The macrobiotic diet replaces simple carbohydrates with more complex, slower-burning ones like brown rice, quinoa, barley and millet.  These complex carbs release a continuous stream of glucose into the blood at a rate of about two calories per minute whereas the sugar from a chocolate bar burns significantly more quickly, releasing thirty or more calories in the same time.  Whole grains make up almost 70 percent of the total caloric intake of a macrobiotic diet!

See my favorite brown rice and barley mixture recipe for a reliable, delicious and simple foundation with which to build your balancing and highly nutritious macrobiotic meal plan.

Quinoa is an absolute miracle food that is equally delicious as a savory or sweet dish.  The inherent nutty flavor of quinoa (which can be drawn out to greater or lesser degree dependent upon whether you toast grain dry before adding water to boil) makes it a great choice for crispy salads, as a substitute for rice or potatoes or even with toasted sesame seeds, raising, and some soy, almond or rice milk for breakfast.

Quinoa Salad: delicious, versatile and amazingly healthful

Quinoa can be expensive in the grocery store, but you can find it at a far better price in bulk food stores so check there first.

Here are some basic tips for cooking grains:

All grains, with the exception of rice, and the various grain meals, require prolonged cooking with gentle and continuous heat, in order to so disintegrate their tissues and change their starch into dextrine as to render them easy of digestion. Even the so-called “steam-cooked” grains, advertised to be ready for use in five or ten minutes, require a much longer cooking to properly fit them for digestion. These so-called quickly prepared grains are simply steamed before grinding, which has the effect to destroy any low organisms contained in the grain. They are then crushed and shredded. Bicarbonate of soda and lime is added to help dissolve the albuminoids, and sometimes diastase to aid the conversion of the starch into sugar; but there is nothing in this preparatory process that so alters the chemical nature of the grain as to make it possible to cook it ready for easy digestion in five or ten minutes. An insufficiently cooked grain, although it may be palatable, is not in a condition to be readily acted upon by the digestive fluids, and is in consequence left undigested to act as a mechanical irritant.

Water is the liquid usually employed for cooking grains, but many of them are richer and finer flavored when milk is mixed with the water, one part to two of water. Especially is this true of rice, hominy, and farina. When water is used, soft water is preferable to hard. No salt is necessary, but if used at all, it is generally added to the water before stirring in the grain or meal.

The quantity of liquid required varies with the different grains, the manner in which they are milled, the method by which they are cooked, and the consistency desired for the cooked grain, more liquid being required for a porridge than for a mush.

All grains should be carefully looked over before being put to cook.

In the cooking of grains, the following points should be observed:

1. Measure both liquid and grain accurately with the same utensil, or with two of equal size.

2. Have the water boiling when the grain is introduced, but do not allow it to boil for a long time previous, until it is considerably evaporated, as that will change the proportion of water and grain sufficiently to alter the consistency of the mush when cooked. Introduce the grain slowly, so as not to stop the sinking to the bottom, and the whole becomes thickened.

3. Stir the grain continuously until it has set, but not at all afterward. Grains are much more appetizing if, while properly softened, they can still be made to retain their original form. Stirring renders the preparation pasty, and destroys its appearance.

In the preparation of all mushes with meal or flour, it is a good plan to make the material into a batter with a portion of the liquid retained from the quantity given, before introducing it into the boiling water. This prevents the tendency to cook in lumps, so frequent when dry meal is scattered into boiling liquid. Care must be taken, however, to add the moistened portion very slowly, stirring vigorously meantime, so that the boiling will not be checked. Use warm water for moistening. The other directions given for the whole or broken grains are applicable to the ground products.

Place the grain, when sufficiently cooked, in the refrigerator or in some place where it will cool quickly (as slow cooling might cause fermentation), to remain overnight.

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Delicious barley is a complex carb that also aids in digestion

Barley is stated by historians to be the oldest of all cultivated grains. It seems to have been the principal bread plant among the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. The Jews especially held the grain in high esteem, and sacred history usually uses it interchangeably with wheat, when speaking of the fruits of the Earth.

Among the early Greeks and Romans, barley was almost the only food of the common people and the soldiers. The flour was made into gruel, after the following recipe: “Dry, near the fire or in the oven, twenty pounds of barley flour, then parch it. Add three pounds of linseed meal, half a pound of coriander seeds, two ounces of salt, and the water necessary.” If an especially delectable dish was desired, a little millet was also added to give the paste more “cohesion and delicacy.” Barley was also used whole as a food, in which case it was first parched, which is still the manner of preparing it in some parts of Palestine and many districts of India, also in the Canary Islands, where it is known as gofio.

In the time of Charles I, barley meal took the place of wheat almost entirely as the food of the common people in England. In some parts of Europe, India, and other Eastern countries, it is still largely consumed as the ordinary farinaceous food of the peasantry and soldiers. The early settlers of New England also largely used it for bread making.

There are several distinct species of barley, but that most commonly cultivated is designated as two-rowed, or two-eared barley. In general structure, the barley grain resembles wheat and oats.

Simply deprived of its outer husk, the grain is termed  Scotch milled or pot barley.  Subjected still further to the process by which the fibrous outer coat of the grain is removed, it constitutes what is known as pearl barley.  Pearl barley ground into flour is known as  patent barley.  Barley flour, owing to the fact that it contains so small a proportion of gluten, needs to be mixed with wheaten flour for bread-making purposes. When added in small quantity to whole-wheat bread, it has a tendency to keep the loaf moist, and is thought by some to improve the flavor.

