Customer Reviews

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

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I lived in Okinawa for four years and have studied nutrition and worked as a dietary counselor for fifteen years. With these credentials, I heartily recommend the Okinawan program but I cannot encourage you to buy this book without sharing three big reservations and misgivings.

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!).

The recommendations of the Okinwa Program repeat information that has been available for a long time. The benefits of low-fat, low-calorie diets, exercise, and reducing stress are well known. This is just one more book for the already overloaded shelf of self-help books. It might be interesting to compare life-expectancy of Okinawans BEFORE World War II with this data, as it necessarily excludes members of the same generation who died of malnutrition, illness, accident, or war-time incidents before that time.

One of the major "findings" in this book was that Okinawans consumed very little saturated fat (meaning fat containing saturated fatty acid [SFA]), and this was supposed to be a major benefit. The main oil used in cooking was said to be canola oil. Since canola oil is a recent invention, becoming common only in the last 20 years in Canada and the USA, it could hardly have been a benefit to Okinawans who are now very old.
My co-workers at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Mignon S. Adams and David C. Geliebter, spent a month in Okinawa recently, with special attention on food. They did not see any canola oil in use. The common oils were peanut (16% SFA), soybean (15% SFA), rapeseed (1% SFA) and lard (44% SFA). Data are mostly from Mary C. Enig, Know Your Fats, Bethesda Press, 2000.
The Okinawans also eat significant amounts of pork and moderate amounts of chicken, both of which contain considerable SFAs. There is no unbiased evidence that SFAs are unhealthful (Taubes G, Science 2001:291:2536-2545).
This was confirmed by Stephen C. Byrnes, who lives in Honolulu, HI, and has friends raised in Okinawa. They ate fish, rice and vegetables, but pork and lard "...have always been the mainstay of this people's diet". Sally Fallon and Mary C. Enig quoted an Okinawan professor who wrote that the Okinawan diet was "greasy and good".
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The glycemic index table was incomplete, missing all the good foods that have very low glycemic indices that diabetics can eat, such as nuts, cheese, fats, oils, and meat. Diabetics have been punished for decades by being handed tables such as this where they might assume that foods not included should not be eaten. Nuts, in particular, despite their carbohydrate content, have very low glycemic indices, and high nut consumption is strongly associated with longer lifespan (Hu FB et al., British Medical J. 1998:317:1341-5).
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These authors seem to have had a hidden agenda. This book is certainly not recommended.

This book claims to be an accurate presentation of the "Okinawan Diet," but the elements of that supposed diet are a far cry from reality. I live in Hawaii where there is a large Okinawan community (including first, second, third, etc., generations) and I have many friends who were raised in Okinawa. Believe me: Their diet is anything but "low-fat" as this book claims.

Okinawans are known for their preference for fatty pork and they principally use lard in their cooking--nothing low fat here I can assure you. They do eat vegetables, rice, fish, and those delicious purple potatoes, but the mainstay of Okinawan cuisine is pork.

This book is simply a politically correct re-writing of the actual evidence done by the Spin Doctors of modern nutrition. You're better off getting Fallon & Enig's book "Nourishing Traditions," or Allan and Lutz' book "Life Without Bread."

CAVEAT EMPTOR!

My attempt to expose the falseness of this piece of new age nonsense and save potential buyers from wasting their money has been buried a couple of times by Amazon.com. First, maybe after it became clear that my review was reducing sales, they buried it by placing above it a long piece of work purporting to give the overall spirit of readers' opinions. Then, conveniently, a few days later a hit job of a review appeared to repudiate what I said, not by addressing any points I made, but by carrying out a long personal attack on me. To those of you who understand the principles of discourse and debate, that is an ad hominem, and to all of us it is a classic fallacy employed by politicians and others who cannot refute a critic's argument, thus go after the person, instead. We all know what mud slinging is. That reviewer, a woman living in Tokyo, proclaims that she once wrote a thesis on Okinawa, then proceeds to attack me personally for most of her review, completely ignoring the perfectly valid criticisms of the book that my review makes. The book simply DOES NOT present much hard science, though by its title and advertising it gives the false impression that it does. Dr. Suzuki's work gets short shrift--too little of that and too much of the others' dreamy nonsense.

