Bill Z's subsequent reply

Dear Klara,

How are you?

Thanks very much for replying to my intro, are you a moderator or just interested? Not that it really matters which one.

I mentioned going to Bangkok so the obvious assumption is that I was on holiday, in fact I have retired to Trat - a small town in Eastern Thailand down near the Cambodian border (if you have been to Thailand near Koh Chang).

My retirement is chosen isolation, I live alone and the nearest westerner is 2km away. There are few westerners, and most of these are French or German - I am originally from the UK.

There is no doubt much concern amongst Thai people about their health and diet - those that can afford such concern. There are many health-type spas around, as well as the ubiquitous Thai massage which has been a great help to me in dealing with the stress. Trat’s supermarkets are small yet they contain fruit and vegetable drinks without preservatives. Brown rice is available in the supermarkets but sadly not in the restaurants. The wholemeal bread appears to be white bread with brown dye although the health shop is now bringing in more brown bread – when I first came here she only offered me wholewheat flour.

The doctor who I saw was pleased that I associated his recommendations with macrobiotic and was pleased that I had bought a book, but a senior doctor was abrupt in saying it was not necessary to do all the yin-yang balancing - he took offence but I think it was a language issue. I needed the book because he did not give me enough information - again language, and if they had a diet sheet it would have been in Thai. The book was "The Macrobiotic Way" by Michio Kushi with Stephen Bauer.

However in many ways the details didn't matter as I knew I would have to be self-directing and at the same time I have done diets before and I know a bit about how I respond to them. For me I have to look at availability of food and ease of preparation because I already know the most important thing - the diet is helping. Now I am retired ease of preparation is less of a problem but I didn’t retire to cook!

The greatest sadness is that I (debatably) live in the country with the best food in the world, and I cannot eat it. Prepared dishes I would pay £4-5 for in the UK ($8-10) and more, I could buy for 30-40 cents in the market. In the local cafes the dishes are the same price, and if I wanted good food I could pay £3-4 for a full meal. I am working on that one as I know the cook at my restaurant and she might be able to prepare things that are good and healthy. MSG is a big problem here.
Being in Trat (among Thai speakers and writers) I think an ad in the window does not promise great things, maybe I will try. It would be interesting to find out whether this health centre diet is a standard Thai diet, in which case there might be recipes. Thailand has much local produce, all kinds of weird-looking green things, and of course all of Thailand’s wonderful fruit.

As I said I already feel better. After retiring I was losing weight and getting healthier and then it came to a stop. I didn’t know why. I have to pay a health price for 30 years of teaching stress, and if this is it then I am fortunate it is so little. I have retired early but am conscious of the actuarial statistics for teachers, many of whom give out soon after retiring. I have no doubts the diet has helped so now I need to find ways I like to eat that will keep me on the diet. The diet is not completely macrobiotic according to the doctor, meat or fish once a day. Trat is a centre for fish sales so maybe I should try more just to eat fish.
I used to drink coffee with sweet milk (a Thai variety of Carnation milk), not too much sugar otherwise, and oodles of cheese and butter when I could get it – can’t buy it in Trat. I was still in Bangkok a few days so didn’t start the diet straight away but cutting out the coffee made me feel a bit ill. The fasting lasted 10 days on my return home:-
Day one Normal new diet
Day two Apples, Apple juice and water
Day Three Orange, Orange Juice and water
Day Four to Nine Vegetables Fruit and vegetable or fruit juice
Day Ten Brown Rice one meal
After that normal new diet. I was weak a short while but overall not too ill.

When I was in Bangkok I read the food part of the macrobiotic book, and bought some stuff from a Japanese supermarket there. I especially like sauces and dressings so that is a problem as I now have to make them. Much of my previous dietary cooking was vegetarian and far too much cheese so I am having to learn how to cook again. Apart from restaurants I never ate rice but now I have a cooker to cook brown rice! People don’t use ovens (except microwaves) here (I know this because I cannot find pyrex dishes – glass ovenware for my baby oven), so many western recipes have to be amended ie look at the ingredients and combine them in a way I would like. It’s all fun eh?
I tend to join forums of interest just to see what comes out of it – same with mailing lists. Your reply was a good start so thanks again for your reply, I hope I haven’t gone on too much.

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best

Bill Z

PS If you don’t object I will add your reply and this to my blog as it helps explain the situation more.