Global Macrobiotics
GLOBAL MACROBIOTICS SERVICES & ACTIVITIES
MACROBIOTIC EDUCATION
About the Global Macrobiotics Program
Learning Objectives
The goal of the Global Macrobiotics Program is to aquire knowledge and skills to lead a better life. The program focuses on self-development and helping you make improvements in practical aspects of daily life including food choices, menu planning, cooking and lifestyle with direct benefit on health and wellbeing.
Macrobiotics addresses health at the root cause and you will gain much understanding on the cause of sickness and what to do to prevent and naturally relieve many conditions and chronic diseases by yourself from home.
Integrating the wisdom and experiece aquired over decades of macrobiotic development and practice, the Global Macrobiotics Program offers a rare opportunity to learn unique insights about life, make improvements in your way of life, gain knowledge and useful tools for cultivating your health, realize happiness in daily life and enjoy a more meaningful life.Program Structure
The Global Macrobiotics Program proceeds in three correlated level courses each containing a different syllabus and covering new material.
Our program offer a comprehensive educational experience comprising of informative lectures and lively cooking classes complemented with textbooks and recipes. We also provide experienced guidance practical advice for helping you implement positive changes in your life and support your practice.Who should enroll
Learn more about our Level 1 course
The link below takes you to the Level 1 course description and registration page where you can find more detailed information about the course and how to enroll.
HEALTHY SUSTAINABLE WORLD FOOD CULTURE
Food nourish and sustain our lives and is a vital factor influencing health depending on our choices. Modern poor quality food and unhealthy dietary habits have resulted in an unprecedented rise in lifestyle related chronic diseases (also known as non-communicable diseases or NCDs) around the world. And weaker health along with the ongoing environmental degradation has resulted in lowered immunitity and increased propensity towards infectious diseases (also known as communicable diseases or CDs). By improving the quality of food and shifting our way of eating in a more natural balanced direction as encouraged by macrobiotics we can address the current health crisis, recover innate health and lead a happier life.
Our modern food culture including the way we produce and consume our food today is wasteful and unfair, require excessive use of land and natural resources, pollute the environment, causes deforestation, loss of plant and animal diversity and is a major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions (or GHG emissions) that contribute to global warming and climate change. In addition to personal health our food choices today can help mitigate many of the environmental and social concerns of our times and contribute to the wellbeing of future generations.
At Global Macrobiotics we think that food is essential for realizing both personal and planetary health. We regard food in a comprehensive way and play a significant role in our activities. Our dietary approach for healthy eating and realizing a planetary sustainable world food culture include the following considerations:
Macrobiotic Plant Based Diet
We promote a well-balanced plant-based diet centered around whole grains, vegetables from land and sea, beans, traditional soy products, seeds, nuts and fruits with moderate amounts of animal food for those who wish or may require. We educate and guide individuals, families and communities around the world how to implement enjoyable healthy dietary changes in balanced and sustainable way.
Whole Foods
We encourage a shift towards whole foods and those that are unrefined, minimally processed or traditionally made in order to preserve the natural vitality and nutritious quality of our food. We engage in food production and provide training for processing food at home using simple, natural ways.
Natural and Organic Foods
We encourage a shift towards natural and organic foods that are grown without artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and genetically modified organisms. Wild animals or humanly raised with proper feed and adequate natural environment without hormones and antibiotics. And natural foods that are free of synthetic substances, artificial ingredients or additives and produced using natural methods.
Local Foods
We encourage a shift towards community-oriented self-sufficiency centered on local food production and distribution. We promote a way of cooking and eating that emphasize local foods and is well adapted to the seasons, climate and other unique environmental and geographical conditions where we live.
Respect for Tradition and Heritage
We respect and restore traditional food culture developed around the world including native foods and culinary heritage. Emphasizing and reviving its healthful aspects but also revising and eliminating those that may require change or further development considering current health, enviromental and social situation. We engage in food culture exchange and when suitable integration as a way to unite people and celebrate cultural diversity.
Natural Ecological Agriculture
We encourage a shift towards a more natural and ecological way of farming and producing our food. We support the work of farmers who recover soil health, clean and protect the natural environment, produce safe foods grown without harmful substances, select and improve seed quality and align with nature to provide us with better quality foods. Our health and that of the planet significantly rely on their efforts and on our ability to support them in this endeavor. We engage in farming and promote it for healthy living, improving self-sufficiency and realize planetary sustainability.
COOKING AS A SOURCE OF HEALTH, JOY & WELLBEING
Cooking is at the center of Global Macrobiotics activities. We consider cooking an integral part of healthy living and think that simply giving dietary recommendations and providing information about food is not enough. Improving dietary habits and practices and maintaing them is more important. And for that acquiring practical skills including food selection, preparation and cooking needs to be emphasized.
