Do you want to change your lifestyle? Lina Mahmoud talks to some Egyptians investigating health options that incorporate both body and soul Two thousand five hundred years ago Hippocrates, "the father of medicine", said to his students: "Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food." Moses Maimonides, the great 12th century physician, reiterated the statement: "No illness," he said, "which can be treated by diet should be treated by any other means." Today, Armenian Lebanon-based macrobiotics practitioner Mariam Nour tells her Arab audience that "we must clean and purify our entire body, including our brain and other body organs, our blood and each of our billions of cells. For that we must eat well. This does not only mean selecting the right food, but also cooking it properly, chewing it well, eating the right amounts and most importantly, realising the importance and significance of food in our daily lives." Nour visited Cairo on 22 April on the occasion of Earth Day and gave two seminars on macrobiotics at the American University in Cairo (AUC). Dubbed "the mother of macrobiotics in the Arab world", Nour received her training in both the United States and India and is a popular face on TV channels such as New TV and Dream. "I came back to the Arab world because I have a mission to accomplish. This mission is to spread the knowledge of macrobiotics in the Arab world," Nour told Al-Ahram Weekly. Hundreds of Egyptians went to the university to hear her in a packed Ewart Hall. "They are all driven by their pains," explained Nour. Her message to the crowd was that everything will be just fine. "A disease is my friend. It has come to my body to teach me. The universe is balanced and my body is balanced as well. But no one follows the balance or the order of the universe. You have a choice: to eat right or wrong, to follow doctors who are only interested in selling medicine or to be your own doctor," said Nour. Nour's Web site explains that the term macrobiotics originated in Ancient Greece where it denoted the art of achieving health and longevity through living in harmony with the environment -- "macro" means large or great, and "bios" means life. The term was again used by the Japanese philosopher Georges Ohsawa, who spent most of his life spreading macrobiotic practice and dietary reform. Since his death in the mid- 1960s several of his friends and students have carried on his work, among whom is Michio Kushi. Her message is one that Egyptians from many walks of life seem to be seeking. People are increasingly opting for a lifestyle that not only alters conventional eating patterns but also focusses on meditation and inner peace. Hence, scores of young and old people are joining the increasingly popular yoga classes at both the Indian and Russian cultural centres and are seeking private yoga instructors and macrobiotic food stores, while they have even provided the impetus for a new macrobiotic menu to be made available soon at a popular Heliopolis restaurant. Mukash Kumar, a yoga instructor at the Embassy of India, told the Weekly that "people are becoming more conscious of their health, especially women who constitute 65 per cent of the yoga students at the centre. Most of them suffer from depression, daily conflict-related stress and tension." Among his students is Noha Roshdy, a young professional who joined the yoga classes because she wanted to take control over her health and her life. "When you control yourself, you can control anything in your life. I wanted to become physically and spiritually closer to myself," Roshdy said to the Weekly. Now that she has been practicing yoga for a while she thinks that she has become "more aware or the energy inside my body". As for her diet, Roshdy has "automatically become closer to nature and turned to eating vegetarian and light food". "Macrobiotics was the path I chose to achieve a good life. It is all about how to cook the right food and an understanding that whatever you eat is reflected on your own body," said Mohamed Awad, an engineer. However Awad faces some difficulties in keeping up his lifestyle. "I must get my food from Lebanon or Europe. There are not enough sources of macrobiotic food in Egypt," he explained. Nour emphasised that key to a macrobiotic diet is the eating of ripe, organically grown vegetables and grains should be eaten in season. This should be supplemented by, for example, the adornment of cotton clothing, natural body products, a sleeping pattern that follows the sun and the use of gas or wood stoves for daily cooking. In general, this is a life choice that only the more affluent sectors of society can afford. Dr Magda Amer, a consultant in natural healing and the owner of a shop sells macrobiotic foodstuffs, believes that Egyptians are becoming more in favour of macrobiotic food either because they have chronic diseases or they are more health conscious. "In the beginning, we used to have only upper classes customers, now middle classes are becoming interested as well," she said. At Amer's shop, locally produced products such as whole grain rice, wheat and barley are sold at reasonable prices. "Other items like the miso soup and the sea vegetables that are essential to a macrobiotic diet are imported from Japan and rather expensive," she explained. And these items are not ones that can be ignored by the serious macrobiotic practitioner. "The miso soup is important because it absorbs acidity and poisons and it helps with digestion. Marine vegetables are full of minerals and also absorb poisons from the body. This is a particularly important aspect of this diet in today's polluted world," she Amer. She admits that some people complain about the taste of the food as well as the time it takes to cook certain dishes because of the high whole grain content. However, she doesn't advice her customers to follow a very strict diet. She introduces them to a healthier diet and one that is closer to nature and asks them to cut down the dairy and proteins till they slowly get accustomed to the proper macrobiotic diet. "After a while they get very used to the diet and become healthier and more energetic so they stop complaining," said Amer. And before and after your meal, consider the following advice given by Michio and Aveline Kuchi's Macrobiotic Diet : "Develop your appreciation for nature. Every day try to set aside several minutes to observe and marvel at the beauty of our natural surroundings." This may seem to be a difficult task in the modern cement jungle of Cairo but it is a valuable thought nonetheless.
