[Blue Dolfin]

meeso - I too came to macrobiotics with a life-threatening condition. In fact I was told in no uncertain terms by an oncologist that I would be dead in two months or less no matter what I did. I tried sticking to the straight and narrow path but I was not digesting and assimilating the food well in spite of a tremendous amount of chewing. The evidence of this was visible every morning in the commode, which appeared to contain vomit more than feces even though the food had passed entirely through my digestive tract. I also lost more than 30 lbs. in one month's time after starting MB, and I wasn't too heavy to begin with.

Knowledgeable TCM practitioners advised me to use some Chinese herbs to build my strength, and I was given moxa and acupuncture treatments (moxa only in the beginning as I was too weak for needles). Finally a very wise Western TCM doctor told me to widen my diet a bit. After doing that my healing accelerated.

Since I don't know what your life-threatening condition is and have no idea about your past habits, present condition, etc. there is no way I can give you proper suggestions. All I can do is report what worked for me and tell you that I've seen too many people try the strict form of the diet and bounce like a yo-yo from one extreme to the other putting great strain on their bodies in the process.

I am not aware of a controversy among MB counselors on this score but then again I am not in close contact with many in the community anymore. I do know there are many differing approaches and opinions. You really need to look at your counselor's track record and ask around. Feel free to send me a PM and I will pass on any info that I might have heard but I won't malign anyone unless I have firsthand knowledge or have heard from someone whom I wholly trust that their advice has damaged others.

When I say "eat widely" I mean 40% grains is plenty and 10% animal foods isn't too much. Also, don't be afraid to eat the vegetables that are often listed as "minimize" such as green beans, celery, sprouts, okra, etc. This is such a minor thing compared to stopping refined sugar and flour, dairy, red meat and all the chemical food additives. It is not gonna make or break your healing process. I would much rather see someone eating fresh vegetables of almost any variety than find that in trying to be too strict they ended up face-down on the floor in Baskin-Robbins! And, yes, I've been there, done that and got the T-shirt.

Beginners in macrobiotics generally have weak intestines and a deficiency of hydrochloric acid and no idea how to chew properly, therefore cannot absorb enough of the nutrients in wholesome food and thus get strong cravings for something their bodies are more used to. This can be compensated for to a certain extent by having an expert cook preparing your meals, but very few beginners have access to such strong cooking. Certainly their own cooking will not suffice to make a narrower diet adequate.

These cravings are nearly impossible to defeat entirely, and with a life-threatening condition you absolutely do not want to risk being unable to keep from indulging in the foods and drinks which contributed to your illness, which is what almost always happens if the diet being followed is too narrow in the beginning.

The main thing to keep in mind is you're working on a slow process of changing your blood quality. That is what heals you. If, during that process, you restrict the diet too much, discharging can become very uncomfortable and taxing to the body which is trying to heal itself. So the point is to consider whether what you are eating and drinking is or isn't going to improve or at least not worsen your blood quality. There is no way on earth that switching rice for millet or eating a baked apple or having a teaspoon or two of sesame oil is going to produce bad blood.

Let me give you an example from my counseling experience. I was helping a 57-year-old male leukemia patient. When I arrived on the scene he was too weak to walk. He was also coming straight off of a lifetime of standard American diet so there was no way he could jump right into a strict MB regimen and expect to get well. He ate and drank only what I prepared for him for nearly a month and was feeling better and better. Then he went to his doctor who checked his blood and found a normal white cell count.

To celebrate, he took me out to a restaurant and let me order his food. I ordered broiled white meat fish of some kind, a baked potato, broccoli and a tossed salad with lemon only. While I was in the restroom he ate a slice of bread with butter (real butter) thinking what I didn't know wouldn't hurt him. But the next day he was feeling very sick, had diarrhea, and told me about the butter. He said "that's the only lesson I'll ever need about dairy products."

But you see, if he had done this, say, two weeks into the diet, it would have set back his healing a lot more. Leukemia doesn't take long to heal because the blood changes so quickly.

If you are really serious about re-establishing your health, please get some help from a well-qualified practitioner of TCM. Tell me where you live and I will help you find someone in your area. I don't claim to know it all but I have outlived my death sentence by more than 30 years so far so I must have done something right, and it sure wasn't following a narrow diet in the beginning.