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Massachusetts Restaurant Getting Healthy
By David Kagan
Newton, MA—Times really are changing. The place where I grew up eating Spruzansky Specials (submarine sandwich with steak, cheese, onions, mushrooms and peppers) with my Dad, is now serving brown rice and tofu, if only on Sunday night.
It’s all part of David Snieckus’ reality tour, which started about three weeks ago at The Village Café in Newtonville. This eccentric and lovable fellow is out to heal the world, one kitchen at a time. Mr. Snieckus has been a natural foods chef and instructor since 1981, when he graduated from the renowned Kushi Institute in Brookline, now located in Becket MA. If none of this is familiar, here is one more term that may also be unknown to you at this time–Macrobiotics.
Macrobiotics is a comprehensive 5,000 year old philosophy of the universe modernized by George Ohsawa in Japan in the early part of the 20th century, and translates to “great life.” Ohsawa wrote many books, and had many students, including Michio Kushi, who popularized macrobiotics in the United States, and helped create most of the Natural Foods Stores as we know them today. Kushi also started Erewhon, a pioneering brand of natural foods, has written and co-written dozens of books, and inspired Macrobiotic centers in more than 20 countries. You can learn more about Michio Kushi at http://www.michiokushi.org/bio.php
There are many reasons why this could be important to you. If you are following Britney Spears and the demise of Anna Nicole Smith, you would probably be interested to know that there are many entertainers who follow a Macrobiotic diet, which consists mainly of whole grains, beans, fresh and local vegetables, sea vegetables and quality sea salt. Some of those people have included Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, John Denver, Tom Cruise and Battlestar Galactica star Dirk Benedict.
If you are not living for tabloid news, then perhaps you are following the drama surrounding the high cost of healthcare, and the explosion of obesity and chronic illness among the American public, including our children. Well, suffice it to say that Macrobiotics is coming into vogue as a way to optimize health, and David Snieckus is one of the new prophets leading the charge.
Snieckus has been cooking and counseling to a select group of people in greater Boston for years, but he has recently made some news in wider circles. Recently, he offered the West Suburban Health group a way to decrease their spiraling health care costs. And has initiated a bill to tax all processed foods at the cash register, which he says will give people an incentive to buy what comes directly from the soil, and eat more wholesome natural foods. He believes that if all of us ate a Macrobiotic diet, we would avoid virtually all of the chronic illnesses and untimely deaths that have affected so many families in the Bay state and beyond. Perhaps he’s right.
His latest project is really exciting, and could involve you. David Snieckus wants all of us to start cooking natural healthy, healing meals at home, ideally every day. His vision? “EVERY KITCHEN A WELLNESS CENTER”! Through his business, EVERYDAY HEALTH, David provides consultations and cooking classes as well as community dinners. For more information and to get involved, go to www.davidsnieckus.com.
Mr. Snieckus also knows that we are not going to stop eating out anytime soon, because convenience and our addiction to processed foods have a strong hold over us. So he’s going to visit restaurants who are open to learning how to cook and serve healthier foods.
For one example: At the Village Café, 719 Washington Street, during February 2007, David has held two Sunday Dinners, and fed about 60 people, some from his loyal clientele, but also people from the local community, including existing customers of the Village Café. This has impressed owner Strati Mirogiannis, whose family has fed people at this location for over 30 years. Strati, his father Peter, and even his mother, are watching a revolution of sorts. On Sunday evenings, people are not ordering the ordinary meals of beef, chicken, eggs, milk, cream and butter, but are coming out en force to consume a vegan fare, which includes:
· Vegetable protein such as tofu, tempeh, and seitan,
· Land Vegetables such as squash, broccoli, cauliflower, shitake mushrooms, collards and kale, root vegetables such as carrots, onions, parsnips and burdock,
· Sea vegetables such as kombu, wakame and nori,
· Grains such as organic brown rice, quinoa and millet,
· All cooked with a high quality sea salt, namely, Celtic Sea Salt.
Stay tuned, as David Snieckus does an open cooking class at a restaurant in your community, and provides Macrobiotic dinners wherever he is welcome. Maybe we can all say hello to learning about Macrobiotic cooking and eating, and say goodbye to our fears and suffering associated with diseases we brought on ourselves in the first place.
To learn more about David Snieckus and the services he provides, go to: http;//www.davidsnieckus.com
