Dear viewers, welcome to a new episode of our program, and today we will be talking about the Okinawan diet. Well, the word Okinawa comes from the island Okinawa, which is in the southern part of Japan, and, as you know, Japan is a series of islands varying in size and shape, and Okinawa is one of these islands.
It has around a million of the population. The good thing about Okinawa or what attracts the world to look at the Okinawans is the longevity. Okinawans live longer life span and there are around thirty four in every hundred thousand pop of the population who are considered centurions.
They live over a hundred years and we try to choose meals or snacks that are high in nutrients, but lower in calories to reduce the risk of chronic disease by this measure. The healthiest foods on the planet, the most nutrient-dense are vegetables, king, the most nutrient bang.
For our caloric buck, so what would happen if a population centered their entire diet around vegetables, they might end up living among the longest lives. Of course, anytime, you hear about long. Living populations have to make sure it’s, validated, as it may be hard to find birth certificates from the 1890s.
The validation studies suggested indeed typically do live that long. The traditional diet no kanawa is based on vegetables beans. Another plan we used to sing the Okinawan diet that represented like this, the base being vegetables, beans and grains for the substantial contribution from fish and other meat, but a more accurate representation would be this look at their actual dietary intake.
We know what they’re eating from the US National Archives, because the US military gran Okinawa to us giving back to Japanese to Japan in 72. If you look at the traditional diets of more than 2,000 Okinawans, this is how it breaks down.
Only 1 % of their diet was fish, less than 1 % of the die was made and the same with eggs and air so was more than 96 percent plant pigs and more than 90 % whole food plant-based very few processed foods either and not just whole Food plant-based, but most their diet was vegetables and one vegetable in particular sweet tooth.
The Okinawan done is scented one purple orange sweepit table. How delicious is that could have been a bitter, gourd or salsa. No so 90 plus percent whole food plant-based makes it a highly anti-inflammatory diet makes it a highly antioxidant diet if you measure the level of their antioxidant activity to the same.
So the extra interactions are getting food diet, vegetables, so 8 to 12 times fewer heart disease deaths to 3 times 4 colon cancer Birds 7 times. So scientists wanted to understand and look into this rather unique phenomena and see what’s happening.
Is it food lifestyle and many scientists have tried to venture into that so, as nutritionists will share with you what Okinawan eat? Perhaps this can help improve our health and lengthen our lifestyle? So the Canal, one diet, is usually characterized by a being lower in calories higher.
In fiber, rich in legumes, and mainly soy, it is usually does not have sugar, so no sugar or no refined sweet and a little bit of red meat and minimal consumption of daily. All these together help make the diet better and what I like about Japan and the Japanese despite the nutrition transition, despite the global change in eating pattern, and even if it’s infiltrating into the community, they are very true to their cultures and to Their eating, so they are maintaining it to a large extent, and this is why probably they are living longer, they stay tuned and he ‘
Ll, go more into the city, [ Music, ], dear viewers. Welcome to the second segment of our episode – and we are talking about the Okinawan diet. We describe the general characteristics of the diet in our previous segment.
Now I’ll talk about specific food items that are there in this diet and their staples there. They’re, like 7 to 8 ingredients that are there from daily basis in the diet and probably rich in health benefits that are supporting the longer lifespan of the population.
So I start with sweet potatoes, so usually sweet potatoes are considered a source of high fiber and carbohydrate. Our canals do not eat as much rice and noodles as much as they eat sweet potatoes. So they’re.
Such source comes from this food item and I ‘ Ll talk a little bit more in our next segment about the health benefits. Joy is another very important component is in this diet. Bitter melon is a third component that is there instead fries and in other preparations in the Okinawan diet.
Shiitake mushrooms are also there, and these are the large brown mushrooms and there is boar dock with which is another plant. I would say there is the jasmine tea. Rather than any other kind of tea and they do consume seaweed as well as well, a fascinating array of herbs and spices that are particular to this part of the world, so these items together usually help in improving their diet, health.
They’re immunes and their nourishment sweet potatoes. They’re known for their deep orange color. Therefore they are good sources of vitamin A or vitamin E vitamin C and they are considered complex carbohydrates.
So it’s. A good choice to replace your carbohydrates, even if not on daily basis, with this kind of carbohydrate, please stay tuned and you’ll know about the health benefits of every single food ingredient.
Welcome to the last segment of our episode and we are talking about the Okinawa diet, which is adopted by people in Japan, and this is particularly to this island and not necessarily the mainland, Japan.
Soy is the source of protein in this diet, so they have soy either than to perform at or in the fermented format, which is the miso paste. It’s really their protein. They don’t eat a lot of meat. They don’t eat a lot of fish, but soy is the source, of course, so it’s known to have a lot of health benefits and flavonoids that really protect against many inflammations and disease.
Also, they do eat seaweed, and this may be a little bit challenging in our community because they have specific seaweeds that they eat. They’re even hard to pronounce, and I don’t know. If I’m going to say them the right way, they have the commune, they have the kojiki and they have the mozuku.
However, we have nori in our part of the world, which is the dried seaweed that really wraps the sushi in a lot of preparations. They do eat jewelry as well, maybe not as much as the other brands. But seaweed is a very healthy food ingredient in the diet because it’s rich in iodine.
It’s rich in many other things like potassium, like folate. So definitely it’s, a good source of micro, minerals and micronutrients. That can be helpful and may not be existing in a lot of our other foods.
They do consume the shitake and we’ve talked in earlier episodes. There are varieties of mushrooms it’s, exactly the big brown kind of mushrooms. They’re, very rich in vitamin d, and they have proteins as well.
So it’s, a good source in the diet as well. They use herbs and spices. Again, they may differ from ours. The two things that were similar to the ones we use are turmeric and fennel, so they’re, put herbs and spices that are to be being used there, but we all know that spices and herbs are full of antioxidants.
So perhaps we can really use ours as well, along with theirs and modify the cuisine, prepare a sort of fusion faculties whose mean with different flavors. Yet they will have exactly the same health benefits.
We’re having as for burdock, which is a plant. It’s, similar in a way to parse lean and to chicory. So if we don’t have that, maybe we can replace them with others and it’s. Easy to really follow this diet, even for a few weeks and try to see whether it really boosts your immune system.
If it makes you feel lighter it’s worth the try. It’s, all natural food items available, and perhaps this will help increase your lifespan. Thank you and hope to see you in another episode.