People are more conscious of their health today than before. You may feel the same way about your physical and mental well-being. As such, you strive to eat and live a healthy lifestyle by following a diet. Some of the most popular diets include vegetarian, crash, and detox. One other diet you may want to look into is the Japanese diet.
What the Japanese Diet Involves
The basic principle of a Japanese diet is its focus on small portions of healthy food, which you can still do even when eating out. You have more options for healthy meals at restaurants today. For example, a Japanese food franchise on healthy food compared to a fastfood franchise may focus on the quality of the meal.
Japanese meals also place emphasis on presentation, which may be part of feeling a sense of fullness because eating begins with your eyes.
Another major factor in the Japanese Diet is to eat until you reach 80 percent of fullness. The residents of Okinawa, specifically, residents practice ‘hara hachi bu,’ or eight parts of 10; they stop eating once they’re 80 percent full.
The Japanese also considers breakfast as the most important meal of the day, as it should be. In the US, breakfast servings usually mirror dessert and are not exactly healthy. Under the Japanese Diet, there is a focus on breakfast to reduce the quantity of what you eat during the rest of the day.
What You Can Eat
Seven major pillars of the Japanese Diet serve as its foundation:
- Fish (salmon and mackerel)
- Green Tea
- Fruit (apples, tangerines, and persimmons)
- Rice (preferably brown)
- Vegetables (daikon radish and sea vegetables)
- Soy products (tofu, miso, and edamame)
- Noodles (ramen, udon, soba, and somen)
The Japanese treat a bowl of rice as the main course of the meal, with meat, fish, and vegetables as the side dishes. There is also more emphasis on consuming fresh fruits over eating junk foods and desserts that are high in glucose content.
Under this diet, expect to eat more fish than the usual because the Japanese prefer it over any type of red meat. Fish are high in omega 3, which may help prevent cancer and improve bone and joint health, among other benefits. Not only are you eating non fatty food, but you’re improving the overall well-being of your body as well.
Fruits and vegetables, when eaten steamed or even raw, contain far more nutrients in them than when you overly process it. The Japanese diet allows you to get the most benefits out of food because it focuses on how dishes appear and on consuming fresh food.
The Japanese diet compared to the Western diet is far healthier; Japan has an obseity rate of 4.2 compared to America’s 40 percent. Clearly, it is better to go with a bowl of stir-fried fresh vegetables and salmon over Kentucky fried chicken pot pie.
A healthy lifestyle doesn’t have to be about boring meals. You can eat well and maintain your ideal weight at the same time. The Japanese diet is just one option to consider.
