Diet books to feed on for healthy inspiration:

People the world over eat around two to three pounds of food per day (or nearly a ton of food over the course of a year.) While continuing to eat roughly the same bulk poundage of food, Americans increased their calorie intake by 236 a day between 1987 and 1995, the equivalent in theory of an amazing 24 pounds per year. The average American now consumes 27 teaspoons of sugar per day. Since an excess of as little as 15 calories a day can upset the body’s natural weight balance, it is easy to see how the changes in our national diet has lead to trouble.

Fat, after all, provides more than twice the calories per volume weight than protein and carbs do.

Like other Asian cultures, the Owinaka rely heavily on stir-fry cooking that emphasizes vegetables, spices and course grains like brown rice with meat playing a supporting role. But they certainly don’t eliminate meat and in fact put more emphasis on the selection of higher quality meats.

The ultimate dieting advice offered by the authors is more succinctly and compelling stated in Michael Pollan’s latest offering, In Defense of Food, where he writes: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” (Another great quote: “No, a desk is not a table.” For a New York Times review of Pollan’s latest book, CLICK HERE. But doctors studying the Okinawa diet emphasize two key points: 1) Genes are not destiny; much of our current weight problem as a nation is directly tied to bad food availability, choices and habits; and 2) our body’s natural weight balance is a delicate, precarious thing, easily thrown off course by poor eating habits. When that happens, physiological changes tend to snowball and result in significant long-term impacts.

Their research also sheds a cautionary tale about misleading government policies and poor nutritional advice. After going from being the healthiest population on earth (directly attributable to their traditional diets) the next generation of lighter-weight school children were put on a modern “healthy” diet much higher in fats and refined flours. The result is that the young generation of the Owinaka have become among the world’s most overweight. In this sad epilogue, researchers note that diets established in childhood can set the stage for lifelong health challenges.

 

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