Macrobiotics: Yesterday and Today [Paperback]

Ronald E. Kotzsch (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: Japan Pubns; 1St Edition edition (November 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870406116
• ISBN-13: 978-0870406119
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,032,001 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best history of macrobiotics and life of Ohsawa, December 1, 2011

By 

Michael Hoffman "Revisionist historian" (Idaho, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Macrobiotics: Yesterday and Today (Paperback)

Ron Kotsch's book has not only stood the test of time, it is actually the only in-depth book written in English on George Ohsawa, modern founder/popularizer in the West of the macrobiotic movement, and of the movement itself. Kotsch is fair to macrobiotics but critical in a constructive manner. I had more appreciation for Ohsawa, even after learning of his flaws, as a result of reading this book. When it appeared in the 1980s I imagined it was the herald of many more serious studies of macrobiotics.

George (or "Georges") Ohsawa, a hereditary samurai, is the father of the American organic food movement and largely neglected today, along with some of his senior students, such as the wise and wonderful Herman and Cornelia Aihara. Forgive me for saying so, but some of the Americans who became "macrobiotic leaders" were either highly inept at public relations or cared more for their own commercial success and have done little or nothing to valorize and memorialize Ohsawa and his teachings in any effective manner. A portrait of Ohsawa should hang in every "Whole Foods" Market in America. The important documentary "Forks Over Knives," which provides a western scientific basis for the excellence of a vegetable and grain-based diet, is affirming what Ohsawa said sixty years before the movie was made, but he is not mentioned. If you use good quality miso soup, sea salt, tempeh, tofu and sea vegetables, in combination with whole grains, thank Ohsawa. What you now take for granted was once a hunted, hounded and ridiculed pioneering macrobiotic teaching.

"Macrobiotics Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" is more than a work that traces the arc of a food movement. Ohsawa wanted to change the world and he advocated a unique philosophy of peace, organic agriculture and life as both hardship and high adventure; fun and austerity. I learned from his writing to take on projects that seemed to be too big, daunting and uncomfortable. He also taught humility and gratitude. As a Christian I disagree with Eastern astrological elements that sometimes creep into macrobiotics and an emphasis on diet that almost makes food into an idol.

Ohsawa, a master of public relations, made some extreme statements to shock and gain publicity. His number seven diet was a marketing tool to appeal to the low American mentality of the quick fix and the instant solution. With those with a native strong constitution it also happened to accomplish its goal of a major purge of bodily toxins. Many former drug dealers and addicts who repented of their folly used macrobiotics to transform themselves body and mind. Ohsawa was criticized for putting the word "Zen" into a title of one of his books because allegedly he had no zen connection. I don't see Jack Kerouac lambasted for doing something similar. It was the zeitgeist. Zen was a meme and revolutionaries like Ohsawa sought to surf it for all it was worth. There's a description of Ohsawa in the book as a combination gangster and saint. What could be more "zen" than that? He was bit of a rogue -- in service to humanity.

Ohsawa was as much an impresario as a philosopher and this must be placed in the context of the times in which he lived, when chiropractors were arrested in NY for "practicing medicine without a license," and when persecutions of macrobiotic teachers on ludicrous charges of "starving" their clients were not uncommon. In Ohsawa's time most American physicians held that diet, other than getting the proper number of vitamins and protein, had no effect on human health. Preposterous? Yes, but that's what they believed and that was the challenge Ohsawa faced.

To posterity I say, you'll be turning to Ohsawa again some day. When you do, begin your reappraisal with Dr. Kotsch's superb biography/history, which deserves to be back in print.