Grocery shopping on a macrobiotic diet doesn’t have to be difficult! By creating a meal plan, a list of dishes that will be made each day, you can easily build a macrobiotic shopping list. This way you know the ingredients to get and how much to buy. It makes following a healthy macrobiotic diet and lifestyle easier for you and your family!
How to Make a Macrobiotic Shopping List?
First, write down the meals that will be prepared for breakfast, lunch, and dinner during the week. Feel free to personalize a macrobiotic meal plan to your lifestyle. Such as drinking tea instead of coffee in the morning or preparing a meal for breakfast. Just make sure to always eat lunch. Lunch is the most important meal of the day.
Next step is to list out the ingredients required for each dish. Lastly, add ingredients to shopping list and plan out where you will purchase each ingredient. The example below is a starter macrobiotic shopping list. Items like unrefined sea salt, olive oil, toasted sesame oil, umeboshi vinegar, black pepper, fresh ginger juice, barley miso and shoyu last a long time and can be used in multiple meals before the need to buy again. Another way to reduce a macrobiotic shopping list is buying extra grains, pasta, and beans to be stored until needed.
Where to Buy Items on Macrobiotic Shopping List?
- Produce, grains, and beans buy at local grocery store.
- High quality products such as miso, extra virgin olive oil, naturally processed untoasted seasame, and unrefined white sea salt buy at a health food store.
- Specialty items including kuzu, umeboshi vinegar, or ume plums buy online.
Also buy from local farmers markets. The more local food, the better.
More Macrobiotic Meal Plan Tips
- Center meals around a variety of whole grains, cracked grains, and whole grain products. Good choices include brown rice, barley, millet, bulgur, oatmeal, polenta, udon, Italian semolina pasta, and unyeasted sourdough bread.
- Build meals based on world’s traditional cuisines including any type of Asian, Middle Eastern, North-African, Mediterranean, or other parts of Europe.
- Incorporate different methods of cooking preparations such as well-cooked, light-cooked, naturally pickled and fermented, and raw in daily and weekly meals.
If new to macrobiotics, start with a simple meal plan and increase healthy plant-based dishes to cook during the week when ready.
Here are recipes to get started:
How to Use Leftovers?
Leftovers are a great way to make a quick meal and keep macrobiotic shopping list manageable. Therefore, in your macrobiotic meal plan write in when you will be using leftovers to keep yourself on track.
Here is how long to keep foods:
- Well-cooked dishes good for 3 days. This includes grains, beans, and hearty soups. You may also freeze extra grains, beans, fish, and hearty soups for future meals. These foods are not affected when frozen.
- Lightly-cooked dishes, raw salads, and pasta good for 2 days.
- Naturally pickled and fermented foods good up to few weeks or months. Pickles last up to a few weeks while unopened saurkraut for a couple of months.
Get two 10-day meal plans in Denny and Susan Waxman’s new book, “The Ultimate Guide to Eating for Longevity.” (Pre-order here) Or take a SHI course to learn more about meal planning and plant-based cooking from macrobiotic chef, Susan Waxman. Have questions about macrobiotics? Contact us today!
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