This is my perfect healthy lunch.  I have this almost every day.  I’m 70 so you can see how well or not I’m doing on it in my videos.  My personal dietary system is an eclectic mix of Seignalet (pronounce it “saynyalay” ) diet, Food Combining , Macrobiotic  and some Weston A Price (WAF)  Foundation principles and others.  So let’s look at each of those elements in turn as it affects this lunch.

Seignalet bans all grains except for quinoa, rice and buckwheat.  Unlike other cereals, rice is not a genetic monster (says S.) because after only a few breeding manipulations it tends to revert to the wild form.  Experience shows (says S) that it’s almost never harmful. He allows both whole grain and white rice.  S. recommends eating as much organic as possible.  S. says we eat four times too much salt.  So keep salt to a minimum. He says to eat sea salt rather that refined salt because it contains important minerals and trace elements.  Seignalet says never use a pressure cooker because it can cook at temperatures up to 140 degrees c and cooking over 110 degrees c is banned.

*Chris says that it’s OK to cook macrobiotic rice in a pressure cooker because he has measured the temperature of the rice and it does not get above 60 degrees C.  *Chris says refined table salt is fortified with iodine which prevents goiters (a swelling on the thyroid).  So use sea salt but always  have 4 or 5 drops of Lugol’s iodine in some water in the morning. (not tincture of iodine – that’s a poison)   *Chris  says rice is known to accumulate arsenic.  You should always eat organic rice because rice is often grown in southern US states where cotton was previously grown and with huge inputs of fertilizer and herbicides.  Ground water in Bangladesh has high levels of arsenic.  So In addition to choosing organic,  choose Indian rice for preference. It has the least arsenic. Basmati is the best bet because it is grown with difficulty outside the Punjab so you can be fairly sure it’s from India.  A thorough rinse before cooking has been found to remove 10% of any arsenic.     *Chris says why would you eat white rice?   Most of the vitamins and minerals and all of the fibre are in the outer layer.  Brown rice is much more satisfying.

Sally Fallon from the WAF foundation says that phytic acid (aka phytates) in rice and other grains is an anti-nutrient because it binds to minerals and prevents their absorbtion.  She advocates soaking cereal overnight because this gets rid of the phytic acid.

Chris says phytic acid is an anti-oxidant.  It may have a preventative effect against colon cancer.  As I only have this rice meal for lunch I think I can get adequate minerals from my evening (protein) meal. On the other hand, soaking has been found to remove most of any arsenic present in the rice. If you soak your rice overnight, reduce the cooking time from a total of 45 minutes to 30 minutes.

George Ohsawa and his Macrobiotic Rice.  The Japanese George Ohsawa popularised in the West his version of the teachings of Dr. Sagen Ishizuka who cured thousands of Japanese patients with a nutritional method based on the traditional Japanese diet with a particular emphasis on the health benefits of Daikon radish and sea vegetables.  (Both of which are in this meal).  The recipe for my macrobiotic rice is from Ohsawa’s 1965 book:  You are all sanpaku.  Ohsawa based his diet on traditional Chinese medicine principles of yin and yang.  According to him wholegrain rice is a perfect balance of yin and yang.  He even goes as far as to say that the perfect diet is macrobiotic cooked brown rice and nothing else. (Not recommended!)  His recipe is just rice but I add a few vegetables.   All the vegetables juices from cooking are soaked up by the rice so nothing is lost. Ohsawa says  a 10 day mono diet of nothing but macrobiotic rice will cure all ills.

Seignalet says we only need to eat animal protein once a day now because we all have sedentary lives.  We are not out hunting aurochs and foraging all day like our cavemen ancestors.

Food combining  (aka Hay’s diet) says we should not mix concentrated protein and concentrated carbohydrate at the same meal as this leads to incomplete digestion of both.  So this fits very well with Seignalet’s advice to only eat animal protein once a day. So lunch for me is a carbohydrate meal  with vegetables and no concentrated protein and dinner is a protein meal with vegetables and no concentrated carbohydrates.  (Note: vegetables can contain carbohydrates or protein but not in large amounts so we don’t count those).

