Secrets from My Macrobiotic Kitchen with Julie S. Ong

Eat better. Live better. Love better.

Tag Archives: relationship


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How do I love thee?

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.
~Thomas Carlyle

Do all things with love.
~Og Mandino

Want to find love fast and keep love forever? Because expressions of love and gratitude are so important in a long term relationship, one way to jump start your love life is by reconnecting with Love. Preparing food from your heart is an ideal way to connect with loving energy, so the best time to do this is when you are washing your whole grains. To enhance your connection with Love, remember to open up your heart to joyful experiences.

The process of washing brown rice is an ideal opportunity to harmonize with Nature and revitalize loving energy. The more you cultivate Love, the more you will experience it. The love you add to your food is the secret ingredient to a long lasting, loving relationship.


Learn how to wash brown rice in this video. As you caress the grains of rice, feel love and gratitude for your food. Take a few moments to do these exercises to help you notice a shift in your energy:

  1. What sensations do you notice in your body? Is there tightness in your shoulder muscles? Or are you relaxed and at ease?
  2. What emotions are coming up for you? Are you feeling fearful or anxious? Or do you feel peaceful and loving?
  3. What thoughts are you having? Are you distracted by the past? Or are you focused on the present moment?

Remember, Love attracts Love. So, the more you express love and gratitude, the more your relationship will evolve into a deeper, richer experience, even an exciting eternal love affair.

Healthy Relationship Tip

In some languages, the word love can be expressed in many ways. For example, in Greek, there are many words for different kinds of love:

  • Eros means “passionate, romantic love” with sensuous longing, such as in dating or marriage.
  • Philia means “friendship” between family or friends.
  • Agapē means “love” in reference to general affection, such as for a good meal, one’s offspring, or one’s spouse.
  • Storge means “natural affection” used exclusively for one’s children or family.
  • Thelema means “desire,” such as to be occupied with something.

Love is the universal language that transcends time. So, to find love fast and keep love forever, start by finding how many ways you can say “I love you” to your Beloved.


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Chew Your Way to Love

Ready to spice up your love life? We all know that chewing is an important part of healthy digestion. But did you know that how you chew can affect the quality of your relationships as well?

Chewing not only improves your digestion and reduces risks of illness and disease, it can also boost your sexual health and deepen the intensity of your relationship. This is because how you absorb foods impacts your sexual vitality. Here are 5 eating-related lifestyle adjustments you can make to improve your digestion and revive your sex life:

1. Eat at regular times

A regular mealtime schedule brings rhythm and balance to your daily routine. When your digestion functions on a predictable cycle, you are in harmony with the natural order, and your relationships with people, animals, food, and yourself are more nurturing.

2. Sit down to eat

The stress of eating on the go–running, standing, driving, doing business, concentrating, and reading–can lead to ulcers and poor digestion. Sit down to eat and avoid multi-tasking. Mindfully eating allows you to fully enjoy your meal and your partner’s company without distraction. This simple step not only improves digestion, but also cultivates gratitude for your food and relationship.

3. Chew more

Digestion begins in the mouth. Amylase enzyme in saliva breaks down carbohydrates so the body can more easily absorb them. The more you chew, the more complex carbohydrates (like brown rice) are converted into simple sugars and become naturally sweeter. Chewing foods 50-100 times not only improves digestion, it also allows you to more easily embrace the sweetness in life, including being with your partner.

4. Eat a moderate volume of food

Skipping meals, dieting, overeating, or under eating can all weaken your digestion, which becomes overworked and exhausted. Eating a moderate amount of food restores digestive function and boosts sexual vitality as you absorb more nutrients and energy.

5. Stick to whole foods

Over time, eating rich, heavy, or greasy foods, such as meat and hydrogenated oils, burdens digestion and blocks sexual function. Cooked whole foods, like leafy greens and grains, nourish digestion, help cleanse the body, and revitalize your reproductive organs.

Healthy digestion not only strengthens your body from the inside out, your relationships will become sweeter as well. Happy chewing!


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Romancing Your Food

If a man be sensible and one fine morning, while he is lying in bed, count at the tips of his fingers how many things in this life truly will give him enjoyment, invariably he will find food is the first one.
~Lin Yutang

Eat with the fingers, drink with the nose.
~Joseph Delteil, ‘La Cuisine paleolithique’ (1964)

In some countries, like India, the art of eating with your hands is viewed as a sensual experience. By involving as many of the senses as possible–sight, touch, smell, and taste–you not only deepen your relationship with food, you can also reconnect with your partner on a sensual level.

