The Okinawa Program: How the World's Longest-Lived People Achieve Everlasting Health--And How You Can Too [Paperback]

First, the Okinawans are almost certainly NOT the longest lived people on the earth. The authors came to this conclusion by citing worldwide demographic studies calculating the number of people who live to be 100 years old per 100,000 population. Okinawa is at the top of this chart - but this does not mean they are the longest lived people on the planet. The authors nowhere mention in their book the fact that the Okinawan centarians were in their late 40s during the Battle of Okinawa in April, 1945. Civilian casualities in the Typhoon of Bombs and Steel are estimated at greater than 50%. So what? The select Okinawans who survived this battle and the years of semi starvation consequent to the Battle were naturally stronger than those who did not. That a greater *percentage* of these people have survived to 100 reflects the harrowing of the weak members of that generation as much as their hardihood and lifestyle. It should also be noted that before and since the US 'restored' Okinawa to Japanese control in 1970 (the Okinawans are racially and culturally alien to the Japanese who are in effect an occupying country as they were in the 19th century - no suggestion of this in the book either!)there has been a tragic 'brain drain' and exodus from the archipelago; every young person of talent flees the country keeping their population artificially low and further skewing demographics. There are some really healthy old people on the island; any attempt to say there are a disproportionate number of them without factoring battle casualities/natural selection and brain drain into the calculations is deceptive at best.

Two, the authors only mention in an aside that the Okinawan program no longer exists on the island except in the memories and lifestyles of the venerable elders there. Okinawans under 50, the authors report, have "the highest level of obesity in Japan, the worst cardiovascular risk factor profile, and the highest risk of premature death" (p.49). The people most in need of learning the Okinawan program, sadly, are the Okinawans themselves. When we lived there, my wife had to import whole grains, the heart of this program, from the States because it was unavailable on the island except in medicinal packages; to the Okinawans, wanting to eat *genmai* or brown rice was a sign of ill health and only to be eaten at that time. Eating the Okinawan Program way is associated with war time austerities and deprevation - and avoided like the plague.

My third reservation explains this generation gap. The authors spend the entire book talking in categories that modern Okinawans understand (the sick ones) but which would be nonsense to the old folks we are supposed to emulate. The authors speak the language of chemical nutrition and psychospiritual categories that are concepts none of the older Okinawans use in their food or lifestyle choices. They are a traditional, that is, theocentric culture whose every decision is made in light of their religious/family obligations, from food choices to the clothes they wear. Their physics or natural science (a yin yand Taoism) reflects their metaphysics. This is nowhere mentioned in the book, though it means that this tropical way of life will work for you only if you live in a tropical environment (most of us do nowadays because of central heating and AC), understand food qualities rather than nutritional component quantities, and live in an Amish like worship community - with karate dojo's! Again, as the authors admit, this way of life is lost on the younger Okinawans who are the heaviest and sickest population on the pacific rim.

But, hey, the program the authors recommend is a good one! I have to marvel that they spent 25 years (really 6! for the data used in the book)on the study of Battle of Okinawa survivors, however, when the program they recommend is available in Andrew Weil's books (the authors know his integrative medicine well and have only re-packaged it here with a Okinawan face - Weil even writes the introduction!) and Dean Ornish's writings. If you need to believe there is a Shrangri-La Diet Program, this book is a well packaged program for you. But don't imagine that time in Okinawa will be of any help in your recovery; Naha, Koza, and Nago are some of the nastiest cities in Japan. If you want paradise or some vestige of the lifestyle described in this book, go to the outer islands, of which Miyako is probably the most accessible.

For help with the food they recommend, buy Macrobiotic cookbooks and go to Macrobiotic cooking classes. I give the book such a low rating because of the deceptiveness of its central premise (Okinawan longevity), the misrepresentation of Okinawa as it is, and its projection of scientism onto the traditional lifestyle and relationships of its old people as the reason for their survival. Read Dean Ornish's Love and Survival or anything by Andrew Weil for a more honest and applicable way to improve your health. Anything by Michio Kushi and his students will bring you closer to Okinawan eating than this book (if you'll have to add bitter melon - definitely an acquired taste!).