Chris says:  *The starter is grated carrot and daikon radish with some Thai fish sauce and cold pressed oil and some avocado  I always have grated carrot for lunch because the pro-vitamin a  beta-carotene is transformed by bile stimulated by the oil to form the animal form of vitamin a: retinol. Too much retinol, for example from a supplement or from a drug analog can be toxic.  The transformation of beta-carotene to retinol can never be toxic because once the optimum amount is reached your body simply stops transforming it. Some people can’t do this transformation because their bile metabolism does not work properly.  Bile is made from taurine and cholesterol.  Vegans are likely to be taurine deficient.  If you think your are not making bile properly try supplementing with a gram or two of taurine.  *Avocado contains very healthy oils and is a superfood.  Never eat any brown bits.  The oils in brown bits are rancid. *Keep your oils fresh by using a vacuum wine saver stopper and keep them in the fridge. *We finish with Miso soup with it 28 (at least) health benefits.  The miso soup  gives a feeling of satiety (fullness to you and me).  You will not have any cravings for a sweet dessert. Watch my miso soup video to see how to make 3 days’s supply that you can keep fresh in a glass bottle with a vacuum wine saver stopper and in the fridge.  You can then make miso soup in 2 minutes for your meals.

See my forthcoming video on the health benefits of various cold pressed oils.  Subscribe and click notifications in my  youtube channel

Macrobiotic Brown Rice cooked with assorted vegetables  and grated vegetables and avocado starter. Miso soup to finish.

Recipe

Ingredients:

For one person:

• 1 cup of organic Basmati Rice one and a half cups water
• 3, 4 or 5 Vegetables to taste ( broccoli, mushrooms, potatoes, leek, green beans,  cauliflower, courgette, etc)
• 1 medium carrot
• 2 or 3 inch piece of Daikon radish
• avocado
• Thai fish sauce. Make sure it’s authentic, ie, anchovies fermented with salt.  I recommend Squid brand in the UK.
• Cold pressed, extra virgin oil.  Choose from pumpkin seed oil,  flax seed oil,  Nigella seed oil, walnut oil, etc.
• one half of a tablespoonful of your choice of organic miso (must not be made with wheat or barley) I like brown rice miso.
• 1 cup of “dashi” (stock) pre-made from kombu and shiitake and stored in a glass bottle with vacuum wine saver stopper in the fridge.
• coconut oil
• 12 % Hydrogen Peroxide in a bowl.

Equipment:

Bamboo chopping board
Sharp knife
Vegetable/cheese grater
Pressure cooker
Hob

How to make it:

1. Measure one cup full of the rice or 3/4 of a mug or 200 ml of a measuring jug.  Pour into a bowl and rinse well.  (Optional: soak the rice overnight to remove phytates and trace amounts of arsenic).  After rinsing  tip into the pressure cooker.  Add one and a half cups full of filtered or bottled wate or 1 and 1/4 mug of water or 300 ml of water.  Use bottled or filtered water, not tap water.  Add half a teaspoon full of sea salt.

2. Cut vegetables into fairly large chunks and add to the rice and water.  Fairly large pieces so they don’t overcook if you are not soaking the rice overnight.  Slightly smaller pieces if you are soaking overnight because the rice will need less cooking.

3. Turn the hob onto high heat.  When it’s on full heat place the pressure cooker on it.  Make sure the pressure cooker pressure release valve is closed. Leave on high heat for 10 minutes then turn the heat right down.  If you have not soaked the rice cook on low heat for 35 further minutes.  If you have soaked the rice overnight, cook on low heat for a further 20 minutes.

4. Once you have put the pressure washer on the hob you can turn your attention to the starter.   Clean one medium carrot and 3 inches of Daikon under the tap with a scrubbing brush then put them in the hydrogen peroxide  for 5 minutes to kill any potential parasites or other bugs.  Then wash them in clean water and dry with a paper towel.  Grate the vegetables onto a plate.  Cut the avocado in half with a knife, remove the stone and scoop out the flesh onto the plate.  Cut out and discard any brown bits. (Use a very gentle squeeze to tell if avocados are ripe.). Sprinkle with a few drops of Thai fish sauce and around 1 tablespoonful of your chosen oil.

5. When the rice has cooked,  scoop out the rice and vegetables with a serving spoon into a large bowl.   Add one heaped tablespoonful of virgin coco nut oil and allow the rice and vegetables to cool while you eat your grated vegetable starter.

6. When you have finished eating the rice make a bowl of miso soup.  Put half a tablespoonful of miso in a small bowl,   Add a small amount of dashi and use two spoons to make the miso and dashi into the consistency of clotted cream then add a cupful of miso while continually stirring.  This should take no more than a minute.  Traditional miso soup is made from dashi made from scratch and is hot.  I like the miso cold  with dashi straight from the fridge.

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