Food, Energy and Health

By Alan Kenney

Guest blog

A recent experience gave me an object lesson on food as energy and the power it has to affect our bodies and emotions.

Sanae Suzuki at Studio Mugen

 Sanae Suzuki is my macrobiotic counselor and heading into autumn I found that my energy and my body had become quite contracted, that is very tight.  I experienced physical stiffness in my body, had a hard time relaxing and sleeping and behaviorally I became quite pushy, irritable and not able to sleep.  My wife even commented on my rigid behaviors and started to be concerned. 

 I realized how the energy of food affects me both physically and behaviorally, and that it can impact my mind and emotions.

In weekly counseling Sanae and I had always discussed my diet and recipes and other aspects of my macrobiotic lifestyle.  However, recently we decided to look at how I was cooking.  What we discovered is that I had been cooking brown rice and beans by pressure cooking pots and steaming my vegetables instead of water sautéed and/or boiling for a long time and all through the summer. 

We determined that this meant that I was creating a lot of contracted energy in my body through this cooking style. Sanae taught me that macrobiotics is not just what kind of ingredients we use for our cooking and eating. It is also about how to cook and what kind of equipment you use for your own condition. Learning about our energy is to learn about food and style of cooking, equipment that we use and adapting as seasons change, our physical and mental condition changes, and more. 

Next we determined what to change in my cooking style, my recipes and determined what macrobiotic remedy to use to help get my body back in balance.

After several days of my adjusted program I have noticed welcome changes to my body and energy and have become more relaxed and easy going…and have returned to a relaxed sleep pattern.

Alan Kenney

I am thankful that my path has led me to studying macrobiotics and learning about the energy of food and how it can affect us physically and behaviorally.  This incident showed me how important it is to understand the energy of food to maintain the best health.  A greater lesson to me is the value of having a counselor/advisor who can help me understand this path I am on.

 I encourage anyone who is seeking to improve their health physically, mentally or to strengthen the spirit to take an active interest in learning how food as energy can affect your life. Also consider a counselor to ensure that you don’t walk that path by yourself.