[omotosando]

I am entirely new to macrobiotics - have been trying to follow a macrobiotic diet for about six weeks. I have limited time for cooking, but try to do the best I can and am lucky to have a macrobiotic restaurant not too far away where I have been dining a couple times a week and then taking some food to go for the next day.

The chief advantage for me since starting a macrobiotic diet is that it seems to be helping me conquer a lifelong binge eating problem (when I would get stressed, I would binge on foods containing a sugar/flour combo). So long as I eat macrobiotically, I have not had any urge to binge. This feels like a miracle to me given my longstanding problem.

What is not so wonderful is that I feel my mental focus has declined since I have started eating macrobiotically. Instead of being able to focus on the task at hand, my mind just wanders and I basically feel relaxed, but unmotivated. Several years ago, I tried the supplement 5-HTTP and the same thing happened - 5-HTTP makes more brain serotonin; I am wondering if all the grains I am eating are making too much brain serotonin and if I need to eat more protein for my particular constitution? As an experiment, I made myself two eggs for dinner this evening and I do think I felt more focused afterwards.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I also have two other questions.

Kuikicha tea - I love green tea, but I cannot stand the taste of brown kuikicha tea. To me, the taste is somewhat reminiscent of coffee (I think it is the roasted robustness of it), and I hate coffee. I recently bought some green kuikicha tea from Japan and I liked it much better than the standard macrobiotic tea. Is it okay to drink green kuickicha tea, or would I be better off sticking to water?

Pressure cooking rice -- I have been trying to pressure cook brown rice in my Kuhn Rikon pressure cooker. It is supposed to be a top of the line pressure cooker, but each time I have tried, I have ended up with gummy inedible rice, which I have had to throw away. Sometimes it is overcooked and sometimes undercooked, but it is always gummy and inedible. I have several macrobiotic cookbooks and I have followed the directions (each of the cookbooks seems to slightly vary the process), but always the same result. Interestly, the pressure cooker itself says to cook brown rice for 20-25 minutes after bringing it up to pressure, as opposed to the 50 minutes or so called for by my macrobiotic cookbooks. I am wondering if I would be better served following the directions on the pressure cooker than the recipes in my cookbooks.

Rice Cooker-- Since I can't seem to make edible brown rice, I don't eat it unless I get it at the macrobiotic restaurant. I know that macrobiotics frowns on rice cookers, but I am thinking about giving up and getting one on the theory that it is better to eat rice cooker brown rice than no brown rice at all.

Thanks for any guidance and insight on these issues.