Let's talk about food

The preferred meatPork is important to the Okinawan diet, a food tradition borrowed from the Chinese and preferred, as it is in many island nations, because the land lacks an abundance of grazing land. All part of the pig were used, often preserved in salt so that the meat could provide nourishment for many months. There’s an Okinawan joke that the only thing you cannot use of the pig is the pig’s cry when it’s about to be slaughtered, said Yamada.Rafute is a classic pork dish, in which the meat is simmered for several hours in stock and soy, resulting in a tender soy-glazed pork punctuated with accents of ginger. Numerous pork and vegetable combinations are served with a bowl of rice — for example, pork, goya and eggplant chanpuru, seasoned with miso. Other notable dishes from the pig include pigs feet soup, spare ribs and nakami, or intestine soup.Pork may not be considered good for the body because of the fat, said Yamada. But we almost always cook it with vegetables and tofu; pork is a small portion of the dish. And the meat is generally cooked more than once.Pork also flavors soups for soba dishes, another common dish of Okinawan cuisine, but made with wheat flour rather than buckwheat noodles.

Okinawa - The Island of Pork:Pork appears so frequently in the Okinawan diet that to say "meat" is really to say "pork." Everything from head to tail is used. As the saying has it, only the "oink" and the toenails go begging. It is no exaggeration to say that the present-day Okinawan diet begins and ends with pork.Especially in the case of hogs, what the meat lacks in (vitamin A, D and others), the entrails more than make up for it. The stomach and innards are cooked together in a clear "Nakami" soup. The liver and heart, together with vegetables, make "Motsu" (giblet) dishes. These dishes contain high-quality protein and are rich in vitamins and minerals.We have the belief in Okinawa, based on the philosophy of food as medicine, that when one or more of your internal organs is out of kilter, it is good to eat the same innards of animals. The idea is to eat a food that supplies whatever is lacking.Pig feet and pork with the skin on are washed under boiling water and then simmered and eaten. The skin contains a high-quality protein called collagen.Pork Cuisine:The special feature of pork is how many dishes it is used in. Dishes using pig feet are called "Ashi Tebichi." "Soki" soup is a soup dish with pork spareribs, Konbu, Daikon (Japanese radish), winter gourd and other vegetables. "Rafute" is thick bacon with the skin on, slowly cooked with Awamori. This was originally a preservation technique. Pig's entrails commonly appear in clear Nakami soup. People think that pork is fatty, but if the fat is boiled off before the dish is prepared, this is eliminated.The skin of the ears and snout chopped and dressed with Miso sauce makes pork rind Sashimi, "Aemono." This is crunchy and gives a refreshing sensation when eaten. Aemono is a must on the table with sake and for celebrations.

In the 1980s, a group of researchers from Cornell University carried out a massive dietary survey, covering all 25 of China's farflung provinces, in an effort to determine food consumption and disease patterns. This study is often cited as proof that plant-based diets are healthier than those based on animal foods like meat and milk. Study director T. Colin Campbell claims that the Cornell findings suggest "that a diet high in animal products produces disease, and a diet high in grains, vegetables and other plant matter produces health."12 But the Cornell survey data, when carefully studied, does not support such claims.13What the Cornell researchers discovered was that meat intake in China was highest in the western border region and very low in a number of impoverished areas centering on Sian. They found that meat eaters had lower triglycerides and less cirrhosis of the liverand that they took more snuffbut otherwise they found no strong correlation, either negative or positive, with meat eating and any disease.

And what do Okinawans eat? The main meat of the diet is pork, and not the lean cuts only. Okinawan cuisine, according to gerontologist Kazuhiko Taira, "is very healthyand very, very greasy," in a 1996 article that appeared in Health Magazine.19 And the whole pig is eateneverything from "tails to nails." Local menus offer boiled pigs feet, entrail soup and shredded ears. Pork is cooked in a mixture of soy sauce, ginger, kelp and small amounts of sugar, then sliced and chopped up for stir fry dishes. Okinawans eat about 100 grams of meat per daycompared to 70 in Japan and just over 20 in Chinaand at least an equal amount of fish, for a total of about 200 grams per day, compared to 280 grams per person per day of meat and fish in America. Lardnot vegetable oilis used in cooking.Okinawans also eat plenty of fibrous root crops such as taro and sweet potatoes. They consume rice and noodles, but not as the main component of the diet. They eat a variety of vegetables such as carrots, white radish, cabbage and greens, both fresh and pickled. Bland tofu is part of the diet, consumed in traditional ways, but on the whole Okinawan cuisine is spicy. Pork dishes are flavored with a mixture of ginger and brown sugar, with chili oil and with "the wicked bite of bitter melon."Weston Price did not study the peoples of Okinawa, but had he done so, he would have found one more example to support his conclusionsthat whole foods, including sufficient animal foods with their fatare needed for good health and long life, even in the Orient. In fact, the Okinawan example demonstrates the fallacy of today's politically correct messagethat we should emulate the peoples of China by reducing animal products and eating more grains; rather, the Chinese would benefit by adding more strengthening animal foods to their daily fare.