November

Hello Hello!

I am officially on my Thanksgiving Break from school and I am SO excited. A cold front moved in yesterday and it even feels like fall here now for a minute at least.

A week off with Mr. and Little Plate will be pure bliss. I couldn’t have asked for a better Thanksgiving week than to get to spend it with the two of them after all of these weeks of school. We are going to take full advantage of the days and head to the coast for some beach-combing, sand castles, sunshine, and a bit of sight seeing. . . but only if we feel like it.

“Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.”
– Elizabeth Lawrence

Now for a recap of the last week of school (the 4th to LAST week of school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

We started Macrobiotics this week. What is Macrobiotics? Well according to Google it is the theory and use of a macrobiotic diet. . .really useful right? 🙂 Here’s some information from the Kushi Institute Center for Natural Healing:

Research has linked modern diet and lifestyle habits to virtually all the debilitating chronic degenerative diseases, as well as lesser health issues generally attributed to aging. Without knowing which dietary and lifestyle changes can bring the health transformation people are looking for, is it any wonder there is a “health crisis” in the world today?

This is exactly what macrobiotics addresses, and why so many people who have come to the Kushi Institute with health problems attribute their full recovery to implementing what they learned about the power of healing foods and lifestyle changes in our programs.

Macrobiotics is a system that can be used to create extraordinary health, through using both traditional wisdom and modern knowledge to ascertain the underlying causes of an individuals current health challenges, and make adjustments to their food and lifestyle choices that support health improvement. Not simply a “diet”, macrobiotic recognizes the profound effects food, environment, activities, and attitude all have on our body-mind-emotions.

There really is an emphasis on diet and eating in a healing balanced way, but I really love the holistic theory of Macrobiotics because it really does emphasize having a balanced lifestyle and showing gratitude and love to yourself and those around you. Of course, in culinary school much of what we are learning is relating to the food that you would prepare to be aligned with macrobiotic cooking. I really like the following images which can give you an idea of how Macrobiotic eating is different than the standard American diet:

We better start with the Texas food pyramid though:

And the good old standard American diet or SAD diet. . . and yes, I know this isn’t from the USDA and that everyone doesn’t eat this way but a lot of people in our country and in the world are eating more and more this way:

Here is the Macrobiotic Food Pyramid:

I am excited to learn more about Macrobiotics in the next coming weeks. At school this module is full of delicious foods that we get to make in labs as well as a lot of great Demos where Chef Rachel Z makes delicious food for us which is always a treat. Here is what things looked like this week:

Monday was Knife Skills where we learned some cool new cuts including the Owl or Jewel Roll cut and how to easily matchstick things. We also started into our Macrobiotic Theory.

Tuesday we had a Grains 1 Lab and made some really yummy things including:

Barley & Sweet Rice made in an Ohsawa Pot