The macrobiotic diet revolves around basic biological principles: eating with the seasons, choosing foods from the local bioregions, and avoiding foods high in certain alkaloids. Choosing to eat in accordance with macrobiotic principles can be good for your health. Learning about macrobiotics will definitely inform you about a variety of biological topics.

Eating with the seasons opens your eyes to a world of fruits and vegetables that can often be forgotten when you simply go to the store and buy the same old things you always buy. Let’s think about lettuce and tomatoes, two basics to most American diets. But did you know that tomatoes are at their peak in the warmth of summer, while lettuce doesn’t come into full season until the cooler months? So why do we associate these two foods as going together when they shouldn’t even be harvested at the same time? That’s hard to say, but the good news is that it’s fun and easy to begin to learn about what foods are ripe when and begin to explore foods by season.

Similar eye-opening experiences can be had with eating for your bioregion. While this can be limiting in regions very far north or south (think Yukon or Patagonia), most of the world has access to irrigation, allowing an extremely prolonged local growing season. Something to keep in mind is that if you live in the temperate zone (which includes all of the United States, except Hawaii and the tip of Florida), then tropical fruit are not part of your bioregion. That’s right; mangoes, pineapples, coconuts, even the staple of bananas are not part of the temperate bioregion. Don’t despair! Apples, oranges, peaches, plums, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and many more are part of the temperate bioregion.

A fun way to experience local, seasonal food is to join a Community Supported Agriculture program, also called a CSA. These programs allow individuals and families to buy produce directly form farmers, having fresh fruits and vegetables delivered to nearby locations on a weekly basis. Collecting your bag or box of fruits can be like having a birthday party every week – the abundance and variety of fruits and vegetable for such a good price is guaranteed to bring excitement and health to your diet. A farmer's market can offer the same excitement, with the added bonus of taking part in and supporting a wonderful community event.

The Solanaceae family, which includes tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, tobacco, and other foods, is avoided in macrobiotics. The Solanaceae family is high in alkaloids, chemical compounds made by plants, usually as a defense mechanism. Some are toxic to humans, but humans use others as spices. Macrobiotics avoids Solanaceae plants because of the risk of consuming toxic alkaloids.

Finally, the macrobiotic diet advises omitting dairy and meats, with the exception of white fish if you live near the coast. The diet encourages consumption of seaweed, a good source of minerals, and fermented products, good for digestion. There are a great number of other philosophical approaches to cooking and eating involved in the macrobiotic diet. The yin and yang properties of the food, the cooking method, the time of year and even the time of day all come into consideration for a truly involved macrobiotic approach. This approach can bring us to whole new level of awareness of the food we eat, how it affects our bodies, and even the biological process involved in each meal we eat.