The DOI matches its Crossref record.
History and characteristics of Okinawan longevity food
Abstract
Okinawan food culture in the Ryukyu island is one of the world’s most interesting culture because its consumers have the longest life expectancies and low disability rates. It is a product of cultural synthesis, with a core of Chinese food culture, inputs through food trade with South‐East Asia and the Pacific and strong Japanese influences in eating style and presentation. The Satsamu sweet potato provides the largest part of the energy intake (and contributes to self‐sufficiency), there is a wide array of plant foods including seaweed (especially konbu) and soy, and of herbaceous plants, accompanied by fish and pork, and by green tea and kohencha tea. Infusing multiple foodstuff and drinking the broth is characteristic. Raw sugar is eaten. The concept that ‘food is medicine’ and a high regard accorded medical practice are also intrinsic of Okinawan culture. Again, food‐centered and ancestral festivities keeep the health dimensions well‐developed. Pork, konbu and tofu (soy bean‐curd) are indispensable ingredients in festival menus, and the combination of tofu and seaweed are used everyday. Okinawan food culture is intimately linked with an enduring belief of the system and highly developed social structure and network.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“The Okinawans’ diet, characterized by a substantial consumption of vegetables, legumes, and sweet potatoes, is inherently plant-based and low in calories [7,156,157,158,159,160,161].”
From The Power of Environment: A Comprehensive Review of the Exposome's Role in Healthy Aging, Longevity, and Preventive Medicine-Lessons from Blue Zones and Cilento (2025) · cites this paper as [161]
Citations
Cites
Still being checked.
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- HokamaS.Okinawa History and Culture. Tokyo: Chukoshinsho Vol. 799 1986.
- MiyagiE ShoH HokamaY KatsuraM HigashimoriK KinjoS.Food for all occasion – spanning the end of Meiji Period to the beginning of Taisho Period. Nishihasa: University of Ryukyu Department of Education Bulletin Chapter 30 Second printing Supplementary 1987.
- TomaS(ed.). Ozen Honso. Naha: Mitsuboshi Printing Company 1961.
- ShoH.Okinawan Traditional Food and Longevity. Okinawa Welfare Association (ed). The Okinawa Longevity Prefecture Chapter 5. Naha: Bunshin Printing Company 1983.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Ultra-processed foods: What they are and how to identify them
Monteiro, C. A., Cannon, G., Levy, R. B., Moubarac, J.-C., Louzada, M. L., Rauber, F., Khandpur, N., Cediel, G., Neri, D., Martinez-Steele, E., et al. (2019) · Public Health Nutrition · doi:10.1017/s1368980018003762 · Cited by 2,964
Sweet potato: a review of its past, present, and future role in human nutrition
Bovell‐Benjamin, A. C. (2007) · Advances in food and nutrition research · doi:10.1016/s1043-4526(06)52001-7 · Cited by 574
WILLCOX, B. J., WILLCOX, D. C., TODORIKI, H., FUJIYOSHI, A., YANO, K., HE, Q., CURB, J. D., & SUZUKI, M. (2007) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1196/annals.1396.037 · Cited by 370
Healthy aging diets other than the Mediterranean: A focus on the Okinawan diet
Willcox, D. C., Scapagnini, G., & Willcox, B. J. (2014) · Mechanisms of Ageing and Development · doi:10.1016/j.mad.2014.01.002 · Cited by 273
Sustainable harvesting of wild seaweed resources.
Mac Monagail, M., Cornish, L., Morrison, L., Araújo, R., & Critchley, A. T. (2017) · European Journal of Phycology · doi:10.1080/09670262.2017.1365273 · Cited by 253
Metadata
- Authors
- Sho, H.
- Affiliations
- The Open University of Japan (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Sho, Hiroko
- Venue
- Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2001-06-15
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 159-164
- ISSN
- 0964-7058 (ISSN-L)
- 1440-6047
- OpenAlex
- W2031504011
- Cited by
- 97
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 2.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Food, Nutrition, and Cultural Practices
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management › Culinary Culture and Tourism
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Nutrition and Health Studies
- Keywords
- longevity, tofu, soybean, green tea, raw sugar, food as medicine, cultural synthesis, Chinese food culture, Ryukyu Islands, folk festivals, diet and health
- MeSH terms
- Diet, Feeding Behavior, Japan, Longevity, Nutritional Physiological Phenomena, History, 19th Century, History, 20th Century, History, 21st Century, History, Medieval, History, Early Modern 1451-1600
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
