The diet consists of minimally processed, locally sourced, organically grown foods: 40%-60% whole cereal grains (oats, brown rice, wheat, millet, rye, corn, buckwheat) 20%-30% fresh vegetables 5%-10% beans and bean products 5%-10% sea vegetables and a sprinkling of fruit, white meat, fish, seeds, and nuts. Foods are either yin (creating expansion) or yang (causing contraction) and are categorized into two groups: acid-forming or alkaline-forming. Macrobiotics is guided by the principles of yin and yang, the interrelationship between opposites. After 5 years on the diet, Henry James, an early enthusiast, reported a “sickish loathing of food.”
However, by the 1920s, Fletcherism fell from favor-perhaps through the pressure of time, boredom, and the diet regimen causing extreme constipation. And although the diet did not restrict any types of food, Fletcher himself was drawn to vegetarianism (perhaps unsurprisingly, given all the chewing).įletcher was taken seriously by both the British and American medical professions and had a star-studded following, which included John Rockefeller and Franz Kafka.
Foods turning into liquid and pooling in the mouth after 100-700 chews were to be swallowed, whereas solids were to be spat out. Īccording to Fletcher, food-to be eaten only when a person was “good and hungry”-necessitated prolonged mastication to avoid “intense putrification” in the gut and achieve weight loss. A “lecturer of singular charm,” Horace Fletcher (1849-1919)-also known as “the Great Masticator” -was a wealthy businessman and self-proclaimed nutrition expert whose diet became a social happening at the turn of the 20th century.
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