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

I have highly recommended this book to a number of my friends and family. The well documented information on diet, exercise and social and religious support presented was very interesting.As an engineer who understands statistical analysis, I continue to find it unfortunate that a country like America has a tendency to disregard thousands of years of empirical evidence and instead relies on better living though modern chemisty and surgical procedures to handle many health issues that could have been avoided through simple prevention.My hope is that information like this becomes mainstream in the US, which will make it a lot easier for everyone eat healthier. I would like to share a few thoughts on the profound ramifications something like this could have on us. The social impact of this is a lot larger than our individual health.Imagine how much better our lives would be if 3/4 of our loved ones that we were going to lose to cancer, heart disease and other ailments never got sick to begin with.Imagine how much more productive we would be with less sick days and a higher quality of life. (There are clear economic gains here as well)Imagine not having to worry about your parents loosing their faculties, and maintaining their independence until the end, and what great assets the elderly could be to us rather than often being incapacitated and with a low quality of life. I believe that we as a nation would show them more respect if they could share their experience and abilities with us.Imagine how we could ignore this information for the sake of social conformity, convenience, and an unwillingness to change.

While this book was written a decade ago, the information is relevant to the Western diet and lifestyle today. The authors have MD's and PH.D's and studied the population in Okinawa for years using an evidence-based scientific approach. The diet is clearly healthy and something my cardiologist has been teaching me for several years. I learned a great deal from the section on herbs - not just what to eat but why. The section on stress focuses on ways to minimize the damage from a modern lifestyle. The recipes at the end are designed to be feasible for those of us in the West, which is both good and bad. I checked the book out of my local library for a test run, but bought it immediately.

I liked this book, even if it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I really want actual Asian food recipes -- I live close enough to a major metropolitan area that I could probably source most items if desired. The book provides a "West"-adapted diet, and an "East-West"-adapted diet -- the latter remains more West than East. And therefore IS NOT what the traditional Okinawans eat. I understand the concerns of some reviewers who didn't understand some of the East-foods included here -- they probably live where they cannot find those foods easily at all. But -- from my standpoint -- I want to see a fully East-adapted diet; what the traditional Okinawans actually eat! For the sake of all interested readers, a full lineup from fully Western-adapted to fully Okinawan/East-adapted set of recipes would have served me better.I am also disheartened that they downplay fats in this book -- from what I have heard, the Okinawans eat pork fairly regularly -- no, certainly not as much meat as in the Standard American Diet, but they do eat it. Meats they eat are almost certainly NOT factory-farmed -- no mention of the benefits of how animals are raised are brought up in this book. (Healthy fats come from healthy sources...)It's a long book, and it is not all about diet... there's a lot of really important material in here relating to stress management and daily living, which is the only reason I've tipped my rating to 4 stars instead of 3. (Despite several hesitancies.) This book is a start, but I'm waiting for a more definitive sequel...

This is not just a book about diet. It is also about sports, lifestyle, spirituality, attitude, family and community support. The Okinawans do everything we do not. They accept aging and death naturally. As a result, they are scared of neither, and age incredibly gracefully. Their lifespan is a lot longer than ours. And, they typically remain fully capable and active until they pass away. All their life signs remain much healthier and vibrant than ours through old age. This is regardless of the indicator you choose. Their respective cholesterol levels, blood pressure, gender hormone levels (testosterone for male, estrogen for female), muscle mass, BMI index are all much better than Americans. They achieve this with no prescription drugs, few supplements if at all, fewer doctors visits, including far fewer surgical interventions. When you are healthy and stay that way you don't need that much medical support.As described above, The Okinawa Program is the best way to reduce our rampant U.S. healthcare cost. But, it also may be the most unrealistic, because it relies on self discipline and spirituality. In America, most people are not interested in eating a healthy diet and exercising to lower their cholesterol and look young. They would rather take prescription drugs, growth hormones, and have cosmetic surgery. And, that is how our medical costs keep on skyrocketing.But now, thanks to The Okinawa Program you can emulate this superior lifestyle with its wonderful benefit that no magic pill will ever deliver. And, it is virtually free.

A little more extensive than I had imagined, not something I will have on my bedside table for bedtime reading, but chock full of wonderful dietary information and recipes. Much of it is common sense regarding lifestyle.

excellent book

`The Okinawa Program' is an excellent book about the lifestyle of the worlds longest living group of people. It is extremely easy to read and although it is heavily aimed at an American audience (with charts that mainly compare America to the Okinawan people and another terrible American book cover that treats the readership like an idiot and spells everything out with numerous sub-titles) it has so much fascinating and useable information that this kept me engrossed throughout.This starts off by exploring longevity around the world and introduces the Okinawan study before looking at the Okinawan diet in more detail. It explains what they eat and in what amounts and what herbs and healing foods they eat. This has a revised nutrition pyramid that is easy to follow and a large chart listing foods that are beneficial to your diet. It also explains and demystifies a great deal about fats and carbohydrates in your diet. But more than just being a book about nutrition, this also looks at other aspects of the Okinawan lifestyle that has an impact on long life. These include spiritual beliefs, stress reduction and exercise. This finishes up with a four week plan to integrate these ideas into your own life and 100 recipes to use to keep things interesting and easy to implement.Although this is a book specifically about the Okinawans diet, this is also a book about nutrition in general. It has lots of complimentary information to ground the Okinawa diet in scientific fact, various case studies to show how this lifestyle can actually have an impact and it shows how the food plan makes for an all round healthy diet that is expounded (in various ways) by numerous health bodies around the world.This is one of those books that, if implemented in your own life, could change the way you live and feel and whilst I already did some of the things in this book, the minor tweaking I have done based on this has already made me feel that little bit fitter and healthier. If you are new to nutrition and are researching a healthier lifestyle, I really can't recommend this book enough. It covers many facets of a healthy life, including food, social supports, spiritual health, physical fitness and stress reduction and it is an excellent all round healthy lifestyle plan. What is really good is that all this information is collated in one book and is based upon scientific research (all referenced in the back) that is easy to read and implement in your life. Simply superb.Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.

This is an excellent book. I've bought it when I became interested in healthy living. It gives you advices not only on diet and food but on other life choices as well.I've found the section on specific food products and their influence on our health and various deceases to be very useful. I believe it is even more useful than the end section with recipes. If you study the first section of the book well enough, you will be able to choose healthy products from your own superstore.Overall, recommended for anyone who wants to learn more about healthy living, diet differences between the East and the West and what kind of impact it has on our health.

detailed, varied, comprehensive, good