Michio Kushi is currently suffering from cancer, but it was pretty much impossible to filter out all the pro-macrobiotic material that came up in a quick google search. Does anyone have a cite for this? (Aveline Kushi's death from cervical cancer just shy of the standard life expectancy as well as Georges Ohsawa's death from a heart attack are both well documented, but I was not able to find anything on Michio Kushi's current health.) Haikupoet 00:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article needs work

Doesn't seem to be a great description of the diet. In particular the composition section doesn't make much sense. The numbers don't seem right, and how is "Soup" a category? NTK 08:41, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

In '# 2 Philosophy', coffee is given as one example of a food "extremely Yang in nature", whereas...
in '# 8 Amount of Yin and Yang in the products', coffee is listed as "Very Yin".

So which is it?

Yeah, the writing was very weak. I started cleaning up a lot of the grammar, but I didn't get all the way through it. Also, there are a lot of subject headers followed by very short entries, which makes it look choppy and incomplete. But I'm not knowledgeable in this subject, so someone else will have to flesh it out.Spudstud 17:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of weak, this sentence is a doozy: "They claim it is better to choose food that is less processed, more natural, and use more traditional methods of cooking for family, friends, and oneself." - Well, who else is someone going to cook for? The Queen of Sheba?? Sheeesshh... ElizabethR

[edit] Macribiotics and infants

Hi I would just like to add these comments:

Infants, Children and the Macrobiotic diet.

Studies on infants and children who followed their parents macrobiotic nutrition principles showed that they deviated most from the current norms when compared to other infants and children on other types of alternate nutrition.. Growth retardation was strongest in the 8-14 months of age. This related to a diet low in energy-density, fat and protein. Data also revealed very low Vitamin B12 concentrations. Iron and Vitamin D deficiency were also found in a number of the children studied. The children were also retarded in gross motor skills and language development. This was independent of socio–economic or hygiene factors. The typical diet of an infant starting solids was water based sieved porridges, followed by veges, seseme seeds, and pulses. Fruit was rarely given. To correct this it was suggested that these infants and children be given 20-25gm of oil n each day, 100-150grams of fatty fish each week and daily servings of milk be offered as a source of Calcium, protein and Vitamin B12. Source: Dagnelie, P.V., VanStaveren, W.A. & Hautvast, J.G.J.A. 1991 Stunting and Nutrition Deficiencies in Children on Alternate Diets. Acta PaediatrScand Suppl374: 111-118

Bobbi c —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bobbi campbell (talk • contribs) 09:24, 3 March 2007 (UTC).