Next time you sit down to a meal with your partner make it “fingers only.” Reconnect with each other on a more intimate level by feeding each other healthy finger food. Here are three finger foods to romance your lover:

1. Sexy “finger food” includes desserts and elaborate fruits

  • Vegan chocolate covered strawberries
  • Peeled grapes
  • Vegan coconut macaroons
  • Chopped dates rolled into balls and covered in coconut

2. Healthy bite sized “finger food” includes appetizers and snacks

  • Mushrooms stuffed with grain and nut pilaf
  • Pita pizza baked with squash sauce and veggies
  • Whole wheat crackers spread with walnut and roasted mushroom pate
  • Greens rolls or sushi filled with grains and veggies
  • Spring rolls and dumplings
  • Bite sized tempeh sandwiches

3. Foods that are dipped into a savory sauce or dressing

  • Veggies dipped in pumpkin seed sauce
  • Spring salad greens dipped in vinaigrette
  • Green or black olives dipped in hummus

This Valentine’s Day, design a romantic “lovers only” meal using finger foods. You will not only enrich your connection with your food, you will also nurture a more intimate relationship with your partner.


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Are you ready to boost sexual vitality?

Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.
~Lao-Tzu

Sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.
~Hunter S. Thompson

Are you ready to ignite the passion in the bedroom? Want to activate some sexual healing? Nurturing an intimate, loving relationship with your partner begins with your health. When you are whole in body, mind, emotions, and spirit, your love life also becomes more fulfilling. The best way to spark your love life is by eating healthy whole foods.

Whole foods, like vegetables, contain vital life force energy or “chi” which supports and nourishes you on all levels. This chi is what revitalizes your overall health.Whole vegetables include all portions of a vegetable: the greens, center, and roots.

1. Leafy greens

Collards, kale, and dandelion greens have upward growing, expansive energy that supports the upper half of the body, like the heart. Leafy greens help you open up to love and joy and improve social communication.

2. Round vegetables

Round vegetables represent the balance point between the root and greens. This is the center of the plant, which has stabilizing energy that nourishes the middle organs in the body. Foods with centering energy are round vegetables like squash, cabbage, and onion. These foods are naturally sweet and allow you to embrace the sweetness in life, like enjoying being with your partner.

3. Root vegetables

Root vegetables grow downward and have grounding energy. This strengthening energy nourishes the lower half of the body, including the reproductive organs for increased sexual vitality. Examples of root vegetables are carrot, burdock, parsnip, and kuzu root. The hardy nature of root vegetables brings an enduring quality to your relationship.

Whether you want to improve communication or boost sexual vitality, eating whole foods can activate bliss on many dimensions. When you are whole on all levels, your love life improves as well.

Healthy Relationship Tip

Expressing your feelings to your partner helps him or her understand your perspective while opening up lines of communication. When expressing your feelings, use the “I feel” technique.

The “I Feel” Technique

  • Begin by stating how you feel. Remember to focus on expressing emotion (“I feel . . . “) rather than belief (“I feel that . . .”).
  • Be specific in describing your emotions. Instead of using words like “upset,” use descriptive emotions like “angry,” “sad,” “frustrated,” or “irritated.”
  • Identify the situation that is a trigger. Instead of blaming, state what it is about the situation that is creating the emotion. (“I feel frustrated when you . . .”)

The first step is to express your emotions and validate your feelings. This is the beginning of discovering what your story or belief is about the way things “should be” that triggered your reaction.


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Food as a Mirror for Personal Growth

Learn to let your intuition—gut instinct—tell you when the food, the relationship, the job isn’t good for you (and conversely, when what you’re doing is just right).
~Oprah Winfrey

But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous.
~Carrie on Sex and the City

Who is your significant other? The answer may surprise you. Your relationships include your relationship with nature, people, pets, career, money, food, and anything else with which you form an attachment. How you experience these relationships is a reflection of the greatest relationship in your life–your relationship with yourself. Because eating is an everyday ritual, your relationship with food is an important reflection or mirror of your relationship with yourself.

Your life experiences are based on your perception of these events. It all begins with your view of yourself. Are you living authentically or are you living by other people’s beliefs? You can find the answer to this question by looking at your relationships. Are your relationships supportive? Do they have healthy boundaries? Or do your relationships bring up inner fears? By deconstructing your stories or limiting beliefs behind your fears, you can find out more about yourself and how to listen to your inner voice instead of following other people’s stories.

Your relationship with food can also reveal limiting beliefs about yourself. If you choose foods that distort thinking, such as alcohol, this may suggest that you want to avoid facing your fears. Mindful eating without distractions allows you to focus on the present moment and nourish your inner voice. Then you honor and respect not only the food you are eating but also yourself.

Healthy Relationship Tip

To connect with your partner and yourself on a more profound level, follow this exercise:

3 Appreciations

  1. Sit crossed legged in front of your partner. Say three things you appreciate about your partner.
  2. Your partner says three things he or she appreciates about you.
  3. You say three things you appreciate about yourself.
  4. Your partner says three things he or she appreciates about himself or herself.

This exercise allows your partner to hear how you value him or her. You also hear how your partner values you, and you both hear how you value yourselves.


