Articles

Standard Diet and Healing Diet

Foods to Eliminate While On Healing Macrobiotic Diet

Healing Macrobiotic Diet-Transition and Discharge Phase

General Suggestions

Methods of Cooking and Food Preparation

Setting Up Your Macrobiotic Kitchen

You Must Have "Good Blood Quality" For Best Health

Common Mistakes In Beginning Macrobiotic Practise

Condiment Guidelines/ Use of Leftovers and Reheating Foods

Maintaining Macrobiotic Practise While Travelling

Transition and Discharge

What's Wrong With Soft Drinks?

Sugar

Dairy Products

Fats

Salt

Caffiene

General Guidelines For The Weekly Consumption of Condiments:





USE OF LEFTOVERS AND REHEATING FOODS

When you are healing or beginning your macrobiotic practice, 100% fresh cooking for every meal is ideal. Sometimes, however, we may use leftovers without detrimental effects to our health.

In general, when you cook a particular dish, it is best to eat it within 24 hours. After that time, the food has lost substantial vitality. Regular consumption of long-leftover food can make us tired, weak, hungry, crave excess food or sweets. It is essential to prepare certain dishes fresh daily; light miso soup is best eaten immediately, If you prepare it for dinner, it is best not to eat it as a leftover the next morning or afternoon, although it may fall within a 24 hour time frame of freshness.

Likewise, it is best to make fresh steamed or blanched greens or boiled salad in the morning or afternoon rather than eat those leftover from the night before. Since they are so lightly, quickly cooked, the benefit they offer us is that very freshness. If they sit even just overnight, they lose that lively, vital quality. It is best to learn to cook appropriate, small amounts for 1 or 2 meals. The same goes for quick sautéed crispy vegetables and steamed roots and their tops.

Longer cooked and more seasoned dishes, however, may be enjoyed the next day. For example, if you prepared Nishime, Kinpirit, Dried Tofu and Vegetable Stew, Beans, Grains and longer cooked soups for dinner, you may lightly reheat or take them at room temperature the next day, preferably at lunch. In keeping with the new morning, it is ideal to make a fresh, light vegetable dish (such as blanched greens) to eat with breakfast.

It is preferable to reheat food in a steamer on top of the stove rather than in the oven. A handy way of quickly reheating is to place a ceramic plate of cold leftovers in a wide (9-12") bamboo steamer on top of a skillet filled with boiling water. Allow the whole plate of food to steam for 3-5 minutes until all the food is warm. Do not include pressed, boiled or fresh salads on the plate, however. This method saves time, fuel, pots and your energy. If you only need to reheat soup or beans, however, then place it in a saucepan with a touch more water and simmer lightly on a low flame for 3-5 minutes until the food is warm. Be careful not to tire the food out by leaving it on the flame too long.


A WORD ABOUT LEFTOVER

While, as a general principle, it is a great idea to recycle all things and not waste, be careful how you do it. Nishime, Kinpira, Dried Daikon with Kombu, Azuki Squash. and Stewed Vegetables have already been seasoned with shoyu/soy sauce, or occasionally miso. It is best to eat them as they are the second time around rather than add them to a soup that you will season with miso, shoyu/soy sauce, etc. You may get creative and mix a seasoned leftover vegetable dish into plain noodles or other grains, for example, but try to avoid overcomplicating things or using too much seasoning.