Chad,
Here is another page that suggests that potimarron is from Hokkaido.
Had Ohsawa lived an ordinary, relatively pain-free life, one could consider 73 years to be too short of a time spent among the rest of us.
Yukikazu Sakurazawa who changed his name (just try saying
Yukikazu Sakurazawa, fast, 3 times! ) to Georges Ohsawa the same year that Shoku-Yo was renamed macrobiotics (1947 [he was 54]), almost died of tuberculosis at age 18 (and heals himself using a diet of whole grain brown rice, fresh vegetables, sea salt, and oil, a year later).
Ohsawa was imprisoned by the Japanese government in 1945 following his years of anti-war activities, and forced to live on a diet of potatoes for several months, losing 80% of his eyesight and almost dying but survives on foods sent his wife, Lima, and others.
Trying to convince Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1955) in the Congo to use macrobiotics in healing his patients, Ohsawa puposely contract a previously considered fatal disease, tropical ulcers, and heals himself in 10 days.
Read
Essential Ohsawa to find out more about his life!
It was rumoured that Ohsawa was trying to develop a macrobiotic Coca Cola around the time that he passed away (there are photographs of him sharing a bottle of whiskey with motocycle gang members so it is quite possible that he like living a dangerous life).
Lima, his wife, on the other hand, lived a relatively safe life and lived past 100 years (she was given a physical in her last years and it is reported that her condition was that of a young girl!).
My perception is that Ohsawa might have been a bit arrogant at times and not that eloquent so maybe when he used the word "cure" he didn't mean it in the permanent sense.
Many of us in macrobiotics have learned to rephrase things and instead of saying that macrobiotics cures disease, we might use words like healing or alleviating conditions.
I've healed or alleviated many unsatifactory conditions in myself, using macrobiotics, so I would be hard pressed to relegate it to just a healthy lifestyle, but I must admit that a healthy lifestyle is part of it.
By the way, in the poll of what things brought us to macrobiotics, the one thing that was not included was, "Because it feels good!"
I didn't get involved in macrobiotics because I was seeking a healthy lifestyle, or because I was trying to alleveviate a condition, nor any of the reasons included.
I experimented with various foods and styles of eating over a bunch of years before I discovered that miso soup, whole grains, temperate climate vegetables, beans, etc., made me feel good and clear headed.
Thank you, very much.
Be well.
Bruce Paine