The Okinawa Diet

The Okinawa diet is a diet that is based on the diet of one of the longest lived populations in the world – that of Okinawa, a region in Japan. It’s a diet that contains no milk or milk products, is low in fat, and low in animal foods in general, with fish being the animal food that is most eaten. It’s also high in carbohydrate and has approximately 10 servings (!) of fruit and vegetables a day.

The Okinawa lifestyle is also of note. Okinawans drink little alcohol (1 to 2 units a day) and get plenty of exercise, with martial arts practise being common. Smoking is not common in Okinawa, either. A very healthy lifestyle.

Low Calorie Density Foods In The Okinawa Diet

In the book “The Okinawa Diet”, a book that explains how to follow an Okinawa style diet, the calorie density of foods is emphasised. Fruit and vegetables are very low calorie density foods, and carbohydrate foods such as rice are lower calorie density than fatty foods such as meat. As many people take up a diet to lose weight, it’s nice to know that if you eat more lower calorie density foods, you’ll feel full on less calories.

You’ll also be able to consume more nutrients, which must be an important reason why Okinawans are both relatively slim and live long.

Vegetables In The Okinawa Diet

To eat a low calorie density diet like the Okinawan’s native diet, add plenty of vegetables to your plate – make them at least as large a volume as your filling (carbohydrate or fatty) foods. They can be steamed or otherwise cooked, or they could comprise a raw salad for the extra health properties of raw food. Learn to love vegetables as much as you used to love meat. There is a lot of pleasure to be gotten from their various colours, subtle flavours, and satisfying textures. Best of all, there are hundreds of vegetables to choose from, and you can surprise yourself with a different meal every day.

You can also add sea vegetables (seaweed) to your diet, which is a staple of the Okinawa diet. Sea vegetables are a source of iodine and can be quite tasty. There are a lot of varieties to choose from. Try adding kombu to a rice dish for a fleshy vegetable-like substance, or wakame to a miso soup for a silky, melt-in the mouth texture and a subtle, unforgettable taste.

Fruit In The Okinawa Diet

The Okinawans eat an average of 3 servings of fruit per day too. It’s probably healthy (well I’ll be honest – I’m a fruit fanatic) to eat more than that – but if you’re not eating that much, increase your fruit intake as soon as possible! A great tactic which many use is to have fruit for breakfast. Most of us naturally feel like a light meal for breakfast so it’s generally not hard. Don’t worry about the sugar in fruit as it’s a healthy form of sugar, and eat as much as you want to or can – there is no limit to how much fruit it’s healthy to eat.

It’s also a good idea to make fruit a snack when you’re not sitting down to a full meal. It’s quick to grab and eat, and this way you can create a habit that fills you up with extra fruit.

Meat And Animal Products In The Okinawa Diet

Finally, I’d say watch your meat and animal foods intake if you’re trying for the Okinawa diet. The total weight of animal foods (including eggs and fish) in the Okinawa diet comes to just 14%. This means that you won’t even eat animal foods every day.

With meat, poultry and eggs coming to only 3% of this, the Okinawa diet is pretty much a pescatarian vegetarian diet. It’s also interesting to note that there is no milk in the diet.

While there are little or no 100% vegan populations in the world, it’s noted that the incidence of disease varies according to the amount of animal foods consumed in each place. After years of research, including research of populations in China, Colin Campbell concluded in The China Study that a vegan diet is the healthiest. (To check out this book, see the bottom of the page for a link to Amazon).

The Okinawa diet may not be a vegan diet, but it’s actually one of the closest things among traditional, regional diets there is to a vegan diet – something which is overlooked in the Western interpretations of the diet, which normally suggest to eat more fish. Okinawans may eat more fish, but they eat much less animal food overall! And as fish is more similar to meat than it is to vegetables, this may well be the more important conclusion to take from this. For comparison, Eskimos eat massive amounts of fish but have one of the shortest documented lifespans.

The Okinawa Diet

Thanks for reading this article about the Okinawa diet. Try reading my site about healthy diet for more interesting health tips (as well as tips about how to live more consciously in general), and check out my other articles on this site too by clicking on my author name at the top of the article.

Finally, if you’re very interested in the Okinawa diet you may want to get the book: The Okinawa Diet. May your health be ever improving!