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More Herman (pt 2)
Pt. 2 More Herman Excerpts (to Don Matesz):
Thank you for your criticism on yin and yang usage in macrobiotics. I learned yin and yang concept from George Ohsawa in 1941. Since then I have been studying more or less by myself and trhough discussions with my students on various occasions and during lectures. My half century of life was devoted to the yin and yang concept and I am not finished yet. Upon reading your well studied critique on the use of yin and yang concept in macrobiotics, I was obliged to write this article so that I may help clarify the subject for macrobiotics and well as people who practice Traditional Chinese Medicine.
On Salt:
HA (to DM): You claim that salt and salty foods are very yin – cooling, sedating, and moistening. You are right. Salt has the character of slow burning. Therefore, it is sometimes cooling. Lead added to gasoline makes ignition slower so that the engine’s compression can go higher. This is higher octane gas. Salt makes higher octane energy. Of course, if we eat too much salt it makes us cold because salt slows heartbeat. Heart will become contracted and less expansion.
In macrobiotic terms salt is too YANG. Too much yang causes yin. Ohsawa said quantity changes quality. I advise you to read more of Ohsawa’s writings.
The same thing goes for soft wood which burns fast and makes the room warm quickly.
However hardwood which contains more sodium and especially that which is taken nearer to the ocean burns slowly so that the temperature of the room stays heated for a longer period of time.
Another example is fruit sugar and white sugar which give us quick energy but burns so quickly that people feel tired afterward. Brown rice with a little salt makes slower burning but gives long lasting energy and you don’t become tired easy.
I consulted many vegetarians who stopped salt eating in the diet and they became tired, frigid, lost sexual appetite, food appetite, and had insomnia and were prone to infection.
You wrote that “salt is the essence of water, it is extracted from water by the application of fire.” This is wrong. Salt is produced fro ocean water by dehydrating ocean water by sun heat and/or fire. Salt originally existed in mountains and the earth which desolved by rain and runoff went into the rivers and then the ocean. Scientists say that 4 billion years ago there was NO salt in the oceans, therefore it was acidic.
Our bodies contain about 50-70 % water and about 1% salt. Salt is YANG and hold s the water. If our body fluids lack salt we lose water, dehydrate and die. An example of this was the Asiatic Cholera epidemic that started in 1817 in India. It traced back and forth over the subcontinent for three years; leaving in its wake an estimated 600,000 dead. The diarrhea caused by cholera couldn’t be stopped by drinking pain water. In 1931 Dr. Thomas Latta Leith of Scotland found by injected a salty solution into a dying woman it saved her life (see Sea of Life by William D. Snively).
Salt can create high osmosis in water, and since the body fluids contain 0.85% salt this high osmosis can hold water in the body. Therefore, it the sodium in the solution that stopped the diarrhea (and dehydration) from cholera. So salt (Na or Nacl) is YANG. This sodium in the body is antagonistic/complimentary with potassium as you see from the following diagram:
K/Na in average foods 30/1
K/Na in Blood Plasma 1/30
K/Na in Red Blood Cells 30/1
K/Na in White Blood Cells 1/30
K/Na in Body Cells 30/1
(from Guyton’s Physiology and Schule’s Mineral Metabolism)
This potassium and sodium relationship is the starting point of the macrobiotic diet started by Japanese Army doctor Sagen Ishizuka
and later expanded upon by George Ohsawa, who applied yin to potassium and yang for sodium.
This list shows that Na is yang and K is yin, because blood plasma and white blood cells are part of the immune response which dehydrate and kill bacteria with their higher osmotic pressure. NaCl has the highest osmosis as Guyton stated. Thereffore salt holds water. This is the reason why Dr. Thomas Lata cured cholera with saline injections.
You wrote that sour taste makes coagulation because it is YANG. This is wrong. Sour (acid) causes milk condensation. This is not the result of yang or contraction but is the resuls of acid and alkaline combined to create the chemical equivelaent of SALT (a scientific term used when acid and alkaline combine). In other words, sour is not constrictive by itself but requires the alkaline element to make salt before it works.
What you call yin is sometimes yang by the macrobiotic concept. Cinnamin, ginger, and pepper (capsicum) are yin because they expand blood vessels and makes you feel warmer. Warmness is the result of expansion. Therefoere spices are yin even though they make you feel warm in some cases. However eating spices always makes body yin.
More later…
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