What about the traditional diet of the Japanese?

As I read through all the reports, pros and cons, and medical and personal accounts, no one seems to mention the Japanese.
Until post-WWII, the Japanese diet consisted mainly of rice (unrefined), vegetables, fish, soy products (miso, natto, soybeans), eggs, seaweed, and little meat. Very little fat, heavily dependant on rice, no dairy, no sugar or refined foods, and seemingly one of the most nutritional diets in history. Heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and negative effects of menopause were exceptions in Japan until the West introduced their diet in the late 1940's. As it is today, the numbers of ill-health and disease are rising yearly with the popularity of McDonalds and processed foods. I would challenge anyone to find a doctor who does not give medical approval to this diet, with the possible exception that it may be too high in sodium for some people due to the shoyu/soy sauce.

What about it? Why does this rice-based diet successfully go against the LC WOE/WOL?

I am completely intrigued to why this diet seems 'out of the loop.'

Thanks!

Actually someone does address it. From Protein Power Lifeplan by the Eades:



From the footnone:




Nat

well, I'd say that the the traditional Japanese diet is no more an anomaly than ANY traditional diet. While I don't have the statistics in front of me, the pre-industrial European or American diets were certainly higher in fat and vegetables than in refined sugars and starches with obesity, diabetes and heart disease rates lower. Now this has many, many causes and reasons, including more strenous/physical lives, shorter life-spans overall, less pollution and chemicals, etc. But the pre-WWII diet of Americans was much different than it is today, too. Where did the rice fit in in Japan? Where did the cornbread or biscuits fit in in America? Where did the pasta fit in in Italy? On the side...
The meat has always been the main course. And, since my field of expertise is still with anthropology, I will still argue that even in Asia, domestication of grains in the form of rice didn't happen until about 7000 years ago, compared with the last 4 million years of human evolution without it. Even people from Asia are not biologically equipped to handle the quantities of carbohydrates involved with bowlful after bowlful of rice or any other starch.
Moderation of carbs with a highly active life and human preference for protein is probably the secret to any traditional diet.

Thanks, Nat and Speck!

Nat, the first argument I have read before, but the Chinese diet is different than the Japanese , just as it is differing from the diets of Korea, Laos, or Australia. That is why I really picked up on the argument because no one had specifically addressed this specific diet. I also noticed that the Eades' report was based on the 1999 Heart and Stroke Statistical Update published annually by the American Heart Association, whereas I am focusing on the traditional diet, not the modern one rife with all the sugar and refined flours. I must add that the figures in Japan are also dismal for health in connection to modern diet.

In the second point, speck is exactly correct in saying that studies must be just as reliant upon the factors of genetics/heredity, lifestyle (including stress factors and exercise), and environment as it is upon diet. As speck also mentions, there are several cases of indigenous populations that have suffered healthwise due to radical changes in diet through outside influences. Specifically, reports may be studied on the cultures of the Inuit, Pacific Islanders, former and present rainforest tribal members of Brazil, and of nomads of the Russian steppes. I specifically picked Japan, though, because of the extensive studies which rely upon several sources: ethnographic study, historical reports from within Japan and by foreign sources, and medical documentation.

speck offered the question:


This is untrue for the traditional Japanese diet, where rice plays a larger role, approximately one-third of the diet. Another third is vegetable, both land-based and marine, and the last portion goes to proteins in the form of mostly soy products and fish.

Then we come to the point that speck had made:


Unrefined rice is a different beast from polished (which IS, by all means, poison!). Unrefined rice contains vitamin B, calcium, iron, and magnesium. It is low in fat, contains no cholesterol, is high in complex carbohydrate, and high in fiber. But, in giving the whole picture on rice, I must relate that because rice is supplying mainly starch it places a great burden on the digestive system. When mature, grains contain enzyme inhibitors which prevent digestion, but they are digestible when green (like sweet corn) or when cooked or after they have germinated. Even cooked, the complex carbohydrate requires great digestive effort to break down, which may result in the development of the pancreas to double its normal size and other signs of strain such as stunted intestinal villi. Nutritional deficiencies may occur and, at the same time, toxemia and acidosis, capable of producing skin problems, arthritis, hardened arteries and cancer. These detriments may occur unless rice is accompanied by liberal amounts of fresh vegetables and fruit in the diet .

speck is absolutely correct on the biological issue, but as I have related, the Japanese diet does not in any way mean eating mass quantities of rice on its own. The traditional diet is rich in vegetable matter, and in protein-- just not greatly on animal-sourced protein.
I take your point, speck, that anthropologically the human race had developed eating a diet strongly based in animal proteins and vegetables (more vegetables than first suspected as suggested by recent archaeological discovery), but as I am constantly keeping an eye on the past, I am more interested in contemporary issues in concerns with modern day living and diet.

