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Hi Lisa. 11 years vegetarian should have exposed you to large variety of health food products and supplemental foods including miso, seaweeds, tempeh, whole grains, organic foods, and more ecologic/economic thinking, yes? So this can be considered the transition stage to a large degree. Also the key to success in macrobiotics is to remain flexible, change gradually, and learn more about yin/yang. You will see this dialectic at work in all phases of your medical studies -- all phases of life.
I believe there are a number of old posts on this board and in theold forum section regarding the transition. Eating 1 cup of cooked whole grain and avoiding extreme foods (on yin/yang scale) that are outside the environment is your beginning point.
A little miso soup with seaweed daily in the am is a good detoxifying and blood builder. Chewing well before swallowing and excercising daily are also essential to the practice of macrobiotics. It is not just food, but attitude toward life/self/others.
The fish you eat need not be excesive in amount -- only once or twice weekly. Sometimes you can use fish flakes (bonito) or small fish in soups. I think people making transition to macro shuld eat more soups in general because it is easy to extract nutrients from eating this form of food. Grains, beans can be added to soups and easy to transport and heat up. You really need to eat some form of bean dish during the day (miso is good start because it has soy beans).
A wide variety of veggies -- cooked, raw, on sandwich, soup, ijuices, is important now too. Later you can make refinements to properly preparing veggies yin/yang style, that is when you decide to take macrobiotic cooking classes from a long-time practitioner. Ask at your health food store if they anyone into macro near you. Maybe put up a flyer to find a cook.
If you need more specifics please write back. There is a book on Making the Transition to Macrobiotics that you should purchase from the George Ohsawa Macrobiotic Foundation. If you need the 800 number let me know (it is in a past message to the other Lisa who is a newbie to macro). Let me know if you need more help. Good luck with mediccal school.
In peace, Roy
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