For those who believe that the key to good health is a return to more primitive forms of eating, its a great time to be alive. The cultish Paleo method of diningwhich encourages ingesting mostly meats, fruits, vegetables, and good fats, only when you are hungryhas been the most-searched weight loss method on Google for the past four years. Many fast-casual restaurants have sprung up around the trend, and fancier spots have incorporated the ethos into their menus.
But theres a way to get even closer to ancient ways of eating: moon eating. A nascent trend that started in Hawaii, moon eating has yet to be co-opted by a profit-making enterprise like the South Beach Diet or Atkins. You can just start doing it on your own. If you want to, heres everything you need to know.
First of all, moon eating is not the same as the whack-a-doodle Lunar Diet (also known as the more frightfully named Werewolf Diet) that has graced the gossip rags, wherein aging celebs engage in strange fasting practices looking for their fountain of youth.
Crops planted and picked properly, according to ancient lunar calendar-based traditions, are better according to moon eating advocates.
Source: Grand Wailea
Basically, moon eating takes many of the tenets of clean living that are already trending around the world (eating organic, unprocessed foods that are locally grown or foraged, reviving ancient grains, etc) and adds a layer of timing based on the phases of the moon. The idea is, you eat certain foods at certain timesacknowledging something that the centuries-old civilizations recognized, which is that the human body and our behavior operate on roughly monthly loops like the menstrual cycle.
If you are able to grow your own food, even better. According to the chefs behind the movement, specific cycles of planting and harvesting will provide the best, most nutritious produce. The goal is to be healthier, feel better, and be able to prepare physically for regular changes in the environment around you.
Ultimatelyyou may lose weight by moon eating, but thats merely a welcome side effect; the primary goal of mindful consumption is truer connection to our planet and thus a heightened sense of well beingboth emotionally and physically. Its a lifestyle.
The modern-day moon eating craze is taking shape in Hawaii, where Michael Lofaro, chef at the iconic Grand Wailea, is trying to cast a culinary spotlight on Kaulana Mahina, the ancient Hawaiian lunar calendar.
Chef Mike Lofaro, an early proponent of moon eating.
Source: Grand Wailea
Although treated as mythology today, the Kaulana Mahina was grounded in scientific observation and was once a covenant of the land. The Hawaiians tracked the moons waxing and waning energies and perceived an incredible impact on two types of water: the big water (such as the tides bringing fish to shore) and small water (which encompasses everything from tree sap, to aquifers, to your testosterone levels). The influence of the calendar increasedto dictate practically every element of the quotidian, from fishing larger marine life (when the highest tides would roll in) to signing contracts among chieftains (during the waxing energies of lunar cycle.)
For the past two years, Chef Lofaro has been working with Kainoa Horcajo, the Grand Waileas cultural ambassador, to create special Ka Malama dinners during different phases of the moon throughout the year. The word malama is a double entendre meaning both "month" in Hawaiian and care for the world around us. A fully immersive experience, the intimate luaus celebrate the lunar cycles bounty while introducing participants to the moon eating lifestyle. And with the reopening of the hotels signature restaurant, Humuhumunukunukuapuaa, at the beginning of this year, Lofaro is now bringing the moon eating ethos to the masses with a series of ever-revolving menu items that adhere to the hunter-gather principles.
Last week, for example, while teaching a workshop on the Kaulana Mahina at the Pebble Beach Food & Wine Festival, he prepared a dish made of akule and ulu. Akule, bigeye scad, and ulu, breadfruit, are both downmarket items rarely seen on the gourmands plate. But the ulu was planted and picked on the full moon for maximum flavor and was paired with the akule, which are fished at the same time because thats when their population comes in close to the Maui coast.
The restauarant Humuhumunukunukuapua'a at the Grand Wailea.
