Japanese Diet

Here is the information I learned from the book Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat.

You need to get the book and read it for yourself. I couldn’t put I down last night and stayed up way too late reading it!

The Statistics:

Japanese women have an obesity rate of 3%.

American women have an obesity rate of 34%.

The life expectancy (at birth) of Japanese women is 86 years.

The life expectancy (at birth) of American women is 80 years.

Seven Secrets from a Tokyo Kitchen:

1. The Japanese diet is based on fish, soy, rice, vegetables, and fruit.
2. The Japanese eat much smaller portions than we do. They serve their food on beautiful, small dishes and focus on presentation.
3. Japanese cooking is super-light and super-gentle. A lot of Japanese homes do not even have ovens. They sauté, steam, or stir-fry a lot of their foods.
4. They eat rice instead of bread with every meal.
5. Japanese women eat power breakfasts! A typical breakfast consists of green tea, steamed rice, miso soup with tofu, small sheets of nori seaweed, and maybe even a small omelet or piece of grilled salmon.
6. Japanese women love their desserts, just like we do. But they do not eat cookies that are 4-5 inches in diameter! They eat fresh sliced fruit for dessert with a cup of green tea (no sweeteners in the tea) to go with it. They will have a small piece of chocolate or a small, bite-sized cookie for dessert sometimes, also.
7. Japanese women have a healthy relationship with food. They do place a high value on thinness, just like American women do, but they do not deny themselves food like we do. For the most part, Japanese women do not practice restrictive dieting, they just eat in this traditional way and as a result, they stay thin and healthy.

An extra Japanese secret: The Japanese exercise throughout the day, naturally. They walk or ride bikes to a lot of their destinations.

The Seven Pillars of Japanese Cooking

1. Fish
2. Vegetables
3. Rice
4. Soy
5. Noodles (buckwheat noodles are the best, according to the author)
6. Tea (green tea)
7. Fruit

These foods make up the core of the Japanese diet. They do have small amounts of beef and chicken. Very small amounts. They eat meat as a side dish or as a condiment.

A typical Japanese meal consists of a bowl of rice, miso or clear soup, and three side dishes. One side dish will probably be fish, and the other two will most likely be vegetables.

This diet will not only keep us thin and healthy, but will help prevent all kinds of diseases, like Alzheimer's disease. My mother-in-law has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's at the age of 59, so this one is close to my heart.

Here is a link to an article about the Japanese diet and Alzheimer's disease.

I am so interested in this way of eating! I know that we can drink green tea, eat less red meat and poultry, add more fish to our diet, and add more brown and white rice to our diet. Adding fruit and vegetables is also something that we can do pretty easily. Soy may be a hard thing to adjust to for me, but I am willing to try it.

Let me know what you all think of this. I am interested in your opinions.

I checked out a Japanese cookbook from the library and I am going to read through it today. I will post some of the recipes if they look yummy!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!