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3 Foods to Avoid When Building a Relationship

The more connections you and your lover make, not just between your bodies, but between your minds, your hearts, and your souls, the more you will strengthen the fabric of your relationship, and the more real moments you will experience together.
~Barbara De Angelis

The quality of your food determines not only your physical health, but also your state of mind. Your state of mind can affect your relationships.

To strengthen a budding relationship, avoid these three foods that affect mental health:

1. Alcohol

Consuming large amounts of sugar not only exhausts your body but also blurs your judgment. Alcohol, which is a form of refined sugar, distorts thinking.

2. Meat

When you take in excess alcohol, you may crave plenty of meat, and meat makes your mind restless and cloudy.

3. Restaurant food

Although you may choose healthy food from the menu, restaurant food carries the energy of the chef, which affects the energy of the relationship.

Traditionally, a woman would cook for the man, contributing her loving thoughts to the meal. They would share the energetic quality of this food and be united through their state of mind. Today, if they eat out in a restaurant, they take in the chef’s energy and thoughts, and they become united with the chef. Can you imagine this three-way affair? To build a strong bond within a relationship, it is best if the couple eat only the food prepared at home with their loving thoughts.

So, to keep your mind clear and your relationship strong, avoid alcohol, meat, and restaurant food. This practice will also improve communication and understanding, because you and your partner share the same state of mind.

Healthy Relationship Tip

To strengthen communication, use the Active Listening Method. To clarify what your partner is saying, follow this script:

Active Listening Method

  1. Check in: “I’m checking in.”
  2. Ask for clarification: “I am hearing you say . . .”
  3. Then listen for feedback as to your perception of your partner’s words.
  4. Thank your partner: “Thank you.”

Until you can repeat what your partner is saying on their terms, you haven’t heard him or her. To gain better understanding, follow this script again.


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Can whole foods heal your relationships?

Are you ready to engage a whole health approach to your relationships? Eating whole foods is a whole health way of living, which can help you nourish your relationships (with nature, people, or yourself). Through whole foods, you can learn to trust your intuition, live from your authentic self, and communicate more easily and effectively.

Food is an important ingredient in the development of your relationships. Processed foods lack vital life essence as well as nutrients and create imbalanced body, mind, and emotions. However, energetically balanced foods, like organic whole grains and vegetables, help ground you so you can think clearly and articulate your feelings. Can you understand how these strong qualities nourish your relationships?

When you express yourself in an open and honest way from a place of authenticity, you feel good from the inside out. When you feel good, good things happen to you. As you model this healthy behavior, your partner feels more comfortable to express himself or herself as well.

When you eat high quality foods and develop your inner wisdom for true health and wholeness, your inner beauty naturally shines through. And there are valuable side-benefits: your relationships become deeper and more intimate.

Healthy Relationship Tip

When you feel disconnected, angry, or frustrated with your partner, follow this tip:

Step onto a table. Now see the situation from this new place. You may receive new inspiration just from physically changing your position.

Alternatively, if both of you are seated, switch places with your partner. Now you may start to see things from your partner’s position. This can help release blockages and allow healing to begin.


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Embracing the Beloved

There comes a time in the seeker’s life when he discovers that he is at once the lover and the beloved.
~Sri Chinmoy

Are you ready to kindle your soul and embrace the sacredness of life on all levels of your being? Any time you spend in the wild is an opportunity to develop an intimate relationship with nature. As you begin to trust the relationship, the healing energy of nature merges with your being, and you become more open to receiving universal energy.

A relationship with nature is no different than a relationship with a person. If you have a lover, then you want to spend time with him or her. The more time you spend together, the closer you two become until, eventually, you begin to trust the relationship. You begin to relax into the arms of your lover, and you move in sync together. Does this sound familiar?

In the beginning, a new relationship is a little scary and exciting all at the same time. Perhaps you are meeting someone for the first time, and you are not sure how to behave. Can you relate to this? Likewise, this same feeling happens when you go out into the wild. In the beginning, it’s very powerful, but it may be a little scary as well. These feelings mean that a powerful potential exists, that something really magical can happen.

As you develop a profound and loving relationship with nature, you will feel more open. Take a moment and lie down in nature, and feel yourself let go. Pay attention to any sense of discomfort and be open to it.

  1. Ground yourself by connecting with your body. Are there any places where you feel tension? Tension may appear as shallow breathing from holding diaphragmatic muscles tight.
  2. If the body is contracted, this is will be reflected in the mind and emotions which are also contracted. What emotions do you have? How do you feel?
  3. What thoughts are you having?

If you trust it and give it time, go back into the wild on a regular basis. Your relationship with nature will open and flower, deepening along with mystery of life. Embracing what you love opens up a profound path of healing from the inside out. So, developing a relationship with nature is really about developing a relationship with yourself.