Our regular feature from popular Macrobiotic cook & author, Jessica Porter, explaining the mysteries of this great healthful way to eat – and she makes you laugh, too!

Here is an excerpt:

THE WHOLE PICTURE: Finding Your Authentic Self in the Kitchen

by Jessica Porter

Am I a real, authentic woman?

Well, I have all the x-chromosomal bits and pieces, albeit with some wear and tear on them. The “real” and “authentic” parts are more interesting questions.

I have done many things in my life to become my most authentic self. I did this, not out of a sense of virtue, or even metaphysical curiosity; I did it because my non-authentic self had a way of sliding toward depression and obesity and I was simply too vain to let that happen. That’s the truth. I sought personal and spiritual authenticity because I was afraid of GETTING FAT!!

At 23 years old, I looked in a mirror, staring into my glassy, stoned-on-ice-cream eyes and said “This is not the real you”. Mind you, I had no idea who the real me was, but I knew that that chick in the neon-orange skirt, aqua leggings and the retro rayon 60s blouse was definitely not her.

And sometimes that’s all we need to begin. Knowing what we don’t want. Yes, all the self-help books will tell you that you need an image of the goal… to visualize, visualize, VISUALIZE! But I hadn’t read those books yet. I was just a kid, living in New York City, hoping that my charm and aqua leggings were enough to get through life. In that moment, I didn’t need a new image -- I needed to dismantle the old one.

I was very lucky to be hungry for spiritual principles at such a young age. I don’t know why I was. I’m a little embarrassed that my ego didn’t have more fight in it . . . I guess I was tired. Tired of the magazines telling me to look a certain way. Tired of school telling me to think a certain way. Tired of my own brain telling me I wasn’t good enough. I had spent the previous ten years in a full-blown war pitting Jessica against Jessica and I had reduced my inner terrain to a charred, empty, Mad Max wasteland. Minus Mel Gibson. I was done.

I started reading about spirituality. I had never, ever before considered doing such a foolish thing -- in my family, people who looked to the invisible were considered weak and stupid. We actually laughed at them! But, as I read book after book, my concepts and prejudices started to look weak and stupid. It was a mind-blow.