Questionable negative health effects of alliums (onions, garlic, etc.)

[raptelan]

I've been avoiding alliums for about a year and a half, and did not reintroduce them to my diet when becoming macrobiotic. I am curious if others feel this way, or feel that this is invalid for some reason. I will share some of the reasons and information I have found for this below:

Personally, I subscribed to Ayurveda prior to Macrobiotics. Although I never got to understanding Ayurveda very much, it was what convinced me to give up meat, alliums, mushrooms, and certain other things.

According to Ayurveda, India's classic medical science, foods are grouped into three categories - sattvic, rajasic and tamasic - foods in the modes of goodness, passion and ignorance. Onions and garlic, and the other alliaceous plants are classified as rajasic and tamasic, which means that they increase passion and ignorance. Passion in this context refers to the mind not being able to easily shut out lustful or materially-driven thoughts (or in other words, letting material desires overcome your sensibilities), and ignorance means a duller, less capable mind. Meat is tamasic, and it's not hard to feel it's effects on the mind. The last couple times I ate meat after a long period of not, I felt somewhat stoned from it, and not nearly as aware of details. For a rajasic example, it is known that garlic is considered a natural aphrodisiac.

Rajasic and tamasic foods are also not used because they are detrimental to meditation and devotions. "Garlic and onions are both rajasic and tamasic, and are forbidden to yogis because they root the consciousness more firmly in the body", says well-known authority on Ayurveda, Dr.Robert E.Svoboda.

Okay, let's consider another perspective:

The Taoists realized thousands of years ago that plants of the alliaceous family were detrimental to humans in their healthy state. In his writings, one sage Tsang-Tsze described the Alliums as the "five fragrant or spicy scented vegetables" - that each have a detrimental effect on one of the following five organs - liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, and heart. Specifically, onions are harmful to the lungs, garlic to the heart, leeks to the spleen, chives to the liver and spring onions to the kidneys.

Tsang-Tsze said that these pungent vegetables contain five different kinds of enzymes which cause "reactions of repulsive breath, extra-foul odour from perspiration and bowel movements, and lead to lewd indulgences, enhance agitations, anxieties and aggressiveness," especially when eaten raw.

Similar things are described in Ayurveda. "As well as producing offensive breath and body odour, these (alliaceous) plants induce aggravation, agitation, anxiety and aggression. Thus they are harmful physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually."

Although I never really noticed it myself, my wife complains that I smell worse the times I have eaten something containing alliums. Since avoiding them as well as meat, I can happily say that I don't really have any body odor.

Okay, so, what if you don't really care about having material desires, being a bit more dull, or smelling bad?

Back in the 1980's, in his research on human brain function, Dr Robert [Bob] C. Beck, DSc. found that garlic has a detrimental effect on the brain. He found that in fact garlic is toxic to humans because its sulphone hydroxyl ions penetrate the blood-brain barrier and are poisonous to brain cells.

Dr Beck explained that as far back as the 1950s it was known that garlic reduced reaction time by two to three times when consumed by pilots taking flight tests. This is because the toxic effects of garlic desynchronize brain waves. "The flight surgeon would come around every month and remind all of us: "Don't you dare touch any garlic 72 hours before you fly one of our airplanes, because it'll double or triple your reaction time. You're three times slower than you would be if you'd [not] had a few drops of garlic."

For precisely the same reason the garlic family of plants has been widely recognized as being harmful to dogs.

Even when garlic is used as food in Chinese culture it is considered harmful to the stomach, liver and eyes, and a cause of dizziness and scattered energy when consumed in immoderate amounts.

Nor is garlic always seen as having entirely beneficial properties in Western cooking and medicine. It is widely accepted among health care professionals that, as well as killing harmful bacteria, garlic also destroys beneficial bacteria, which are essential to the proper functioning of the digestive system.

Reiki practitioners explain that garlic and onions are among the first substances to be expelled from a person’s system – along with tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical medications. This makes it apparent that alliaceous plants have a negative effect on the human body and should be avoided for health reasons.

Homeopathic medicine comes to the same conclusion when it recognizes that red onion produces a dry cough, watery eyes, sneezing, runny nose and other familiar cold-related symptoms when consumed.

[Bruce Paine]

Hi raptelan!

Happy New Year and welcome back!

Alliums or members of the onion family are transformed by cooking, and yellow onions are the easiest to consume (than white or red onions and of course garlic!

Saute' fine sliced yellow onions with vegetable oil until they become translucent (and the sulfurous odors fade away) and translucent and then add a pinch of sea salt and stir until the oil dries up, then add pure water or water with sea vegetables (like wakame) and then othe vegetables like roots (carrots, daikon, turnips, rutabaga, etc) and hardy leafy greens like broccoli or cabbage!

Saute' in a pan with a glass lid and you can see when to add the next vegetable or when to finish cooking (when water vapor collect on the lid and starts to roll down grom the center top to the outer edge the vegetable has usually been cooked long enough and either a new vegetable, pure water or seasoning can be added (and the flame turned down to simmering for a few minutes before being turned off!

