Re: Diet: The Longest-Lived People of Okinawa.

I tend to agree that mostly veggies and some meat is the best way to go for most of us (certainly for me, anyway), though I also agree with Griz that the source and quality of the food makes all the difference.

Besides their diet, Okinawans have also traditionally benefitted from a healthy lifestyle (note the reference to exercise) and less toxins and pollution.  Besides converting to a different diet than they had adapted to for centuries, I can see how inclusion of American SADS junk items led to health problems and decreased longevity.  We have seen that happen in many groups of peoples.

One important note, Chris:  The soy consumption by Okinawans was mostly fermented soy and has not traditionally been GMO soy either.  Which brings up another notable result of people changing their tradtional diet.  Until the introduction of soy into their diet, the people of northern Africa has very little incidence of stomach cancers.  Since the introduction of soy, the stomach cancer rates have sky-rocketed.  Thus soy can be a double edged sword, unless one is careful to consume fermented soy such as miso, tempeh, natto and fermented soy sauce.

As far as the health benefits of eating raw meat (other than fish), I will never likely know first hand.

As an aside: this morning my breakfast was composed of lightly scrambled eggs with broccoli, yellow squash, zuchinni and garlic added in, along with sliced tomatoes (with sea salt - tomatoes are in season and delicious right now), a buttered whole wheat muffin and orange juice with pulp (I always add a dropper of iodine in my OJ and also take a methylselenocysteine pill with it). After Luella and I take our found dogs for a mile or so walk and get our daily D3, next up will be a snack of baby carrots and some mixed nuts.  Haven't yet decided on what to do for late lunch/dinner.  Hmmm, I could go with either marinated chicken breasts (cooked of course) plus salad and sides of veggies and perhaps a few blueberries and/or melon for dessert.  Or I could go with fish and have either broiled salmon or cod topped with butter, lemon juice, lemmon pepper, garlic and almond slivers, steamed asparagus with the same toppings as the fish, and some wild and long grain rice.  Yummmm!