As for the hit woman's review of me and not the book, well, I state up front in my original review, which follows this update, that I lived in Okinawa for three years and made a lot of Okinawan friends while I was there. From that experience, and from living in Japan for the past fifteen years, I can see a lot of glaring errors and nonsense in the book. It is as simple as that. I was not in Okinawa, as she imputes, on some sort of exotic life experience--as if that would invalidate any opinion I might have; I was there as a soldier, an officer in 1st Group, U.S. Army Special Forces, from July 1970 through May 1973 and then, after my release from the US Army, stayed on as a civilian to help some Okinawan and Japanese friends with a business start-up until the end of 1973. But lest the lady come back to say that my having been there as a soldier also tainted my experience and that my opinions are somehow again invalid, it should be noted that I chose to live "on the economy," as living among the native populace was called by the military. I had to put up with a lot of guff from fellow soldiers and my superiors for my unconventional behavior, but I never have regretted it.

To address one of the lady's attacks on me, I am well aware of the proud tradition of martial arts in the Ryukyu Islands. In fact, as a military practitioner of one form of bare handed self-defense closely related to Okinawa's deservedly famed and respected Shorin Ryu (Okinawan Karate) I did have occasion to visit Okinawan dojos from time to time as a friendly guest, and later I was an occasional guest in an Okinawan friend's dojo in the San Francisco area for years after I got out of the military.

As for the depth of my acquaintanceship with Okinawans, of which the lady opines that it must have been shallow and perfunctory: Even in San Francisco, for years after I left Okinawa, I counted second and third generation Okinawan Americans among my good friends, probably because we shared cultural interests and influences. In fact, it was only two weeks ago (today is 21 February 2002) that I finally perfected a melt-in-your-mouth tender, glazed, roasted hog belly recipe that replicates a gastronomic wonder a small sample of which a chef friend proudly offered to me one day when I dropped by while he was preparing a big wedding banquet. He never would tell me his recipe, and it has taken me thirty years to replicate it. It should be noted, too, that as a student of ceramic arts I had the priviledge of working on my own projects from time to time at an empty wheel at a production pottery factory near my house on Okinawa. I worked on my own stuff, not imitations of Okinawan pottery, though I often talked ceramics with the master of the house and had the privilege of collecting a few good pieces of Okinawan pottery. I have eaten fresh killed goat sashimi on the beach with Okinawan friends during a solemn observance of an ancient rite of purification and sacrifice in a fishing village on the weather side of the island and sat almost until dawn talking politics with an elderly village chief (now deceased) on a remote island of the Ryukyu Archipelago (Okinawa's island chain) who came to be in that place after deserting the Imperial Navy right after the Battle of Okinawa, near the end of WWII. That was a secret that only he and his villagers knew; he was Japanese by birth, he had been a junior naval officer and he had been adopted into a village family that had no male heir, allowing him to stay in a place he loved and to avoid punishment by the military. He was careful to ensure that the Japanese fellow accompanying me had fallen sound asleep before telling me about it. And, as for the traditional Okinawan dancing the lady is sure I have not experienced, I cannot count the number of times I have been invited by Okinawans, even total strangers, to take part with them in their communities' dancing. And I managed to attend the full Eisa Dance Festival finals during two of the four summers I spent in Okinawa. Okinawan music still creates a deep resonance within me. I counted among my Okinawan friends people of all varieties, including another village chief, this one in a fishing village on the main island, and people such as a chicken farmer and his family, a young engineer and his family, a professor at the University of the Ryukyu, my barber in Kadena City--NOT on a military base, my landlord and her extensive family, a tropical fish research scientist and supplier to labs all over the world, and on and on...

Do I have to go on to prove to someone who has attacked me that I genuinely lived AMONG Okinawans and communicated closely and personally with them on a daily basis for over three years? Please understand that I do not relate these things out of snobbery or to show how my opinion is better than others, but only to answer someone who has ranted about how I must be some weird, self-proclaimed, but false, "guru" or "expert" on Okinawa just because I said innocently that I had lived there. It is certain that I grew to like the people of Okinawa very much, and I know very well that they have a healthy lifestyle, but the reasons for their good health can be summed up in one sentence, as I do below in my original review. Furthermore, it should be noted that, quite to the contrary of what the Japanese attack woman speculates, I speak and understand some of the variety of accents and dialects of the Japanese language, including enough Ryukyu Hogen (the dialect and almost separate language of Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands). The latter, respect for people and a good attitude, made me welcome in some places where foreigners, including Japanese, would not normally be welcome. The lady even attacks me for living now, as my wife and I do, in a remote mountain village in Japan. Is it more virtuous to live in a Japanese city? What does it matter where I live today? My wife and I live here, not out of some desire for the exoticness of it all as the lady would have it, but simply because the air and water are relatively clean, the nights are quiet, you can still leave your doors unlocked, the people are much more open and enjoyable than the traumatized denizens of Japanese Blade Runner cities, and there is abundant, beautiful material for the landscape portion of my painting. And no, Tokyo Hit Woman, I am not some diletante, some superficial imitator of Japanese arts of the past; I am a simple working artist who makes his living by his hands in the Western style art he grew up with and in which he was educated. And, by the way, it is only in this remote place that my wife and I could afford to buy land and build our own house, something we are at last able to do after fifteen years.

