Shazzie, Klara, and friends,
Make sure the pickles are made of fermented vegetables, not ones pickled in vinegar nor with any added sweetener nor with refined sea salt.
Learn to make pickles in many macrobiotic cookbooks but a really wonderful book is
Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by
Sandor Katz.
Okay, so let's say chewing 100 times per mouthful is out of the question for you and you really want your food to be warm when you eat it...
Microwaving it is really a bad idea if you are trying to eat a healing diet!
If there is is a large enough space at work for setting up a portable stove,
butane is the way to go as it is safe to use indoors, will not set off the smoke or fire alarms, and you can cook a few or heat up many meals from a single cannister (and if you live near any city that has Chinese supermarkets, you might be able to get butane cannisters for less than a buck, each.).
If a stove at work (or in your car, if you drive) is not viable, then the thermos method might be.
Apparently the company that made the Alladin Stanley Stainless Steel thermos has split into two companies:
Alladin and
Stanley
The Alladin products are made of plastic and are microwaveable whereas the Stanley products are made of stainless steel and are not microwaveable!
Another company that makes stainless steel thermos is
Thermo Nissan.
Here are some misos for you to select from.
Regarding yin and yang, it depends on you... If you are more conceptual you might want to study yin and yang first and the intuition will kick in later or if you are more intuitive, then the yin and yang will come along when you are ready for it!
Have fun with it and good health to you!
Thank you, very much.
Bruce Paine