Deep-fried cereal and humanity

My head was hurting, my heart was pounding, my mind was reeling when I found this awful bad-information story on Yahoo! news about the latest food sensation showing up at county fairs across this land is  your land: deep fried cereal

OMGOMGOMG.

As I shared this story on my FB page, I couldn't quit feeling overwhelmed, duped and mistrustful of planet Earth and the entirety of humanity.

Despite everything we know about obesity, diabetes and food addiction, we are still INVENTING NEW CONCOCTIONS made of sugar, fat, flour and deep-frying, which might as well be arsenic laced with DDT. What.is.up.with.this?

I was so upset that I thought to start a new FB page entitled "What's Wrong With America Today."
I even typed in the words and sat looking at them.

And then I saw a post scroll by on the news feed: Twenty-one pictures that will restore your faith in humanity.

It was posted by a young woman named Emily who lives around the corner from me.  I see her outside sometimes. She always waves. Despite the wheelchair she is in because of cerebral palsy, I see her about town in other places, sometimes with the dog she just got who is a lead dog for people in wheelchairs: She even came to my most recent photo exhibit. She also just shaved her head in support of children's cancer research.

I switched screens to see that link she posted.

And I found myself moving from the heat and anger of that awful bad-information story to joy, compassion and utter humility at the depth of humanity. I cried four times, not in despair, but with joy, looking at these pictures that so touched my friend, Emily, a woman who has had more than her fine share of suffering.

There's a lot of icky ugly stuff in this world and this ridiculous flap with Chic-Fil-A is some of it. The whole thing -- all of it -- makes me sick to my stomach.

But there is also so much joy in this world.

Like seeing Emily with her new dog.

And the face of Abby Greer in Kent, Oh, last night when TimeBank gave back to HER.

Like the macrobiotic dish Abby spent hours collecting ingredients for, then making for me, for last night's potluck.

And the community-- including the Mama carp herself --  that rallied around me when I had to make this really scary, really daunting macrobiotic fish stew -- head, tail, guts and all - last week to help strengthen my blood.

Like the fact that I get to go to the Farmer's Market to buy Thrive sushi this morning.

And the six-week yoga program I committed to taking under the tutelage of my friend Cheril Walker starting in a couple of weeks.

Like that stunning split by Gabby Douglas in the USA gymnast competition this past week

And the fact that Aug. 15 is the 25th wedding anniversary of one of the most heroic married couples on the face of this planet

Like the fact that all three products of that marriage are in town today.

And that the sun has risen yet again on another day in my life.

Aren't these the feelings I want to spend my time concentrating on? Aren't these the things I want to spread around in my world? Why, yes, muse, I believe they are!

Will I never rant again? Doubtful. But is finding and sharing rants really the way I want to spend my time?

Nah, nope, not.

I am looking today, Aug. 4, 2012, to see what's right with this world in which we live.

Stay tuned. Better yet, join me?

Going Macro: A very quick primer

People have been asking me about macro and how I do it, and how I manage the time it takes and what are the basics. And so here is a very short primer that I hope won't overwhelm.

The essence of macro is balance -- balance in the way you cook your foods, in the taste of the food and in the very foods themselves -- which can take a lifetime to embrace, understand and practice

Meanwhile, the physical picture of macro, if you will, is the makeup of the plate, and how we respond to it:

1. Half the plate is whole grains sprinkled with mineral-rich sesame seeds, the other half is two or three veggie dishes and half a cup of beans -- all flavored with sea vegetables, really good sea salt and soy, all three full of minerals and vitamins.

This was my husband's favorite meal, and mine, too, just last night. I think all five tastes were represented. (See No. 6 below.) This is corn chowder, so sweet and yummy, made with butternut squash, corn, onion, carrot and sweetened with a broth made by simmering the actual corn cobs, stripped of corn. You wouldn't believe the yummy broth this makes. Miso was added at the end. The grain is barley. The beans are adzuki, so full of nutrition, and cooked, again with butternut squash to sweeten and mellow. Brussells sprouts are steamed and drizzled with lemon. The other vegetable dish was so yummy, I thought I was at a gourmet restaurant. Really, this is good food, I swear. It was bok choy, leeks and green beans (from my garden!), sautéed in a half teaspoon of high=quality sesame oil and drizzled with  soy sauce. So yummy, honest, for real. I licked my plate. Not really.

2. The meal is accompanied by a soup that is flavored with fermented paste, called miso. The meal is also accompanied by a small, very small, amount of something fermented, like a small pickle or unpasteurized sauerkraut, which helps jumpstart the enzymes.

3. No sugar,  very little fat and only high-quality, very little fruit and then only seasonal, no dairy, no meat (except if you want, fish a couple of times a week), some nuts and seeds for snacks, no flour products (although high-quality is occasionally allowed), no nightshade veggies (potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, eggplants leech calcium) or tropical fruits (doesn't compute in our non-tropical bodies). No caffeine or alcohol. The idea is balance and stimulants are avoided.

4. Sounds like a lot of nos, initially, but the number of yesses far outweigh the nos, and I swear to the heavens -- honestly and for real -- you get used to it. I know i now find butternut squash and also corn on the cob to be about as sweet as anything I know.

5. Behavior around the food suggests calm. Chew slowly, partly to slow yourself around eating, but to turn the food to liquid, so that you truly are digesting the food to become part of you. Macros believe in chewing each bite 50-100 times, which means you really have to sit down, slow down, to nourish your bodies. Cook with stainless steel or cast-iron cookware. Drink spring water or filtered tap water. Macros also believe in 30 minutes outside every day, walking, moving the body, not for aerobic benefit, but because the body simply wants to move. Bring plants inside the house to get chlorophyll.  The macro diet is surely a diet, but it is also a philosophy and can be approached from a Christian or Buddhist perspective. It is also said to be very close to Tao.

6. This is very, very important to grasp, something I still can't believe is happening. I don't crave food anymore. This is because I am moving toward balance. I try to represent all five tastes on my plate: bitter, sweet, sharp, salty, sour. I also feel this balance because every single thing I put in my body, from the salt that I used to salt the food, down to the sea vegetables, is good for me. I feel like I am pouring a river of food into my body that is moving through my body, dumping all the good stuff right where it needs to be. My macrobiotic counselor told me I am in the process of recreating my blood every time I eat. It takes about four months of good macro practice to completely change all the red-blood cells in the body. Now, eventually, some people move back into eating things like ice cream here and there, or having a beer. That can be part of a macro practice, too. For now, I am avoiding.

Here's a really, really good, basic web site and also a really, really accessible book, Modern Day Macrobiotics, with lots of beautiful illustrations, to start with that mostly embraces the food part, which is the part that gets you on the way to the balance part. In the two months since I have learned to cook, quietly and calmly, taking lots of time cutting vegetables, I have learned much about myself and the world.I am sustaining myself as I am cooking. There's something meditative and whole about taking time to nourish your body in the best way possible that brings you into harmony with everything around you.

One other thing, people also ask me all the time how I find time to do all this. It does take time, there is no doubt. But you learn when to find the time and where to cut time. You also learn to love your time, cooking, tending the very essence of yourself and your being. I get up very early in the morning, before everybody else does, and do some of my cooking. When I'm being really, really smart about this, I do a lot of the day's cooking in the morning, so that most of what I do the rest of the day is warm things up. I do indeed find chopping vegetables to be meditative, and that helps. I like chopping.

Please let me know how I can help. I am no expert by any means. Even the experts aren't experts. This is why they call this a macrobiotic "practice."

With love and hope