Japan is considered to be the country with the highest life expectancy and it has a lot to do with our diet, Washoku. And when we talk about Washoku, it is usually about the exoteric side of Washoku, but there is an esoteric side to it, and without knowing about it, you are missing a significant portion of Japanese wellness.
Whether you are talking about Ogimi village or any other Japanese blue zones, you are looking at people from the general public who happened to live long, they didn’t necessarily have the knowhow of longevity. When you study Japanese health and longevity, there is one element you need to include, that is the esoteric side of our culture seen in Japanese natural medicine or natural philosophy.
The eight factors behind the long lives of the people of Ogimi village apply to Nagano prefecture and Shiga prefecture, which are ranked high in the recent longevity ranking, as well.
Six Reasons Why Washoku is Healthy. Washoku has been registered as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, for the following characteristics.
Diversity and freshness of ingredients, and respect for their inherent flavors.
An exceptionally well-balanced and healthy diet.
An expression of natural beauty and the changing seasons.
Close links with annual events.
One of them is being a well-balanced and healthy diet. In that case, what aspects of Washoku are well-balanced and healthy?
The people in short-lived villages were eating a lot of white rice without vegetables and seaweed, what about the people in long-lived villages? They weren’t eating white rice. Then what were they eating instead?
What were the people in short-lived villages eating, according to Dr. Shoji Kondo the author of Nihon No Chojumura Tanmeimura, Long-Lived Villages and Short-Lived Villages in Japan, who spent 36 years traveling around the island, between 1935 and 1971, visiting 990 villages and towns to investigate the diets of each place?
Dr. Shoji Kondo, the author of Nihon No Chojumura Tanmeimura, Long-Lived Villages and Short-Lived Villages in Japan, spent 36 years traveling around the island, between 1935 and 1971, visiting 990 villages and towns to investigate the diets of each place. He discovered that there were villages where many residents lived long and villages where many residents didn’t live long. He found out that there was a distinct difference between the diets of long-lived villages and short-lived villages.
While it isn’t entirely false, many Japanese people feel a little puzzled by the fact that only Okinawa is spotlighted as the land of longevity. There are other blue zones in Japan. Okinawa isn’t ranked high in the national prefectural life expectancy ranking.
That Sugar Film warns us that even supposedly healthy products contain a lot of sugar and people in the West are exposed to sugar without realizing it. The non-sugar Ikigai Diet can change the dietary culture of the entire planet. In Japan, we don’t eat so much sweet. We don’t have anything sweet for breakfast, such as cereal with sugar, muffins, or pancakes. We don’t have the custom of having dessert after dinner. Even for our tea breaks, we have green tea with pickles, not with cakes or donuts. And yet, we enjoy our life.
New photos of the Print on Demand paperback version of the Ikigai Diet. It is on its way to be published.