My feeling is that we need to figure the climate and culture of people who have certain beliefs about their foods and approach to life!

In tropical India where Aureveda was developed it is hot and humid most of the time so there are a lot of more complicated approaches to foods and reasons to eat or not eat foods!

Imagine being a Eskimo living in an igloo where the ground is frozen almost all year long and no succulent fruits and vegetable growing outside or nearby! What foods are you going to be attracted to or eating to stay alive before the white man from thje south comes up to disturb you and interupt your life and culture. Meat, animal organs and fat!

Here in the temperate climate, it is warm for so many months and cold for so many others!

Indiana is a little different from Boston where I am living but my guess is that it snows there and for so many months you have to keep the heat turned on, wear layers of warm clothing and heavy boots etc when moving from place to place or doing outside chores!

You can't really be thinking in a tropical philosophical mentality when living in a temperate climate during the winter unless you are bipolar!

If you don't want to eat animal foods (which is what most of your neighbors are eating unless you are living on a commune or in the middle of a vegetarian community) then you must find dense and nourishing foods that will help you cope with the winter and outside activity and whole grains, beans, hearty vegetables, seeds and nut butters, sea vegetables and pickles will help considerably and cooked yellow onions will help the body to process the proteins and fats that are contained in our diet, in this region!

If you want to eat according to Ayurvedic principles (which pretty much requires that you live in a hot environment to balance all the succulent foods and spices, then turn your heat up to 80 degrees, always stay indoors to do yoga all day long and meditate, and if everyone else in this country wishes to live the same way then more oil will need to be imported from overseas to live such an extravagant lifestyle) then continue thinking and eating that way but macrobiotics is much simplier!

Yin and yang, plus eating according to the seasons.

What macrobiotic cookbooks do you own and what do you know about yin and yang so far?

There are lots of beliefs and practices in the world and if we run to or try to follow them all we won't be able to do anything because one will contradict another in one way or another!

Eating raw alliums will often strongly release substances in the body that will cause problems, release odors, etc but in a different context they are helpful.

Let's say you are stuck somewhere where meat is the only thing to eat except some garlic, onions and spices...would you rather eat the meat plain or with the raw onions, prepared galic, and spices?

Macrobiotic cooking rarely includes raw foods so onions are transformed through cooking or fermentation and on rare occasions when mixed with tahini like sesamiso spread!

If you have a chance check out all the macrobiotic cookbooks and see the varieties of cooking and contexts and find what's appropriate for you, your health, the seasons, etc but pich a lifestle, one lifestle that works best for you and stick with that for the rest of your life or until it no longer works for you and then change but don't try to follow a bunch of different lifestyles at once or you might find yourself confused and unable to decide what to do because one choice in one system conflicts with another system!

Do you understand what I am saying?

If you think macrobiotics is the dietary lifestyle that you want to follow then don't try to simultaneously follow Ayurveda diet Reiki diet, Taoist diet, or any other dietary system!

If you put each foot in a different boat you risk falling out of both and into the water!

Stick with one boat and stay with it throughout your journey and find where it leads you!

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine 's SUPERLIST of Macrobiotic Directories

I've been avoiding alliums for about a year and a half, and did not reintroduce them to my diet when becoming macrobiotic. I am curious if others feel this way, or feel that this is invalid for some reason. I will share some of the reasons and information I have found for this below:

Personally, I subscribed to Ayurveda prior to Macrobiotics. Although I never got to understanding Ayurveda very much, it was what convinced me to give up meat, alliums, mushrooms, and certain other things.

According to Ayurveda, India's classic medical science, foods are grouped into three categories - sattvic, rajasic and tamasic - foods in the modes of goodness, passion and ignorance. Onions and garlic, and the other alliaceous plants are classified as rajasic and tamasic, which means that they increase passion and ignorance. Passion in this context refers to the mind not being able to easily shut out lustful or materially-driven thoughts (or in other words, letting material desires overcome your sensibilities), and ignorance means a duller, less capable mind. Meat is tamasic, and it's not hard to feel it's effects on the mind. The last couple times I ate meat after a long period of not, I felt somewhat stoned from it, and not nearly as aware of details. For a rajasic example, it is known that garlic is considered a natural aphrodisiac.



Okay, let's consider another perspective:



Similar things are described in Ayurveda. "As well as producing offensive breath and body odour, these (alliaceous) plants induce aggravation, agitation, anxiety and aggression. Thus they are harmful physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually."

Although I never really noticed it myself, my wife complains that I smell worse the times I have eaten something containing alliums. Since avoiding them as well as meat, I can happily say that I don't really have any body odor.

Okay, so, what if you don't really care about having material desires, being a bit more dull, or smelling bad?

[raptelan]

Hi, Bruce,

Hope your holidays went well!