As a side note, and perhaps it is a digression of the main theme, I have to ask out of curiosity which 18th Century mummies surlymel is referring. If they are of the upper class (which most mummies are, as the ruling class were the only ones who could afford the process), these people would have had a diet with plenty of meat. The lower class did rely on bread and beer, but archaeological finds show that they also had a diet which included many vegetables and some protein. As for the Romans... don't get me started!!!

My purpose is to find a logical and, perhaps, scientific solution to my query of the Japanese diet, not to challenge any decision to follow the LC WOE/WOL. I am successfully LC'bing now! Most of my research is based on medical journals, university publications, media, and tons of reading of the good, the bad, and the ugly. My need for this debate is purely for better understanding of my own diet and practices and the methodology behind it. I am not one to accept much on faith in the physical realm, so when I find a chink, I will question it!

Perhaps there are many ways of eating that are successful and beneficial to health, well-being, and weight loss. In my humble opinion, I feel as though LC has much going for it and good results which is why I practice, but I suspect that there is more to diet.

Conferences, specialists,journals, and study after study universally state that the major causes of the downfall of healthy lifestyle and diet are sugar, refined food, decreased or nil intake of vegetables (leafy green and red/yellow), and lack of exercise. The World Health Federation has clearly stated in several of its annuals that the world population is poisoning itself. With these proclamations taken as fact and engaging the reverse as a daily lifestyle change, must the method that we practice be solely the one path of LC? I am not suggesting we all down a bowl of rice or mix-n-match as it suits us, but I need to explore what this means, that there may be many paths to the same goal. There are universal truths, but the individual is also an important factor.

Does anyone have any further investigations or directions they can point me towards solving the dichotomy of the traditional Japanese diet and the LC lifestyle?

Thank you all!

Sock, you might want to check out Udo Erasmus' book "Fats that heal Fats that kill" - he addressed this (albiet briefly - the book is a great read in any event). The connection was the type of protein the Japanese ate - fish. Rich in heart healthy EFA's. He also made a case that both the Chinese and Japanese engage in much more physical activity than Americans (or Canadians for that matter).

Nat

(a) phytonutrients, available in largest quantities by volume from (generally) highly leafy and coloured vegetables, and berry fruits.
(b) less or no processing (whole) and seasonal
(c) natural proteins and fats, not artificially supported/bred/raised/hybridized/fattened on grains and fairly divided between marine and 'range-fed'.

In SHORT, I believe these items are key in almost all traditional diets (due to the peripatetic nature of homo sapiens over the 3 million+ rather than the last 10,000 blip).

Further, there is no conflict, in my mind, between the above and a longterm low carb lifestyle versus a shorter-term crisis management fix (which is the LC 'diet' for those who clearly, by symptomology, fall in that percentage of the population that must *fix* their metabolic systems... the hypoglycemic, diabetic, obese, depressed, intestinally distraught, etc. etc.). In short, us.

My opinion of course, but a precis of my 3+ years of LC and reading across the spectrum.

SORRY Nat! I wasn't trying to ignore/avoid/be generally rude! I think the last time on was 1 Feb... that's when, horrors, I kicked out the connection to the Net! It is funny how you start having conversations with people on the computer and when something happens, you feel like you've just hung up the phone on someone. Repairs FINALLY finished, sorry sorry sorry!

Thank you, Nat, for recommending Udo Erasmus to me. Actually, I couldn't find the exact title you mentioned, but after scratching around found his Fats and Oils: The Complete Guide to Fats and Oils in Health and Nutrition which led me on to doing so much research on fats that it has made my head spin. I have many questions still, fat and other, that I will start new threads on, but more answers to why the low-carbing works so efficently.

IslandGirl is exactly right in her summation of nutrition, its modern faults, and our metabolic restructuring through diet. I still ponder over the traditional Japanese diet (and even with still more articles on the disasterous effects that "Western" eating has had on indigenous communities) in its paradox with low carbing, and by this am wondering on the viability or possibility of choosing to go with these alternative WsOE. (As for myself, I think that I like pork too well to only consume it 2-3x a year!) It has genuinely inspired me to concider my own history of nutrition and continually change it for the better.

Thank you for your responses!


(If anyone out there wants a couple of references for their own research or in 'defence' of your WOE, just let me know and I can point to some great studies like Nat did for me.)