Please, all of you who read this, be clear on one thing: that I have a lot of respect for the Okinawan people and their culture. I in no part of my review express any criticism of them or their culture. Instead, I am critical of a book that misleads. I do not deserve the personal attacks. Let the facts speak for themselves. Please now read the original text of my criticism, as follows:

First, I should note that I lived in Okinawa for three enjoyable years, made numerous Okinawan friends and got to know some about the people and their culture. That said, I can tell you to save your money. This book exploits the name of Okinawa, throws out some details of Okinawan culture and lifestyle, leads you to believe it is filled with results from Suzuki's research, but presents next to no hard science and a whole lot of new age self-help puffery. I almost laughed out loud as the authors repeatedly made outrageous claims about the healthy lifestyle of the Okinawan people based on a few anecdotal accounts and a whole lot of imaginative conjecture. Did I ever see older Okinawans out, practicing Tai Chi or Karate or any other martial art for exercise or anything else? No! Ask the average Okinawan about Tai Chi and you are likely to get nothing more than a puzzled look. The same is true of a very large part of the book's contents. Aditionally, the authors never mention the fact that in several other prefectures of Japan the average lifespan of citizens is within months of the figures given for Okinawans, yet the diet, environment and lifestyle in those other places are quite different from those in Okinawa. They do seem to have one thing in common--relative poverty. Be somewhat impoverished, but not grindingly poor, eat a wide variety of fresh food, but do not overeat, get plenty of exercise, tipple a little, if you must, and relax! That is about all you get in the way of real advice from this book. Good advice, but it can be had free. You have just gotten that, so why buy?

And now, as part of my update to this review, I would like to address a couple of other things I have seen in other reviews. Some people are troubled by the authors' reference to canola oil and cite the fact that it has only been in vogue in the Americas for a decade or so. Canola is, as someone suggested in his review, a refinement of rapeseed oil, which has been in use in Asia and the rest of the Old World for a long, long time. Despite any recent research that may show rapeseed oil to have potentially harmful ingredients, its long term use has had no discernible adverse effect on the health of the people, either of Japan or of Okinawa. And for those of you who wonder at how Okinawans could eat pork and pork fat, and use lard, well, more and more it becomes apparent that people who consume those things, but not much sugar and other refined carbohydrates, can do so with little or no ill effect. It is even being argued now by some that theirs is a more healthy way to eat if you want to have a low rate of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer--and a long life--as the Okinawans do.

The authors write that each day, the average Okinawan eats seven servings of fruits and vegetables, seven servings of grains, and two servings of tofu. Fish is eaten two or three times per week. During the first week, the "Everlasting Health" menu includes 5 servings of fish, 7 servings of poultry, pork, beef, and 12 servings of dairy. ...

Okinawans eat just two-three servings of fish each week, and little or no milk, dairy or meat. Midway through the book, a the authors include a mention of Okinawan "power foods" containing protective phytochemicals. This list of antioxidant-rich foods includes tofu, miso, carrots, tea, goya melon, konbu (dried kelp), cabbage, nori (dried seaweed), bean sprouts, raw soybeans, sweet potatoes, and peppers. Unfortunately, the authors did not have the vision or the culinary expertise to include these foods in their "Four Weeks to Everlasting Health" diet.

With diet, it's not what you eat, but what you don't eat that becomes the critical factor towards achieving and maintaining good health.

Seems to me that the authors missed the critical points of their important work and their conclusions, based upon their suggested menus are less than pathetic.

This book is incredible. It always amazed me that so many people in a country like ours, with the latest medical technology, are so sickly and have so many ongoing, chronic health problems. Well, this book gives the answers. In an easy to understand style, it emphasizes the importance of healthy eating (less meat, avoiding fad diets), exercise, and inner peace. I especially liked the part about the strong yet easygoing personalities of the centurians, and how their spirituality contributed to their long lives. It made me realize how totally screwed up our lives are, despite the latest technological advances, and how much we need to slow things down, learn to relax, and rely on discipline and our own power rather than neglecting our health and then relying on advanced medicine to fix it. It was refreshing to learn that the health problems of old age are not inevitable - we can combat them, and live long and happy lives. I would recommend this book to everyone.

