You Are All Sanpaku [Mass Market Paperback]

Sakurazawa Nyoiti (Author), William Dufty (Translator)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Citadel (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806524057
• ISBN-13: 978-0806524054
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #840,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Wild Claims, January 11, 2007

By 

Johannes - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Are All Sanpaku (Mass Market Paperback)

"You Are All Sanpaku" makes wild claims. By eating nothing but brown rice and drinking very little toasted green tea, you can supposedly clear the symptoms of any ailment within two weeks and heal it eventually. Supposedly, you can cure myopia (nearsightedness) by eating brown rice and some grated radish. The author fails to mention that eating nothing but brown rice will lead to serious deficiencies. Macrobiotics claim that Ohsawa advocated eating brown rice only for a limited time as a kind of "cleanse," but in this book he clearly writes that eating only brown rice is the ideal diet for humans.

Ohsawa claims that his diet is a traditional one that bestows health on people. However, he does not seem to know anything about traditional heathy diets, because he did not study them. His point of departure is his philophy of yin and yang, not observation. Somebody who did examine traditional diets that kept generation after generation of people happy and healthy to a ripe age was Dr. Weston A. Price. Read his book, it will be a revelation in regards of what is truly a "natural" diet for human beings.

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Excuse me, We Are All What...?, November 29, 2008

By 

The Gripester (Wellington, NZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Are All Sanpaku (Mass Market Paperback)

Ahem!! The very real benefits of macrobiotics aside, I must strongly take issue with the premise of this book, which is that somehow having a visible portion of the white of one's eye above or below the iris is an indicator of unhealthy diet, even a portent of doom. Come ON, people!

Must I point out that human beings of different ethnic origins naturally have differently shaped faces? And that when someone bends their neck to look down at something (like a shorter person holding a camera), the lower whites of their eyes automatically reveal themselves? The biggest point is this: there is absolutely no scientific basis in medicine to believe that this so-called condition has any relationship to one's health. We don't believe in physiognomy any more - when was the last time a doctor measured the shape of your child's head to see whether or not he was going to grow up to be a criminal?

Anyone who applies any basic reasoning will automatically see the fault in logic. Here are some supposed signs of "sanpaku:" chronic fatigue, low sexual vitality, poor instinctive reactions, bad humor, and lack of precision in thought and action. Held up as an example, based on his presidential photo, is John F. Kennedy. John F. Kennedy! Hmm, let's look at this...chronic fatigue? Despite having an almost crippling back problem, the man was a workaholic, who regularly put in a 70-80-hour work-week. Poor instinctive reactions? I guess you could say The Bay of Pigs wasn't a good call, but what about the Cuban Missile Crisis? I'd call that very good instincts. Bad humor? JFK had a touchy side, but he was an enormously positive person, and sometimes a brilliantly funny man. Lack of precision in thought and action? Kennedy was the smartest, most logical, and most coherent president ever. Low sexual vitality? In JFK? HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

It is a very common tactic of those who are seeking followers to find a real or imagined weakness that most people share, and shame an audience into looking to them for the answer. Ohsawa would gain an audience's confidence by speaking knowledgeably about nutrition, then slowly strip away their complacency by attacking their eating habits. Finally, he would attack them with a cry of revulsion: "You are all Sanpaku!" I really hope we have moved past this level of discussion when addressing the problems of obesity, type-1 diabetes, heart disease, and other diet-specific ailments that are much more significant than the shape of your eyeballs.

I think that the macrobiotic diet is nutritious, groundbreaking, and a very important part of the nutrition re-think of recent times. But to base it on a principle that is at best pseudoscience and at worst possibly meant to inspire self-loathing in Westerners is tragic. Question this poppycock!

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Truly dangerous..., July 22, 2009

By 

Koeeaddi "shmuelman" (Denver) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Are All Sanpaku (Mass Market Paperback)

As a youth in the 70's I was a fairly strict macrobiotic. I should have been leery of this book right off the bat. The forward, back then, had Ohsawa ruminating about the violent Westerners vs. the peaceful and serene Japanese (because of the different diets). He must have been commenting on his opinion about roller derby vs tea ceremony, but he forgot to mention that it had been only 30 years since the Rape of Nanking and Pearl Harbor. This should have been a significant warning about the bias and fantasy in this book.
The second warning about this diet was a kind of cultish adherence to the diet. Just like following some sociopathic Guru, if you found yourself feeling sick, it meant you weren't doing it enough. It had to be your fault. Time for the "number 7" brown rice fast.
I knew many macrobiotics - people who earned their living as cooks or diet counselors. A number of them flipped out, left their wives and took off without a trace, or just went totally crazy.
Truly, is there any evidence that across a large population this diet is healthy? As far as I am concerned, I would rather be a 200 lb, vital meat eater, than be 150 lbs and risk my bone density, muscle strength and nervous system with this low protein and nearly zilch fat diet.
If you have MS or cancer or some horrible degenerative disease, this diet may be useful to you. But most people don't need it and will not thrive on it and the concomitant spirituality it professes.