I was not trying to promote the ayurvedic approach, but citing it as one source of my information. And what has been encouraged here is gradual change rather than fast. I do understand what you're saying about not trying to follow a bunch of systems at once, but at the same time I'm trying not to make too radical of a change too fast without any forethought. Nothing I'm eating these days violates macrobiotic restrictions, but I do still maintain some additional restrictions that aren't mandated by the macrobiotic diet. Since avoiding alliums proved beneficial to me before discovering macrobiotics, I was not keen to just give that notion up overnight. That said, I do not eat a lot of spices and strong foods that are common in ayurvedic diets anymore, and I can definitely say, that has helped me be more comfortable in the cold. Also, only south India is tropical - but it is a very large country and the norther parts are temperate as far as I'm aware. Following an ayurvedic diet for a while helped me with some serious health issues, for which I am very thankful, and I am just trying to be cautious in stepping away from it. Anyways...

Is garlic considered macrobiotic when cooked, or only onions? I know I have seen many macrobiotic recipes that call for onion, but can't remember any that include garlic. From the reading I've done, garlic sounds like a bigger problem than onions.

The cooking process is definitely important, and I'm glad you focused on that. So what you're saying is that, when cooked properly and thoroughly, onions are a healthy part of a macrobiotic diet, but that they should not ever be eaten raw?

So it sounds like the conclusion you're getting at is that eating yellow onions, cooked well, is beneficial. What about the smaller spring onions with long green edible parts? Usually the latter is consumed raw in mainstream diets, for example chopped and mixed into a salad. What about leeks and chives?

Yes, it is cold here, and snows, and there are at least a couple months during which one needs heat and/or warm clothing to live comfortably. I recently moved here from Berkeley, California though, and that warmer climate was where I found the ayurvedic diet to be more beneficial (but I was more sensitive to cold even though it was not nearly as cold as here!). As I mentioned above, my body seems better adapted to the cold weather these days since eating macrobiotically for some time, but I'm definitely not immune to it. I was bicycling to and from work every day until late December, but lately it has been too cold for me to be able to do that - even wearing woolen mittens, my hands become too cold quickly and don't warm up very fast. So lately I've been getting a ride, although I hope to be bicycling again pretty soon now that solstice has passed and the days are growing longer slowly. If you think it's feasible to get the body even more cold-tolerant, I'm all ears! My wife also, has become a lot less bothered by the cold - it used to be a much bigger issue for her.

As for what my neighbors eat, well, most are overweight and unhealthy. I should have been a bit more clear in my last post and said what kind of meat, namely beef and chicken (and not good quality at that), rather than just meat. I have not actually tried eating fish after a long period of avoiding it - it may well have much less of a dulling effect. But most local folks eat a lot of dairy, beef, and pork, almost entirely refined foods, and disbelieve that their diet may be the cause of their health problems. People who know about my diet think I'm crazy ("there's NOTHING wrong with white sugar!"), not eating healthy ("you need more protein!"), and think I'm too skinny (moderate obesity is the norm). I was probably a bit spoiled living in the bay area, because a lot of people there take diet seriously. There are many different schools of thought people subscribe to, but it's common knowledge that diet has direct impact on one's health. Here that is not so much the case. There are only a couple natural foods stores in the entire area (including a single Whole Foods), no macrobiotic places, and I have not seen any restaurants advertising organic food usage. I called around a bunch of japanese (mostly sushi) restaurants, and I was not able to find a single one that served brown rice (in Seattle as well as California, I was able to find brown rice sushi). So it's a little tough to look to the local culture for advice here.

I know that the macrobiotic lifestyle does not require one to be vegan when not on a healing diet, but I've avoided all meat including fish for a long time and don't feel that I have a need to eat fish, plus I hate handling/cooking raw meats. The last/hardest meat for me to give up though, was fish in sushi form. That leads me to another question - is fish considered macrobiotic if it's not cooked, as in sushi? I've also heard somewhere that certain sorts of fish should be avoided by macrobiotics, but I can't remember the details.

I may reintroduce onions and even fish into my diet, but I want to make sure that first I consider any benefits and implications carefully, and seek the advice of others who have an older, deeper knowledge of macrobiotics.

As always, thank you for your advice!

[Bruce Paine]

raptelan,

Onion and leeks and on special occasions garlic or shallots are used in traditional and healing macrobiotic cooking whereas scallions (green onions) and chives are more often used raw but chopped fine as a garnish for soups (such as miso soup)!

Here is what Rebecca Wood says in her The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia: A Comprehensive Resource for Healthy Eating "An A to Z of selection, preparation, and storage for more than 1,000 common and uncommon fruits, vegetables, grains, and herbs ----including how to heal with Ayurveda, Western nutrition and Chinese Medicine"
on onions:

"ONION
(Allium cepa)

Called the "rose of the roots," the onion
is actually not a root vegetable-it's a bulb,
but its sulfurous perfume is as distinctive as
the rose's. Its sulfur compound (propenethial-
s-oxide), concentrated in the base or root-
end, makes an onion hot and irritates the
eyes.