Source: Grand Wailea
Dozens of other farms and seaside fish shacks in Maui are also pulling inspiration from the Kaulana Mahina. A look at the hundreds of images tagged #moonphaseproject on Instagram will reveal the neonatal stages of the food fad throughout the island. Here, moon eating affects not only how vendors serve fresh fare, but also how they grow it, when they procure it, and how they harvest it to ensure the highest, most robust quality possible.Fruits are once again a great entry point into purposeful planting by the local farmers, as many itemssuch asavocado, mango, and breadfruitnaturally mature throughout a lunar month. By starting and ending the cycle on the eve of the full moon, the produce is noticeably more plump and much more delicious and vitamin-rich when harvested in the correct season (breadfruit during Aprils lunar month, mango throughout the summer). Fishing practices are also much more methodical than simply dropping a linein addition to big fish moving closer inland at high tide, small mollusks and shellfish are most easily captured during the lowest tides of the lunar month. Believers in moon eating think that there's a reason why these foods become more available to human at these times, and that, essentially, we should be better about taking the earth's suggestions.
Kai Momona, prepared by Chef Mike Lofaro of Humunumunukunukuapua`a at Grand Wailea.
Source: Grand Wailea
Further extending their influence, Lofaro and Horcajo reach a wide audience of Hawaiian viewers with their local television program, Search Hawaii, which encourages viewers to plan their meals based on holistic place-based sourcing. They call this practice Mauka-Makaiessentially Land and Seaa local tradition of pairing proteins from the ocean with seasonal fruits on the land, such as limpets and mountain apple, and sea urchin and breadfruit. But they arent the only two champions of the movement. Off-island bloggerHank Shaw really drills down to the core of a similar culling methodologyadjusting your needs to your place, not trying to change the environment to suit your desires, and how to maximize the earths naturally occurring bounty.
You dont have to be in Hawaiior necessarily surrounded by natureto get in on moon eating.
Kealopiko's lunar journal.
Source: Kealopiko
Horcajo recommends starting with keeping a lunar journal (like the one from Kealopiko) to recognize the cyclical behaviors of our environment, from tracking the weather outside and the quality of our daily commute, to monitoring our moods and even the temperament of our bosses and friends.
Our survival depends on our ability to analyze patterns. Without understanding patterns, we would simply die, he said, pointing out historic needs (agricultural cycles; how to hunt prey) and their modern counterparts (data analysis; avoiding heavy traffic).
Horcajo adds that after keeping a diary for some time, youll start to notice uncanny patterns in nature, essentially being able to overlay events from past years on top of one anothera phenomenon long blurred by the arbitrary mathematics of the January-December calendar. When youre first starting out, Horcajo recommends documenting the days when its particularly hard to get out of bed (hangovers notwithstanding). He maintains that the bodys energies are weaker around the first and third moon quarters, which the Hawaiians call the ole phases, meaning "without."You can conceive of it as the moon eating version of Mercury being retrograde. Police officers and medical staff can corroborate the tangible upswing in erratic behavior as the moon becomes full. Planning around the moons impactextra sleep during ole, or leaving early for the office during full-moon traffic jamsis just as important as planning what to eat when.
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Then work on your green thumb by planting as much as you can, wherever you can, be it in a garden, window box, or rooftop plot. Root cropsthink sweet potatoes, carrots, beetsshould be planted around the new moon, and above-ground producesuch aslettuce, kale, and strawberriesgo in around the full moon.According to ancient Hawaiian beliefs about small water, this is the perfect system to get the fullest, most nutrient-rich harvest.
The full moon rises from behind the hills among the silhouette of palm trees in Lahaina on the island of Maui, HI.
Photographer: shootthebreeze/Getty Images/iStockphoto
For those without the time or interest in gardening, its best to start at a farmers market. While the "organic" branding is well and good, youre looking to create a base layer of knowledge aboutwhat grows when, and, according to Horcajo, it may sound like something out of a Portlandia episode, but you can quite literally feel the fullness of produce when its planted and harvested during the energetic parts of the lunar cycle. Just ask the farmer what day that week the fruits and vegetables were pickedonce youre in the swing of moon mindfulness, youll know what to make of the answer.
Ultimately, you might be surprised to find that moon eating works into your life more easily than any diet youve ever tried before. Whether it is the stock market or the farmers market, when you begin to pay attention, not just once in a while but all the time, you begin to spot the patterns, the ebb and flow. Its just the hubris of modern man to think that one is more important than the other. continues Horcajo. Most people involved in the various food industries around the worldmodern foragers, organic farmers, back-to-the-earth advocates are all already basing their lives around the moon calendar. They just dont know it.
See the original post here:
Tired of the Paleo Diet? Maybe It's Time to Try 'Moon Eating' - Bloomberg
