Eat
and Be Merry ; Jessica Porter Believes Converting to a Macrobiotic Diet Made Her
Happier, Healthier - and Funnier. She Wants Others to Experience the `Rush.'
It must be the macrobiotics.
That's
how Jessica Porter explains, at least in part, her ability to juggle so many jobs
and talents at the same time.
Her primary occupation is as a hypnotherapist, teaching hypnobirthing (a childbirth
relaxation technique) to people around the world.
She also teaches macrobiotic cooking, hosts a twice-monthly radio show on community
station WMPG called "Cinema Hits and Misses" and has performed her one-woman show,
"Zen Comedy," around Portland.
With all her free time, she recently wrote a book, "The
Hip Chick's Guide to Macrobiotics: A Philosophy for Achieving a Radiant Mind and
Fabulous Body" (Penguin, $16.95).
The book, Porter hopes, will help make the somewhat mysterious subject of macrobiotic
cooking a little easier to understand - and fun to read about. The book includes
more than 80 recipes.
Porter firmly believes that following macrobiotics has allowed her to do all the
she does. Or at least to want to do all that she does.
Porter, 37, is originally from Toronto. She lives in Portland.
Q:
OK, what's the quick definition of macrobiotics?
A: It's a difficult question, because there's a million ways to explain it, depending
on your audience. It's both a philosophy and a diet. The philosophy is that everything
in the universe is created by two major forces, expansion and contraction.
For instance, my heart is beating, it's expanding and contracting. These rhythms
can be seen everywhere.
The diet is based on the idea that we eat foods that follow that natural rhythm
and keep our bodies and mind in health. Modern, processed foods made in factories
shoot so far beyond the template for our bodies, we come out of balance.
A candy bar has so much expansive energy, that if I ate a candy bar every day,
I'd be open to so many problems of expansion: spaciness, a scattered mind, even
diseases like leukemia.
Q: What are the staples of macrobiotic cooking?
A: Whole grains, which are considered well-balanced for the human body. Vegetables,
generally grown in season and local to your climate. Beans and some fish as protein.
Sea vegetables (seaweed). A little bit of fruit, but not nearly as much fruit
as we're usually encouraged to eat. Condiments, like homemade pickles. For sweets,
things like barley malt and rice syrup.
No dairy. Dairy creates a coating on your tongue that's impeding your tastebuds.
And dairy has a strongly addictive quality. Dairy is the mother's milk from a
cow, so it's pretty unnatural (for humans). But it has hormonal qualities that
make us attached to it. It's more about that than the taste.
Q: Is it easy to follow a macrobiotic diet?
A: I tell people not to think about being totally macrobiotic to start; it's a
ridiculous leap. But if you can make a shift, from white noodles to whole-grain
noodles, or white rice to brown rice, start with that.
It took me two or three years until I got to the point where every meal was macrobiotic.
I went from dabbling in it to wanting to feel the way I feel when I eat that way.
Q: In the preface, you say "we can eat to be free, connected, and responding to
the larger natural world that created us." Free?
A: When we understand the world as these two forces, expansion and contraction,
we can eat in a way that either goes with them or against them.
When we eat with them, we give up so many internal and emotional struggles, like
when to go to bed or what to do with my life. Your body knows what to eat next,
what to do next, and you can deal with bigger-picture things. You don't have to
think about being warm and loving to the next person who enters the room, you
just will be.
Q: How did you get into macrobiotics?
A: I had an eating disorder, like many 22-year-old women, and very low self-esteem.
My sister had a crush on a guy who was into macrobiotics, and had read books on
it.
I remembered that with the macrobiotic books, the promise wasn't losing weight
fast, it was happiness.
That seemed absurd to me, so absurd that I had to check it out. I now know that
when you eat a macrobiotic diet regularly, you experience what I call stupid happiness,
the natural endorphin rush.
Q: Were you performing comedy before discovering macrobiotics? Has it made you
funnier?
A: I was performing while learning about macrobiotics.
I think macrobiotics makes you more clearly and fully yourself. So whatever talents
are there, come out.
Q:
You do so many different things - teach macrobiotic cooking, do hypnotherapy,
talk movies on your radio show, perform comedy. How do you keep them all straight?
A: I knew this woman, Simone, about 12 years ago, who was an amazing (macrobiotic)
cook. She cooked for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. She'd also come in with these
clothes she made herself, or with gifts she made. She just seemed so naturally
creative, and had no struggle with it. I remember being jealous of that.
But now, people say the same thing about me, and I think it's the macrobiotic
diet.
Q:
What do you hope people get out of the book?
A: I think my goal was to make a subject I find endlessly fascinating interesting
and accessible to people who otherwise might never trip upon it.
What has surprised me is that people have told me they changed their diet (after
reading the book.) I put recipes in there, but I never made the connection that
people would actually eat differently. I thought they'd read it and laugh.
Staff Writer Ray Routhier can be contacted at 791-6454 or at:
rrouthier@pressherald.com
