Recently someone wrote that the Japanese are long lived. When I see things
like that I have to wonder how much is folklore and how much is fact. It is
now known that the Georgians being long lived is just folklore.

In the Fall 1997 issue of the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation Health
Journal there is an article by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig (they are on the
PPNF board) on the T. Colin Campbell China diet study. Here is an excerpt
from page 21:

Before we throw up our hands and decide that no conclusions can be made
about diet and health in China, let us turn our attention to the mixed
peoples of Okinawa, situated equidistant from Hong Kong and Tokyo. The
average lifespan for women in Okinawa is 84 (compared to 79 in America),
and the island boasts a disproportionately large numbers of centenarians.
Okinawans have low levels of chronic illness--osteoporosis, cancer,
diabetes, atherosclerosis and stroke--compared to America, China and Japan,
which allows them to continue to work, even in advanced years. In spite of
Okinawa's horrific role in World War II, as the site of one of the
bloodiest battles of the Pacific, Okinawa is a breezy, pleasant place,
neither crowded nor polluted, with a strong sense of family and community
and where the local people produce much of what they consume.

And what do Okinawans eat? The main meat of the diet is pork, and not the
lean cuts only. Okinawan cuisine, according to gerontologist Kazuhiko
Taira, "is very healthy--and very, very greasy," in a 1996 article that
appeared in "Health Magazine."(19) And the whole pig is eaten--everything
from "tails to nails." Local menus offer boiled pigs feet, entrail soup and
shredded ears. Pork is cooked in a mixture of soy sauce, ginger, kelp and
small amounts of sugar, then sliced and chopped up for stir fry dishes.
Okinawans eat about 100 grams of meat per day--compared to 70 in Japan and
just over 20 in China--and at least and equal amount of fish, for a total
of about 200 grams per day, compared to 280 grams per person per day of
meat and fish in America. Lard--not vegetable oil--is used in cooking.

Okinawans also eat plenty of fibrous root crops such as taro and sweet
potatoes. They consume rice and noodles, but not as the main component of
the diet. They eat a variety of vegetables such as carrots, white radish,
cabbage and greens, both fresh and pickled. Bland tofu is part of the diet,
consumed in traditional ways, but on the whole Okinawan cuisine is spicy.
Pork dishes are flavored with a mixture of ginger and brown sugar, with
chili oil and with "the wicked bite of bitter melon."

Weston Price did not study the peoples of Okinawa, but had he done so, he
would have found one more example to support his conclusions--that whole
foods, including sufficient animal foods with their fat, are needed for
good health and long life, even in the Orient. In fact, the Okinawan
example demonstrates the fallacy of today's politically correct
message--that we should emulate the peoples of China by reducing animal
products and eating more grains; rather, the Chinese would benefit by
adding more strengthening animal foods to their daily fare.

(19) Deborah, Franklyn, "Take a Lesson from the People of Okinawa," Health,
September 1996, pp 57-64