Onions grown in regions where the soil
and water are low in sulfur produce a
onion. The Vidalia onion, for example
is as sweet as a fruit-with a sugar con-
tent of 12.5 percent versus about 7 percent
sugar in a generic onion.

Health Benefits The onion is valued for
medicinal properties, which include im-
roving kidney function and lowering cho-
lesterol. The onion is an exceptionally strong
antioxident and contains numerous antican-
cer agents. It is anti-inflammatory, antibiotic,
and antiviral. Onions also help remove para-
sites and heavy metals from the system.

The onion and its relatives are prohibited in yogic
diets because they increase appetite and body
heat. Raw onions reduce kapha, and when cooked they
balance pitta and kapha. Well cooked, sweeter onions
calm vata.

Onions contain about 90 percent water and
are low in calories.
They have vitamins A, B-complex, and C.

Use Most people add onions to any conceivable
cooked savory dish and some people
have them raw in salads and on sandwiches.
But one question to consider is the type of
onion. Are the new sweet varieties inter-
changeable with the standard yellow? Not
according to Madeline Kamman, author of
The New Making of a Cook, who states that
the sweeter onions "will taint anything with
their sugars." I agree. Just because a food is
sweet doesn't make it better' Kamman says
"only the mean 'crying' yellow onion should
be used to flavor cooked dishes of European
origin; the red onion should go mostly in sal-
ads or compotes. . . . Cook several types of
onions separately in a bit of oil or butter and
establish which corresponds best to your
own personal taste."

Buying Select firm onions that have a pa-
pery, dry skin with little or no neck and no
soot. Avoid onions that are light for their
weight or are beginning to sprout.


Cipolline Small, 1 to 1 1/2 inches in
diameter, with flattened ends and a
mild, sweet flavor. They are delicious
grilled or used on kabobs.
Globe Onion Also called yellow or
white onion depending upon skin
color. Globes, the best-keeping on-
ions, are available year-round. They
are a good all-purpose onion. Small
and medium-size globes are pungent;
larger globes tend to be sweeter. The
more expensive white onion is more
mild than the yellow onion.
Pearl Also called pickling onion,
this radish-size miniature onion af-
fords great eye appeal in fancy dishes.
You can expedite peeling by par-
boiling first.
Spanish and Bermuda Onions
Purple-red in color and sweeter and
milder tasting than the globe. These
onions are flavored in pickles and con-
diments and are excellent, grilled. With
long cooking, they turn gray in color
as they alkalinize. To maintain or even
intensify their red color, keep them in
an acid base (use lemon juice or vine-
gar). These onions are higher in mois-
ture and do not store as well as globes.
Sweet Onion Types of sweet-tast-
ing, extra-yellow onions, such as the
Vidalia, Walla Walla, Maui, Sweet Im-
perial, and the Texas Sweet, also
known as the 1015 because it is
planted on October 15, are becoming
more available. They are juicy-and
therefore don't store well-and have
a low sulfur content that makes them
ideal for salads and sandwiches.

ONION FAMILY
Unequivocally the most outstanding char-
acteristic of the onion, or Liliaceae, family is
a strong taste and sulfurous odor. The onion
and its relatives have been used by humanity
for more than six thousand years; it probably
originated in Asia Minor. Onions grow
throughout the world and are the most uni-
versally used vegetable and flavoring agent.
Although many cuisines and individuals find
the onion family indispensable, there are
some who disdain the whole clan or specific
members. Onions and garlic are the most po-
tent of this group.
See Chive; Elephant Garlic; Garlic Chive;
Leek; Onion; Ramp; Rocambole; Scallion;
Shallot."

For bicycling in the snow, I recommend hybrid tires if you are riding on various types of road surfaces, long underwear, gaiters, a face mask, muffler, and if you might get caught in a snow storm, ski goggles and a rubberized yellow pancho besides the usual front and rear l.e.d. light and helmet mirror!

Fish is yangizing and if you have gone a long time without eating it I recommend taking it slowly, ingesting very tiny amounts in the beginning either as fish oil or bonita flakes infused with kombu to eat as a broth, and then an ounce or two of cooked fish mixed with some light grains (basmati brown or long grain brown, vegetables, salad or soup, sea vegetables, pickles or other fermented vegetables, some kind of fruit based dessert, and if you imbibe, a small glass of beer or wine (I like Buckler or Clausthaler non-alcoholic beer myself for refreshment but if I'm eating a lot of fish or a more yang form of meat, I want a beer (but only if I'm not driving or riding a bicycle) or a glass of white or red wine!

I used to eat sushi without worrying if it is raw or cooked but read recently that traditionally sushi fish was cooked before making the sushi and so now I seek cooked sushi and made with whole grain rice when possible.

If eating raw sushi, I like to place a small chunk of wasabi (usually nowdays it is really green horseradish) in the center of a dish, cover it with shoyu, and dip the side of the sushi that will first touch my tongue with the wasabi and shoyu infused side of the sushi, chew as my eyes water, and swallow chasing it with a piece of pickled ginger before grabbing the next sushi and repeating the same ritual.