This is the BEST health book I have ever read and one of the nicest benefits of eating this way is the weight (mostly FAT!!) that I have lost. I have been heavy all my life. My doctor told me it was genetic and that I am "big-boned" (whatever that means)and that I should just be happy with my weight but I just couldn't accept that. I tried the Atkins Diet and lost 20 pounds but I felt weak, tired and cranky and nearly bit my husband's head off on several occasions. I cried when I gained every pound back within 2 weeks, when I went off the Atkin's diet, it was SO discouraging. I have tried EVERY diet you can think of, from low fat to low carb but nothing seemed to work until I found the Okinawa Program. The best thing was that I didn't feel hungry or deprived despite eating fewer calories and I feel and look so much better. Even cellulite from my thighs has disappeared and that has NEVER happened for me before. Perhaps even better is that I have kept the weight off for 6 months now and there seems to be a stronger bond between my husband, my family and me. I think it's because I FINALLY FEEL GOOD ABOUT MYSELF! My doctor could not believe it when he saw how I look now and is now recommending the Okinawa Program to ALL his patients.

Good book. I recommend it. But you need something more for it to work. Something else to get you on and stay on such a diet. The Okinawans are able to live well on a diet of up to 40% less calories than the average Japanese. And get all the health benefits and great longevity. But they have the support of their culture and community and lifestyle.

There's none of this for most Americans and people in Europe. That's why in addition to this book, I recommend The ImmorTalist Manifesto (available on Amazon). It is a perfect companion to this book. And will give you the powerful philosophy needed to get on and stay on a diet like The Okinawan Diet.

The ImmorTalist Manifesto is by Elixxir, described by Marilyn Much of Investor's Business Daily as "the only anti-aging guru who has actually stayed young." Visit Elixxir's website and see his pic. Seeing is believing!

I read the review by John Granger on August 19, 2003 called "Good Program but Not Okinawan". It was hard to believe that he and I are talking about the same book or that he actually lived in Okinawa since his review seemed so ill informed.

I have studied nutrition and met many of the healthy elders in Okinawa and indeed still live there. My guess is that he never got off the US Army base and met any of the healthy elders or travelled to the northern villages to see the natural beauty of Okinawa and share meals and stories with the elders. If he had he would have noticed that the lifestyle described in the Okinawa Program still exists but mostly in those healthy elders.

It is based in the philosphy of "nuchi gusui" which can be loosely translated as "food is medicine." I can't tell you how often I have heard that phrase since coming to this beautiful place. The point the Drs. Willcox and Suzuki were making was to emulate the lifestyle of the elders- not that of the youth in Okinawa.

Regarding longevity, it is well known among the Japanese that the Okinawans not only have more healthy centenarians but a longer life expectancy in general--that's precisely why there are so many centenarians. The oldsters just keep on going. It is also well known in Japan that Okinawa has what is called a U-turn migration pattern. People leave but they come back so lack of younger age groups in the population doesn't explain the high percentage of centenarians either. Also there is no longer a mass migration outward as in the old days (which would actualy have lowered the numbers of people who might have lived to one hundred) so that doesn't explain it either. Okinawans also have the highest birth rate in Japan so have HIGH numbers of very young people so that actually lowers the relative centenarian prevalence versus other Japanese.

Nor did the war cull all the weak from the population. Bullets and bombs killed most people, and these do not differentiate between weak and strong but are equally deadly to both. However, Granger does make one good point. That the deprivation before and after the war may have helped people live longer. Of course, he could have just looked up that point in the Okinawa Program, since the authors clearly state that a simple, low-calorie traditional diet helped with their longevity. The elders eat mainly plant foods, like sweet potatoes, other vegetables, tofu and very small amounts of lean meat and fish, which is a quite delicious way to eat and very likely contributes to their famed longevity through "caloric restriction" mechanisms.

A recent scientific report in the journal "Science" by David Sinclair's research group at Harvard showed that flavonoids, which appear in the Okinawan diet in higher quantitites than perhaps anywhere else, extended lifespan in their experiment by 70%! Perhaps Mr. Granger can chew on that for awhile. The Okinawan elders have been doing so and look what it did for them!