Health of okinawas

[instant]

"""Eating Lots of Vegetables:

The islands of sun-drenched Okinawa are lush with rich green vegetation. Deep, green healthy vegetables abound. The surrounding clear ocean waters and coral reefs make island soils rich in minerals, which promotes good crops. Vegetables and medicinal herbs that will not thrive in mainland Japan grow readily in Okinawa.

Yet, the habit of eating vegetables raw has never taken hold in Okinawa. Instead, vegetables are cooked with pork and tofu in Chanpuru, or eaten in Nbushi boiled dishes or used in abundance in soups and for tempura. By cooking the vegetables, more can be eaten than if they are consumed raw. Especially in a dish like Chanpuru, where vegetables are the main ingredient, regularly available vegetables and seasonal vegetables of all kinds are combined and eaten any number of times a week. Carrots, cabbage, bean sprouts, etc., are staples in Chanpuru dishes. As a result, Okinawans end up consuming twice the amount of vegetables eaten by mainland Japanese, according to a national nutrition survey."""
/quote]

[TylerDurden]

Like I said, vegetables form a large component of Okinawan diets and might explain partly why they're less unhealthy than other people in the same region(cooked veg contains fewer heat-created toxins by comparison to cooked animal foods, which would help). Not that there's any real strength to the claims that the Okinawans are healthy(I once saw photos of them which showed them emaciated and rather unhealthy-looking, IMO)

[Roselene]

this video would disagree with the diet link you have posted..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mspy_QFyTFE

9:58 that's bitter cucumber.  have you ever tried it?  it's so extremely bitter tasting.  it's supposed to lower diabetes rates.  i can imagine it might over come the ravages of non-gmo soy easily, along with those home grown fresh mung bean sprouts.  instant, do you eat a lot of bitter melon like that?  those are the original vegetables, the paleo ones, not so hospitable or juicy, but rather bitter.

[White Tiger]

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_buettner_how_to_live_to_be_100.html

[PaleoPhil]

Dan Buettner is very selective and misleading in what he told you about the three cultures he covered. Here's some of the rest of the story:

Sardinians
Dan Buettner said...
- their diet is mostly plant based"
- admitted they eat grass-fed cheese
What the video didn't tell you: They eat plenty of wild seafood, "As you would expect with an island culture fish features very highly on most [Sardinian] menus." (Sardinian Foods & Diet, http://www.todayshottrends.net/health/sardinian-foods-a-diet.html)

Okinawans
Dan Buettner said...
- "plant-based diet"
- eat "eight times as much tofu" as Americans
- briefly mentioned a fisherman
What the video didn't tell you: The Okinawans eat plenty of wild seafood. They eat little or no gluten (wheat, rye or barley). They eat lard, pork, raw goat milk, and raw goat meat (hiijaa sashimi). They eat much more of their seafood and meat raw (sashimi and sushi) than Americans do. It's not hard to eat more tofu than Americans, since Americans on average don't eat very much of it. Americans do consume more soy milk and soy ice cream than Okinawans.

7th Day Adventists
Dan Buettner said...
- "They take their diet directly from the Bible, Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, where God talks about legumes and seeds and on one more stanza about green plants, ostensibly missing is meat."
What the video didn't tell you:
> Here's what Genesis chapter 1, verse 26 actually says: "And God said, Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the flying creatures of heaven, and over the cattle and all the earth, and over all the reptiles that creep on the earth."
He probably meant verse 29, which says:
 <<Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.>> But verse 28, like verse 26, mentions dominion over the animals:
 <<God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.">> Dominion to do what? Dominion to herd, hunt, fish and eat, otherwise dominion is pretty useless.
> They avoid alcohol and tobacco and many avoid soda pop
> only 35% of Adventists report themselves to be practicing vegetarians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day_Adventist_Church#Health_and_diet) and most of those that do eat eggs and dairy (lacto-ovo-vegetarian)
> "a 1994 study of California Seventh Day Adventists (who are largely vegetarian) showed that, while they did have lower rates of some cancers (e.g. breast), they had significantly higher rates of several others (brain, skin, uterine, cervical and ovarian)." The myths of vegetarianism, http://www.theecologist.info/page14.html
> "Argentina, with higher beef consumption, has lower rates of colon cancer than the US.  Mormons have lower rates of colon cancer than vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists (Cancer Research 1975 35:3513)." (http://www.trit.us/brochures/wapfbrochure.html, http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/35/11_Part_2/3513)