My feeling is that the heat from the wasabi helps to disinfect raw sushi ("Research has shown that isothiocyanates have beneficial effects such as inhibiting microbe growth. [5]") and the pickled ginger helps digestion and clean the palate (I also use wasabi and pickled ginger with cooked sushi)!

I ate macrobiotic rice balls and norimaki for many years before I had my first sushi!

About sugar (make sure that you are talking about white or refined sugar) because there are so many kinds of sugars including the natural chemicals contained in all foods that are naturally sweet!

Pure cane (refined or white) sugar is stripped of the nutrients (vitamin and minerals) that the body must contribute to the digestion process of that sweet food and usually takes the minerals from either the bones or teeth and that's why many people suffer from things like osteoporosis and tooth decay!

The same result often comes from eating refined flour and refined salt!

You find a way to quickly say that in passing and later on down the road people will approach you asking for advice in changing their diet!

The only people who need more protein are the ones struggling to stay alive fight adversaries who are bigger and stronger than they are and they could also benefit with eating more fiberous whole foods vegetale and fermented foods so that they could maintain a higher state of intelligence, health and well being than their adversaries!

People who have most regular jobs could get by on much less animal protein for their relatively less stressful jobs, and if your job is less stressful than theirs, you can eat even less animal protein than their real protein needs!.

You are a very smart,sensitive and insightful writer (and I imagine, person) and my feeling is that you just need to assimilate more information so that you can figure more of these things out for yourself!

What macrobiotic books and cookbooks do you have in your home library?

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine 's SUPERLIST of Macrobiotic Directories

Hi, Bruce,

Hope your holidays went well!

I was not trying to promote the ayurvedic approach, but citing it as one source of my information. And what has been encouraged here is gradual change rather than fast. I do understand what you're saying about not trying to follow a bunch of systems at once, but at the same time I'm trying not to make too radical of a change too fast without any forethought. Nothing I'm eating these days violates macrobiotic restrictions, but I do still maintain some additional restrictions that aren't mandated by the macrobiotic diet. Since avoiding alliums proved beneficial to me before discovering macrobiotics, I was not keen to just give that notion up overnight. That said, I do not eat a lot of spices and strong foods that are common in ayurvedic diets anymore, and I can definitely say, that has helped me be more comfortable in the cold. Also, only south India is tropical - but it is a very large country and the norther parts are temperate as far as I'm aware. Following an ayurvedic diet for a while helped me with some serious health issues, for which I am very thankful, and I am just trying to be cautious in stepping away from it. Anyways...

Is garlic considered macrobiotic when cooked, or only onions? I know I have seen many macrobiotic recipes that call for onion, but can't remember any that include garlic. From the reading I've done, garlic sounds like a bigger problem than onions.

The cooking process is definitely important, and I'm glad you focused on that. So what you're saying is that, when cooked properly and thoroughly, onions are a healthy part of a macrobiotic diet, but that they should not ever be eaten raw?

So it sounds like the conclusion you're getting at is that eating yellow onions, cooked well, is beneficial. What about the smaller spring onions with long green edible parts? Usually the latter is consumed raw in mainstream diets, for example chopped and mixed into a salad. What about leeks and chives?

Yes, it is cold here, and snows, and there are at least a couple months during which one needs heat and/or warm clothing to live comfortably. I recently moved here from Berkeley, California though, and that warmer climate was where I found the ayurvedic diet to be more beneficial (but I was more sensitive to cold even though it was not nearly as cold as here!). As I mentioned above, my body seems better adapted to the cold weather these days since eating macrobiotically for some time, but I'm definitely not immune to it. I was bicycling to and from work every day until late December, but lately it has been too cold for me to be able to do that - even wearing woolen mittens, my hands become too cold quickly and don't warm up very fast. So lately I've been getting a ride, although I hope to be bicycling again pretty soon now that solstice has passed and the days are growing longer slowly. If you think it's feasible to get the body even more cold-tolerant, I'm all ears! My wife also, has become a lot less bothered by the cold - it used to be a much bigger issue for her.

As for what my neighbors eat, well, most are overweight and unhealthy. I should have been a bit more clear in my last post and said what kind of meat, namely beef and chicken (and not good quality at that), rather than just meat. I have not actually tried eating fish after a long period of avoiding it - it may well have much less of a dulling effect. But most local folks eat a lot of dairy, beef, and pork, almost entirely refined foods, and disbelieve that their diet may be the cause of their health problems. People who know about my diet think I'm crazy ("there's NOTHING wrong with white sugar!"), not eating healthy ("you need more protein!"), and think I'm too skinny (moderate obesity is the norm). I was probably a bit spoiled living in the bay area, because a lot of people there take diet seriously. There are many different schools of thought people subscribe to, but it's common knowledge that diet has direct impact on one's health. Here that is not so much the case. There are only a couple natural foods stores in the entire area (including a single Whole Foods), no macrobiotic places, and I have not seen any restaurants advertising organic food usage. I called around a bunch of japanese (mostly sushi) restaurants, and I was not able to find a single one that served brown rice (in Seattle as well as California, I was able to find brown rice sushi). So it's a little tough to look to the local culture for advice here.

