[Rick]

Being fairly new here, I was browsing some of the earlier messages and came across one that mentioned "the increasing incidents of cancer, heart disease and now osteoporosis that is afflicting the community." Reading this struck a chord in me. With Aveline's tragic death a few years ago, and a number of other macrobiotic folk getting sick, I've been wondering what's going on. What are some of the factors involved that have led to some macrobiotic people getting osteoporosis, cancer, heart problems, etc? Has this been discussed here? Though no one ever said that macrobiotics can 'guarantee' good health, it's nevertheless been distressing to this long-time (but off and on) macrobiotic practitioner (I started in 1972) that there has been much more illness than I would expect considering what we were all being taught back then.

Perhaps it's in part that the physical and natural environment has become much more toxic than it ever has been, and in combination with the stressful lives we are all living from being in such a dog-eat-dog capitalist society it's produced a toxic condition in our (and the world's) bodies/souls/hearts/minds that no combination of diet, lifestyle and spiritual practice can really buffer or heal adequately. Back in the 1970s we always told ourselves that a macrobiotic way of life would more or less mitigate the effects of these 'external factors', but perhaps we were overly optimistic.

I've never really seen these issues discussed in a sophisticated and caring manner; I've always had the sense that we were afraid to lest it be seen as inadvertently challenging or negating all the incredible good that macrobiotics has done for so many people. But maybe it has been discussed and I just haven't seen it?