The most general use made of this cereal as a food, is in the form of pearl, or Scotch, barley.  When well boiled, barley requires about two hours for digestion.

Tags: barley flour, barley grain, charles i, common people, coriander seeds, delectable dish, delicacy, distinct species, early settlers, eastern countries, fruits of the earth, gastric juice, gofio, greeks and romans, gruel, hebrews, millet, peasantry, pot barley, sacred history

The best part about cooking “macrobiotically” is that the result is never “less than” – in fact I find the results more fulfilling in a full-body cellular sense than any other method of cooking.

The only caveat is that the initial setup of a Macro kitchen can run a bit expensive because you may not have the pantry of basics (umeboshi, rice wine vinegar, pure maple syrup, agar, blackstrap molasses etc.) used by this method of cooking – but once you do, it will last you a long while.

To exemplify this I am borrowing from Sandra Lynn Shuman’s Macrobiotic Desserts (Dictionart, 1981) to bring you:

Sour Cream Apple Pie

1 1/2 cup drained tofu

2 tsp. umeboshi paste

2 T. fresh lemon juice *

1/8 tsp. grated lemon rind *

1/4 cup + 1 T. rice syrup **

3 T. pure maple syrup

1/4 cup tahini

1/4 cup arrowroot

1/2 cup water

1 tsp. pure vanilla

3 cups sliced apples

1 10 inch unbaked oat Nut Crust 

Preheat the oven to 350°.  In a blender put all the ingredients, except apples and crust, and blend until smooth.  Set aside.  Prepare the Oat Nut Crust and set aside.  Wash the apples and cut them into very thin half-moon slices.  Layer the apples on top of the crust.  Pour tofu mixture over the apples.  Place pie on lower shelf and bake for 40 minutes, until top is golden brown.  Cool completely before cutting.  Keep refigerated.

* organic please, they are much more flavorful and nutrient rich

** rice syrup is an amazing sugar substitute whose flavor and texture is akin to a very mild caramel 

Tags: cup water, diabetic recipes, free recipe, grated lemon, half moon, initial setup, lemon juice, lemon rind, Macrobiotic, maple syrup, molasses, oat, place pie, pure vanilla, recipe cards, rice syrup, rice wine vinegar, rich rice, sandra lynn, shuman, sour cream apple pie, sugar substitute

Oat Nut Crust

No flour.

1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup ground walnuts
1/2 cup ground almonds
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup barley malt
3 T. corn oil

Mix all the ingredients together in a large mixiing bowl.  Press mixture into the bottom only of a lightly oiled 9 or 10 inch pie plate.  Bake according to recipe directions. 

From Macrobiotic Desserts by Sandra Lynn Shuman (published by Dictionart, Los Angeles, California, 1981).

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I am fairly certain this little recipe began with my father who loves gardening – a hobby that I most certainly inherited.  In fact both of my grandfathers were gardeners at different scales – one owned hundreds of hectares of farmland in Ecuador where he grews cacao, rice, bananas and everything else you can imagine, and my the other had an square acre of frontyardage lined with apricot, plum, apple and pear trees and a large garden of heirloom (though we didn’t need to qualify it as such back then) fruits and vegetables that included wild strawberries, red and black currants, carrots, asparagus, zucchini, beans and peas, kohlrabi and chives.

Well sometimes these plants would migrate to my parents’ garden and chives is among the most rugged and proliferating perennials, so there were always chives growing.  My father would grab a handful of these from the garden and hack them up to toss in his Saturday morning omelets.  It got so that I couldn’t enjoy scrambled eggs without chives but short of the common “green eggs” recipe I find frequently in cookbooks, I seldom find the combination in the outside world.

Being the tinkerer that I am, I incorporated a few of my own staples to the formula so that it would suit my needs.  I also learned a few tricks along the way – one is of course to add just a drop of milk (not too much or the eggs will brown too quickly) and to always cook the eggs on low-medium heat, using the spatula to gently move (from my father) and continuously chop up the eggs (from my friend Peter Devlin who worked for a while at a greasy spoon) as they cook – this gets them the consistency you find at restaurants and cruise ships.

I like to add ginger to everything, because its so damn good for you and also aids in digestion and helps warm up the body and metabolism, both good things in the morning, so that will also make an appearance here.

Keram’s Favorite Scrambled Eggs

2 eggs (preferably organic)
4-5 strands of chives
1 teaspoon canola oil or butter
1 teaspoon of milk (lactose-free is preferred)
dash of paprika
dash of organic sea salt
a twist of fresh ground pepper
1/4 inch minced fresh ginger
(optional) half clove minced fresh garlic

• Wash and chop up the chives into small 1/8-inch pieces. Set aside.
• Crack the eggs into a mixing bowl and add paprika, milk and ginger.  Beat until smooth.  You can’t overbeat the mixture; the smoother the better.
• Heat the skillet to medium temperature, add oil or butter.
• If you are using garlic, add this now, and heat for about 30 seconds – do not brown. (If they do, then your skillet is too hot!)
• Pour in egg mixture, and let it stand for about 30 seconds.
• Fold in chives.
• Use spatula to move cooked egg from sides and bottom of skillet, chopping them up consistently as they cook.
• When the majority of the eggs are cooked, as salt and pepper.
• When the eggs are no longer runny in an part, remove from heat and serve immediately.
• Enjoy.

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