I know that the macrobiotic lifestyle does not require one to be vegan when not on a healing diet, but I've avoided all meat including fish for a long time and don't feel that I have a need to eat fish, plus I hate handling/cooking raw meats. The last/hardest meat for me to give up though, was fish in sushi form. That leads me to another question - is fish considered macrobiotic if it's not cooked, as in sushi? I've also heard somewhere that certain sorts of fish should be avoided by macrobiotics, but I can't remember the details.

I may reintroduce onions and even fish into my diet, but I want to make sure that first I consider any benefits and implications carefully, and seek the advice of others who have an older, deeper knowledge of macrobiotics.

As always, thank you for your advice!

[raptelan]

Well, I've tried onions again a number of times since this post.

I tried both green spring onions as well as yellow onions. I tried the spring onions raw or lightly steamed. I tried cooking the heck out of the yellow onions all different ways, mixing them in with stuff... Any way I do it, my body ends up stinking as a result.

The body is the best meter to judge what the effects of foods are, and based on my own body's reactions, I think I am going to be keeping alliums out of my diet!

My gut feeling is that for certain diseases, use of onion may in fact prove helpful (you mentioned it's use in healing diets), but that it should be reserved as a potent medicine for times of need.

Not trying to tell anyone what to do, just sharing my experiences and feelings on the matter!

[Bruce Paine]

Hi again, raptelan!

Isn't this access to Cybermacro a bit weird?

I can't wait till the administrator's help returns to fix this problem!

Your experience with allums is the first I've heard of that problem in the 36 years that I've been in macrobiotics nor the twenty-five years before that!

I'm thinking that there are a number of possibilities why you are having this problem with the body stinking and one could be the sudden and rash introduction of a food that your smelling sense was not used to!

Maybe, slowly cutting back on the amount of onions to the comfort level even if that initially is no onions and then consuming tiny amounts to start out with to see is there is a negative effect!

Since we are not with you during your shopping, cooking, nor eating we have no idea what are your total food choices, how you cook your food (your recipes) nor what you are eating in your every meal so ith is hard to determine what you might be doing that could be contributing to your recent or present condition.

Have you had the opportunity to meet a local macrobiotic counselor like Linda Langlois who might be able to better help you with this problem?

My guess is that it is either the initial reaction to something that the rest of us are use to or a condition you are causing by your current macrobiotic practice and with slight altercations you can change it so that it will no longer be noticeable or a distraction to you.

Thank you, very much.

Bruce Paine 's SUPERLIST of Macrobiotic Directories

Well, I've tried onions again a number of times since this post.

I tried both green spring onions as well as yellow onions. I tried the spring onions raw or lightly steamed. I tried cooking the heck out of the yellow onions all different ways, mixing them in with stuff... Any way I do it, my body ends up stinking as a result.

The body is the best meter to judge what the effects of foods are, and based on my own body's reactions, I think I am going to be keeping alliums out of my diet!

My gut feeling is that for certain diseases, use of onion may in fact prove helpful (you mentioned it's use in healing diets), but that it should be reserved as a potent medicine for times of need.

Not trying to tell anyone what to do, just sharing my experiences and feelings on the matter!

[raptelan]

Bruce,

Simply because you haven't heard of something or observe it directly yourself does not mean it does not exist. I quoted numerous resources earlier on this thread, some dating back hundreds or thousands of years.

Furthermore, it is important to remember that everybody's body has different sensitivities and tolerances. But I do not think this is only my problem - my wife does not notice the smell herself, but if she eats something containing onions (she's been eating up the ones we bought since I stopped eating them), her skin smells awful to me too! Those who smoke regularly do not notice the smell of tobacco on themselves or other smokers, but I can easily tell if somebody has recently been out for a cigarette break. It does not matter if a smoker has 36 years of smoking experience under their belt or not.

Why do you feel a need to pressure me into eating something just because you are okay with it? Why do you call my ability to smell the way a body reacts to consuming onions a "problem"? Rather than trying to force my body to ignore the smell by more gradual introduction, etc. it should be perfectly acceptable for me to make my own choices about the things I don't wish to eat. As far as I can tell, there is no reason that I should have to eat onions simply because other macrobiotic people do.

Let us remember a great quote from George Ohsawa:

"We must reach the point where we can eat anything without fear of losing our health and happiness. We must control our lives by ourselves. If we adhere to a diet that has been devised by someone else, our lives are not our own. We must not be rigid... Without a basic principle to follow, any sort of practice is not more than superstition."

At the same time as we must reach a point where we can eat anything without fear, we must also reach a point where we can choose not to include something in our diet without fear.

