I think it should be quite obvious that the Okinawans must drink quite a fair bit of green tea. Many a times we drink coffee because it is a comfort drink - the feeling of a nice hot drink just makes us happier.The traditional Okinawa diet, with its emphasis on vegetables, whole grains, fruits, legumes (soy foods) and fish with limited amounts of lean meats serves as a model for healthy eating and healthy aging that not only reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease but also helps to minimize free radical production. Free radicals are cell-damaging molecules that are generated mainly by our bodies' metabolism when we create energy from food.
The Okinawan cultural habit of calorie control called hara hachi bu, which means eat only until you are 80% full, plays a role as well as their habit of eating an antioxidant rich plant-based diet. Stopping at 80% capacity is actually a very good strategy to avoid obesity without going hungry because the stomach's stretch receptors take about 20 minutes to tell the body that how full it really is and 20 minutes after stopping you will really feel full.
In Okinawa, Heart Disease rates are 80% lower, and stroke rates lower than in the US. Cholesterol levels are typically under 180, homocystein levels are low and blood pressure at goal levels. Rates of cancer are 50-80% lower - especially breast, colon, ovarian and prostate cancer. Hip fractures are 20% lower than mainland Japanese and 40% lower than in the US. Dementia is rare.
However, Okinawans who adopt Western eating styles have similar rates of heart disease as in the US. Young Okinawans, eating more processed foods, have a higher risk of heart disease than their elderly relatives. A study of 100,000 Okinawans who moved to Brazil and adopted local eating habits, showed a life expectancy 17 years lower than in Okinawa.
