Willcox, the fraudulent fabricator of Okinawa sweet potato longevity diet makes false claim that Okinawan's longevity is the result of eating a diet of mostly sweet potatoes, he based his claim solely on a 1950 US government report on Okinawan food intakes survey conducted in 1949, he concludes that the diet consisted of mostly sweet potatoes was the secret to Okinawans' long life span. He also claims the high number of old age people is the evidence of longevity. The real truth is before WW2 Okinawa's traditional diet wasn't high in sweet potatoes but high in pork, and the high ratio of old age people on Okinawa islands was the result of US invasion on Okinawa islands during WW2 in which about 1/2 of Okinawa's young population was killed!
Willcox hides the fact that in 1949 Okinawa was in postwar ruin and had very bad food shortage crisis immediately after WW2 and into the early 1950s, meat supply was very short due to Okinawa's pre-war farm inventory of 100,000 hoof livestock on the islands were mostly killed during the heavy battles between Japanese troops and American troops.
According to a US government report made before WW2 there was average one hoof livestock as meat supply for every 3 to 4 Okinawans. After the war US government conducted a survey on the remaining living Okinawans who were starving to death, dying of malnutrition and diseases, but that horrible condition was not mentioned in the report, which Willcox uses, in order to cover up US military atrocities and war crimes committed on Okinawans in postwar time. The 1949 US government's physical and medical condition report on Okinawans was fabricated to make the world thinks the Okinawans were living happily and healthy when in fact they were not.
Willcoxs uses 65 years old data collected during a food shortage crisis in Okinawa in 1949. At the time the US government conducted the small survey the Okinawans had just came out of the biggest war with Americans. Okinawa islands were in ruin caused by US military bombings and fire burning during the battles.
In 1949 there was a food shortage for Okinawans because their homes and lands were confiscated by the US govt, who restricted their rights to fish, hunt and farm. Okinawans were starving and malnourished. They lived in badly make-shift shelters.
Here is the real truth about Okinawa:
In 1949 many Okinawans were in starvation due to food shortage after their lost in WW2 and the US military occupation that came afterward.
U.S. military invasion of Okinawa, launched in late March, 1945, bogged down into a devastating war of attrition that dragged on for three months, taking a recorded total of 237,318 lives, more than half of them Okinawan civilians. In the aftermath of massive human, material, and environmental destruction, entire Okinawan families were missing, and whole villages destroyed.
Many Okinawans in Japan mainland cities who hoped to escape the burnt-out ruins and return to their homeland after the war had nothing left to go back to. U.S. military seized local farmlands for a major expansion of military bases.
[An account by an Okinawan who lived through that food shortage period:] After living in the Koza refugee camp for about a year, we finally returned to Misato Village, moving into what was called “standardized housing” [prefabricated wooden huts with thatched roofs]. Food was still hard to come by. Although we received some rations—mostly canned goods—and clothing from the U.S. military, we were always hungry. The term “postwar palm fern hell” best describes conditions at a time when we ate anything, including wild plants, thought to be edible. One day, we
fried [sweet] potato tempura in motor oil. My uncle insisted on eating some first to be sure it wasn’t poisonous. He always did that because, he said, he was old and weak, and didn’t expect to live much longer anyway. Three years later, he died.
Okinawans living on the Japan mainland today also recall atrocities committed by American soldiers. Battle-survivor Yamashiro Kenko recounted one of the all-too-frequent incidents of what Okinawans called “girl-hunts” (musume-gari). “After I was captured and brought to a shed with other refugees, one of the American soldiers picked out a young woman. Ignoring the screams of her children, he led her away at gunpoint and raped her.”161 Interviewed in July, 1999, another woman recalled, “I made sure to muss my hair and blacken my face with charcoal before the Americans took me to a refugee camp.” The U.S. government seized large tracts of privately owned farm land for its military bases, claiming that this was permitted by the “Rules of Land Warfare” under the 1914 Hague Convention. Yet these seizures continued long after the war ended, and the U.S. military still occupies these lands to this day. The Battle of Okinawa took more than a quarter of a million lives [half were Okinawans].
Most Okinawans who survived were left destitute, homeless, or both.