One big fault I've found with a lot of macrobiotic practitioners, is that if someone on the diet falls into ill health or disease, others who don't really know anything about that person quickly blame some error in their diet. Is the macrobiotic diet so very unstable that the slightest alteration from standards based heavily on a traditional japanese diet will cause one to become ill or die? I should certainly hope not.

Another great quote worth consideration comes from this article:

To me the biggest consequence of Sattilaro’s book is the aspect of fear, fear fueled by the perception that the dietary recommendations must be implemented perfectly or else disease will not be healed. The emphasis is on “perfect.” Perfect means adherence to the counselor’s recommendations, as well as using only organic foods and mostly traditional Japanese ingredients and seasonings. Perfection in cooking means precise limits on oil and salt, for example, and pressure cooking of brown rice and severely limiting protein foods. Perfect practice means fixing many recommended recipes an exact number of times per week, chewing each bite 150 or more times and many other rules. In many cases the use of leftovers was forbidden. My point is not that these examples are wrong, per se, rather that they were communicated in books and consultations as “do or die.” When a cancer patient died, often the death was dismissed with a quick assessment that he or she was not really following the diet or that he or she “didn’t follow their counselor’s recommendations.” No longer were we teaching macrobiotics as a way of life, as a way of expanding our judgment and our spiritual growth along with our physical health. Now it was macrobiotics as a medicine.

As I said before, I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do, just sharing my experiences and feelings on the matter! So please stop trying to tell me what to do - my mind is made up on this one!

[Klara]

Raptelan,

I've been thoroughly enjoying your posts and regret I haven't jumped in earlier to tell you so. Exactly for the reason that I think you are a wonderful example of truly figuring out what works for you and being strong enough to believe your own experiences. Way too many people do not have that talent to figure out what is good for themselves, so they do turn to the "experts," the teachers, the books, and do continue to pass on that general information, myself included.

Sometimes we strange humans find it hard to put ourselves into others' shoes. I remember my mother, may her memory be blessed, would always want to put a sweater on us if she felt cold, not thinking to ask if we felt cold.

I happen to be crazy over onions, love them in almost everything, always feel they add to a dish. I try to cook them for a long time, as they get sweeter with more cooking, always adding salt at the beginning to bring out the sweetness. But my father, like you, couldn't abide by onions, would always feel them, negatively, if he ate them.

My hats off to you for being able to discern what is good for you - that truly is what macrobiotics is meant to be.

I also enjoyed your quotes about fear - unfortunately, because of so much disease these days, fear seems to go hand in hand with that. Would love to read more articles on how to dispel fear and how to dispel the ideal of perfection. On other discussion groups they do encourage people to develop intuition, and to relax and be more free - but to me that's like someone saying please do not notice the pink elephant in the room. So easy to say, but not quite that easy to do. Again, for those who suffer dis-ease, it's not a luxury they often feel they can have, and so do look to authorities to find out what they "should or shouldn't" eat. And get even more confused when 1) the advice doesn't seem to work and 2) when authorities have conflicting messages.

So again, I do admire you for following your own drumbeat - and look forward to reading more posts from you.

Klara

[Klara]

As usual, I jumped in faster than I should have - and just reread some of the thread. Bruce, your info that you shared on the different kinds of onions was very edifying. I never knew why my red onions would get gray and now I understand.

And a couple other thoughts came to me. Christina and Robert Pirello were here, in Israel, and gave many classes. Both of them totally rocked the boat as far as many ideas I used to have about mb. I am no expert to know if what they say is "true" or what I've learned in the past opposite of what they shared is "true," but what it did was open my eyes once again that there are so many paths to health, as many as there are different people.

Christina used alot of garlic - before her, I hadn't cooked with garlic for years, as mb'ally it was "too yin." Christina comes from an Italian background and garlic was a huge part of the Italian diet that she loves. For myself, I can't quite tell if garlic effects me or not, so I haven't come to any conclusions just realizing there are other possibilities.

Robert suffered very serious osteoporosis (see http://www.cybermacro.com/forum/show...t=osteoporosis) and what he found was that he needed to increase oil and protein FOR HIS CONDITION!!!!)

It is good to know all the info that Bruce so geneoursly shares on the forum, and it is good to also know that there are other ways.

Klara

[alabaster17]

What an illuminating article raptelan!

I think there are some tenets of macrobiotics that are indisepensable for their utility - like the yin/yang philosophy and the idea that what we put into our body will affect us in its own way. I'm coming to realize (for myself) that the goal of macrobiotics for me is to become a scientist of life - in the food I eat and the way it affects me and in all other aspects that I put my attention to. I think this is the freedom that George Ohsawa wrote about - that when we understand the causes for the things in our lives by studying our lives, we are then able to change our destinies to whatever we wish. Wouldn't that make life just a dream?

Best wishes,
Chris

[raptelan]

A quick note to Bruce - I did not intend any hard feelings. Reading my post again now I can see how it could be taken the wrong way. Sorry if it caused any offense, and please understand I don't intend to offend, but I do feel that the opinions I shared are valid, and that we must each be free to maintain our own choices without them being called wrong, or problems.

