The macrobiotic diet is very clear about which foods are either:
- restricted (only a little each day or week) or
- totally banned (should not be eating them at all), as follows:
Restricted foods (eat only a little each week)
- Bakery product – buns, cookies, muffins, pastries, sweet breads
- Brown sugar
- Carob
- Chips
- Commercially prepared pasta and breads
- Commercially prepared pancakes
- Dairy – butter, cheese, milk, sour cream, yoghurt,
- Fruit – bananas, dates, figs, grapefruit, lemon, mandarin, mango, orange, papaya, pineapple, tangelo
- Herbs – fennel, ginseng
- Nuts – Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pistachio nuts
- Popcorn
- Rice – white rice, white rice cakes, brown rice cakes
- Sweets – honey, molasses
- Vegetables – artichoke, asparagus, avocado, bamboo shoots, beets, eggplant, green or red pepper, okra, potato, rhubarb, sweet potato, Swiss chard, taro, tomato, yams
Foods banned (should not be eaten at all)
- Alcohol
- All poultry – chicken, duck, quail, turkey
- All processed foods – chips, crackers
- All red meat – beef, goat, lamb, pork, veal
- Artificial beverages – carbonated water, cola, soda, stimulant drinks
- Artificial sweeteners – any type
- Caffeine – coffee, tea
- Sweets – chocolate, ice cream, fructose, wite sugar