Cooking is often overlooked and undervalued today but we can’t expect to make a shift in a healthier direction unless we improve the way we cook. The decline of home cooking coincides with overreliance on convenient pre-prepared foods, the spread of ultra-processed foods and the emergence of fast food, junk food and other aspects of our contemporary food culture that result in poor nutrition and consequent loss of health worldwide.
We think of cooking as an art deeply connected with nature, life, family and culture. Cooking and sharing meals together has been the core of family happiness, unity and shared values. Qualities that are now in decline and need to be restored. Through our work we want to help people develop a good relationship with food, inspire them to reconnect with the kitchen and rediscover the joy of cooking. We would also like to encourage professional chefs and those involved in the culinary arts to engage creating a healthy planetary world food culture, use good quality foods and facilitate access to balanced meals at restaurants and in public places.
HEALTHY LIVING IN HARMONY WITH NATURE
Global Macrobiotics is dedicated to cultivate healthy living and make informed lifestyle choices which can be found in our courses and learned through our activities. We also promote and help disseminate a wide range of holistic practices to develop physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing including breathing exercises, do-in self-massage and stretches, mindfulness exercises, meditation, visualization, chanting, dance, yoga, tai chi, chi kung, aikido and many others.
At Global Macrobiotics we encourage a way of life in harmony with nature based on oriental notions implying that by harmonizing with nature we can best develop ourselves, optimize health and lead a better life. We observe the changes that take place in nature and in ourselves including daily cycles, seasons, climate and other environmental and lifestyle factors and look for practical ways to create balance and harmonize with the rhythms of nature and the universe. Many dietary, cooking and lifestyle recommendations taught in our courses take into consideration this view.
Another reason for adopting a more natural way of life is to address aspects of modern living including our increasingly artificial food and lifestyles that weaken health. This include concerns related to chemical exposure, toxins, plastics, electromagnetic pollution and other contemporary issues. In addition to becoming informed and effort to reduce these negative influences our approach include implementing ways to strengthen ourselves, boost immunity, detoxify harmful substances and help neutralize radiation emitted from electric appliences through dietary and lifestyle means.
Global Macrobiotics is founded on a spirit of respect and appreciation towards nature. We realize that nature is the source of our lives and sustains us everyday. We engage in education to raise awareness about a wide range of environmental issues that undermine health and damage the planet while promoting practical solutions to address these issues at the root-cause through adjustments in our way of life. This is the way we participate and facilitate the adoption of an ecologically sound and sustainable way of living.
SELF-CARE APPROACH FOR PREVENTING, MAINTAINING AND RESTORING HEALTH
Macrobiotics is largely known around the world as a diet for disease prevention and relief. And indeed helping individuals regain health through dietary and lifestyle means has played a prevalent role in macrobiotic activities from it’s very beginning about a century ago. Pretty much every person involved in macrobiotics over the years has a story to share on how their health improved by applying macrobiotics in their way of life including many inspiring recovery stories. Still today interest in macrobiotics often arise among individuals searching for long-term health and willing to take better care of themselves and their families.
The macrobiotic approach to health introduced and imparted in our courses at Global Macrobiotics derives from the developments made by Michio Kushi in the West over many decades. Michio Kushi spent most of his life guiding people and families towards better health. This experience led to the development of a comprehensive method for restoring health through dietary and lifestyle. Many of his books (Link with list of books by Michio Kushi) were dedicated to this subject.
Macrobiotics has played a significant role helping understand the cause of disease in modern society and finding solutions based on dietary and lifestyle changes as is documented in the United States. Around the 1980’s it became clear that the main reason for the unprecedented rise in chronic disease in the West was the modern diet high in animal food, fats, sugars and highly processed foods. Ongoing research also led to the conclusion that a whole food mostly plant-based diet was favorable for disease prevention. Eventually enough scientific evidence was gathered to conclude that diet does not only play an important role in disease prevention but also can facilitate recovery. Today a new medical specialty called lifestyle medicine is using diet and lifestyle change as a primary modality to treat chronic conditions.
Macrobiotics greatest contribution to humanity has been in the area of self-care through diet, cooking and lifestyle. Based on decades of involvement and practical kowledge the macrobiotic approach for restoring health include a nutritionally balanced whole food plant-based diet similar to the recommendations being made today by evidence-based preventive and lifestyle medicine.
Macrobiotics also integrates ideas for healing originating from oriental medicine that regard health from an energetic perspective and emphasize the importance of maintaining a good energy flow within our bodies and yin yang balance. Some of these have been used and traditionally practiced but many others have been newly developed based on our current interpretation, experiences and observations.
For those interested in self-care and wishing to pursue a natural holistic approach to health we suggest enrolling in our Global Macrobiotics Program. It contains the essence of the macrobiotic approach for managing your own health. And you will get many ideas for using common foods as medicine, applying cooking as therapy and making use of simple lifestyle practices for developing physical, emotional and mental health.