Klara, as usual, thank you for your input. I find your writing to be very thoughtful and more careful not to step on anyone's toes, which is not something I can claim to do very well all of the time (this last post being an example of where I might have phrased things a little better). It is too easy, when we find something that works for us, or that we believe in, to push it on others, and I'm trying to get better about that in my own life. You always do a good job of sharing your perspective without claiming authoritative knowledge of what is best for someone else.

I think I mentioned it before, but I will again as it seems relevant - one of the macrobiotic books my wife picked up from the library even encouraged the use of nightshades, which is pretty atypical to the standard macrobiotic diet! I personally wrote the book off after a quick glance through it for reasons such as that, but it's interesting that there are some very different perspectives within the macrobiotic sphere.

I think knowledgeable authorities are a valuable resource worth consideration, and we should seek and consider any advice they offer. But I think that we should only take it as advice, not an absolute ultimatum, and we should always be given the respect of making our own decisions.

Here is one of my favorite quotes, which perhaps you'll enjoy:

"My own suggestion is to drop the idea of personal guidance, because anybody will try to guide you according to his mind, according to his ideas of how you should be. That's what all the teachers of the world have been doing: imposing their idea, their image on people who are searching and seeking guidance. It is one of the most dangerous games to play, because in it you are always the loser. If the teacher succeeds in imposing certain directions, certain patterns, disciplines, according to me it is not guidance; it is misguidance. Because nobody knows your unique self ― only you can know it. And you have to grow according to your nature, not according to anybody's guidance."

~ Osho

I rather like this author's perspective on things - if interested you can read more here. Yes, it is easier said than done to live without fear, but it is a goal I try to live by. If I find myself intimidated of something, assuming it does not violate my moral code to do so, I often will challenge it head-on. This has led me down many bizarre paths in life, and some of those may well have had their harmful toll on me, but, I think it was worth it. My personal reason for turning to macrobiotics is not because I am afraid of death, which is inevitable anyways, but to respect my body and mind and keep them in the best shape I can so that whatever lifespan I have is spent in the most productive manner possible. If there's something I can do to prevent it, I'd rather not spend my life incapacitated mentally or physically when I could instead be working on bettering myself and maybe helping others to some degree.

Macrobiotics has a wealth of knowledge but it does not know everything.
Science has a wealth of knowledge but it does not know everything.
Philosophy has a wealth of knowledge but it does not know everything.
Other people's experience can tell us a lot but cannot be certain about what will work for us.

I try to weigh input from any sources I trust, along with direct experience, to form my own conclusions.

Do you know what's really funny? I often find that what works best for me, often in agreement with other input, is what was simply intuitive me in earlier life. It seems to me that we are born with a certain ability to tell what is best for us, but we lose it over time, the more we ignore (or are forced to ignore by our parents) and abuse our bodies. It is not very easy in comparison to then for me to tell what my body thinks now, but I am trying hard to listen and pay attention to what it says.

[raptelan]

I think there are some tenets of macrobiotics that are indisepensable for their utility - like the yin/yang philosophy and the idea that what we put into our body will affect us in its own way. I'm coming to realize (for myself) that the goal of macrobiotics for me is to become a scientist of life - in the food I eat and the way it affects me and in all other aspects that I put my attention to. I think this is the freedom that George Ohsawa wrote about - that when we understand the causes for the things in our lives by studying our lives, we are then able to change our destinies to whatever we wish. Wouldn't that make life just a dream?

I think you're right on the money there! Of course there is more than simply what we eat. What we believe, what we push ourselves to, and so on...but yes, your life can be anything you want it to be. Another quote I rather like is as follows:

"At first, dreams seem impossible, then improbable, and eventually inevitable" ~ Christopher Reeve

This might be a little bit of a tangent, but it is common to most Indian/Asian philosophical beliefs that we reincarnate into whatever form it is we wish to be. But it's not as simple as it sounds, for what we wish is not defined by our conscious thought, but our true inner desires. So the trick to not reincarnating into a lower form, and hopefully attaining liberation from the cycle, is to figure out how to adjust those true inner desires. It is said that if we go about eating a lot of meat and acting like a pig, for instance, that we will become that next. This is not really a form of punishment, but rather, we always get what we want! And it must also be said, that we don't need to wait for the end of our lives as so many teachers misguide, but that we can start changing our existing lives right now. There are many factors that influence our innermost wants, but in order to detach them from purely material desires, we must let grudges and attachments go, be mindful of our diet, and many other things. Indeed I think our lives are but a dream, but that does not devalue it! Rather, we should realize that our choices of thought and action affect us and the things around us, and we are not just pushed along some path against our will.

I think that's also George Ohsawa's message, but it takes a different approach to the same perspective - how can we hope to be in control of our minds and bodies if we just eat anything without any thought? I think that we must look at and seriously question all aspects of our lives, not just one, in order to really be in control of it. But if we can manage that, the possibilities are limitless!