Macrobiotic expensive

Is macrobiotic diet expensive

How much does it cost to eat macrobiotic diet, do you pay more for your macrobiotic foods than for the regular, is macrobiotic only for rich people?

At first, please excuse my poor English, that's not my native language, but I am still trying even with such hard themes like macrobiotic. But I think I have something to say here.. actually any comments and tips about my bad spelling and grammar are very welcomed, so I can learn.

The macrobiotic diet is viewed by many people as expensive form of eating. They see all the pricey products in the organic shops and think that it's only for the lucky ones, with high salaries. . Maybe also the celebrities, like Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sting that are known for eating macrobioticaly, add to this image that you need a lot of money to be on the macrobiotic diet. It's well known fact, that you pay more for the real organic quality products, like vegetables, fruits, etc. As sad as it is, we have to accept that fact and not be tempted to exchange our real health for the money, by the means of paying less for the worse quality products. This is my first point to this thing.
But the most important thing I want to share here is, that the whole concept of macrobiotic diet being very expensive, is totally wrong. It's far from truth and is shared only by the people that don't eat macrobiotic at all, or that have very little experiences. This is spread by the people that only think about eating macrobiotic, but never started. They find negative aspects of this diet and if they can't find any, they come with the "high cost" theory. I always suggest them, to try this wonderful diet for at least one month and then they will see if it's really true. I am also willing to pay them for whatever they spend over their monthly limit. I am ok with offering something like this, because I am eating 4 years macrobioticaly and since my start I save 10-50% of my monthly food expanses, when I compare them to my previous bills (when eating non-macrobiotic food) and when I compare them with friends that are on the typical US diet.
There's simple reason for this. The most costly macrobiotic foods are the ones, that are used very sparingly or that are used daily, but with a very small amounts. The most expensive macrobiotic foods are: seaweeds (wakame, kombu, hiziki, arama), miso (barley, rice, hatcho), malts and syrups (barley, rice, corn, maple), protein rich products (tofu, tempeh, natto, seitan), tahini (sesame paste), high quality cold pressed oils (sesame, sunflower, olive), organic vegetables and fruits.
I am talking about food costs here only. I don't mention the initial investment into the cooking ware like pressure cooker, good knife, possibly good quality cooking pots (preferably ceramic ones), suribachi. You can omit many of the cooking ware and be content with the simple pressure cooker (you can also omit this one for the first month and test the macrobiotic diet with a simple pots).

For the expensive foods I mentioned above, I will add few comments to each. As I said, they are used very sparingly or in a tiny amounts.

Miso - you don't need to buy than more type of miso for the start. The optimal daily amount of miso per person is 1 teaspoon. So you can imagine how long does 1 miso jar will last. For me it's about 1-2 months.

Seaweeds - again, you don't need many of them for the start. You can start simply with wakame for example. And they will cover your minerals, trace elements nicely when cooked in the miso soup. 1 Wakame packet will last me for 3-6 months. You can buy Kombu as the second, that is used for grain cooking and especially for the cooking of beans.

Malts - suggested ideal amount of malts per person per day is 1-2 teaspoons. Again, you can gues how long 1 jar of malt will last you. I am ok with 1 jar of barley malt every 7-14 days.

Soya products - if you want to be cheap, you can cover your protein body needs with a simply pressure cooked beans, which are also very delicious and are even more recommended than the processed foods like tofu, tempeh, natto, seitan. You can also prepare seitan at home, it's quite easy. And because in macrobiotic diet, proteins are covered by 10-20% of the whole food plate, you will eat a small piece of these products in the end.

Tahini - not used very often, I am using 1-2 teaspoons 3 times a week.

Cold pressed oils - recommended amount is 1-2 tablespoons per day. I recommend sesame or sunflower for the start.

Organic vegetables and fruits - if you want to really save some money, don't buy always organic veggies. But I consider this part as the investment to my better health and better life future. I don't look behind for money, when we talk about health achieved by the natural way of prevention. It's up to you. But I also started with the non-organic vegetables and my health was getting better everyday. So, don't stress it and buy organic if you feel ok with spending money for it.

My 10-50% saving factor is achieved by a simple thing. The macrobiotic diet base on the whole grains. And the grains are very nutritious for the price they cost. You will be perfectly satisfied with 500g of grains per day and I am not sure about the US prices but 1 pack of rice is very cheap in my country.

That's it. For me, the macrobiotic diet is very cheap, money saving and I can't agree with the "expensive theory" at all.

Name: Stella

Date: 2008-03-14 12:10:22

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