Source: The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa: Literature and Memory - By Michael S. Molasky
https://books.google.com.hk/books?id=f1qFAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=okinawa+food+shortage&source=bl&ots=QpB6hrne3K&sig=ibSfOw6DQ0xNFGRLTiq8YMCO4RU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEoQ6AEwCGoVChMI5NKy7LWnyAIVhOamCh2umwtY#v=onepage&q=okinawa%20food%20shortage&f=false
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is the reason soon after WW2 Americans discovered there was a high proportion of centenarians on Okinawa islands: most of the younger Okinawan people had died in WW2!
One third to one half of Okinawa people perished in WW2! Estimate of 300,000 Okinawans died during WW2 when Americans invade their islands. Most dead were young people, young men who died defending their homes, also many were young girls and women committed suicide to avoid rape by American troops. So of course the remaining Okinawans were mostly old people, the reason Okinawa had high percentage of centenarians!
Another insight article for dumb people who fell for stupid dumb Willcox lies, learn this real truth:
...the Battle of Okinawa devastated the lives of Okinawans on the mainland who lost family members and homes in the prefecture. In 1944, Osaka’s newspapers began reporting the events leading up to this last and worst battle of the Pacific War. What came to be known as the “ten-ten air raid” of American planes on October 10 left much of Naha, Okinawa’s capital, a plain of burnt ruins.
In preparation, the [Japanese] military mobilized local civilians, including schoolchildren, to build fortifications and airfields. Evacuations to the mainland had already begun. Some of the transport ships carrying women, children, the infirm, and the elderly were sunk by Allied torpedoes, with a loss of more than 2,000 lives.
Both sides’ enormous sacrifices in the Battle of Okinawa, the costliest of the Pacific War for both Japan and the United States, seem particularly outrageous in retrospect.
Much later they would learn that twenty times as many local residents lost their lives in the Battle of Okinawa. Imperial Headquarters’ strategy of sacrificing Okinawa as a “throwaway pawn” imposed devastating losses on both armies. It also resulted in massive civilian casualties, mostly women and children killed or wounded by U.S. bombings and shellings, and in the crossfire of ground combat. Many also died because Japanese soldiers, seeking cover for themselves, forced them from caves and shelters at gunpoint. Others starved to death after the Japanese military seized dwindling food supplies from farms and homes.
Eighty-two days of what Okinawans also call “hell on earth” took the lives of a recorded 122, 228 local residents....
One day, some American soldiers told us a tidal wave was coming, and we’d all have to leave immediately for a mass evacuation to the nearby hills. We followed them, fearing the worst, then waited and waited, but there was no sign of a tidal wave. The date was April 1st [1946]. We had no way of knowing about April Fool’s Day in America. Much relieved, we walked back down from the hills.
After living in the Koza refugee camp for about a year, we finally returned to Misato Village, moving into what was called “standardized housing” [prefabricated wooden huts with thatched roofs]. *Food was still hard to come by*. Although we received some rations—mostly canned goods—and clothing from the U.S. military, *we were always hungry*. The term “postwar palm fern hell” best describes conditions at a time when *we ate anything, including wild plants, thought to be edible. One day, we fried potato tempura in motor oil*. My uncle insisted on eating some first to be sure it wasn’t poisonous.
Okinawans living on the mainland today also recall atrocities committed by American soldiers. Battle-survivor Yamashiro Kenko recounted one of the all-too-frequent incidents of what Okinawans called “girl-hunts” (musume-gari). “After I was captured and brought to a shed with other refugees, one of the *American soldiers picked out a young woman. Ignoring the screams of her children, he led her away at gunpoint and raped her.”*
Interviewed in July, 1999, another woman recalled, “I made sure to muss my hair and blacken my face with charcoal before the Americans took me to a refugee camp.”
During the battle, American forces killed not only Japaese forces but also Okinawan civilians taking shelter with Japanese soldiers in caves. They also sprayed areas with phosphorous and CS (military-issue tear gas), which are sometimes classified as chemical weapons. Moreover, the U.S. government seized large tracts of privately owned farm land for its military bases, claiming that this was permitted by the “Rules of Land Warfare” under the 1914 Hague Convention. Yet these seizures continued long after the war ended, and the U.S. military still occupies these lands to this day.
The Battle of Okinawa was fought because the Japanese government decided to sacrifice the prefecture even after Konoe Fumimaro, a former Prime Minister, influential senior statesman, and advisor to the emperor, had urged two months earlier that the war be ended. *The battle took more than a quarter of a million lives. Most Okinawans who survived were left destitute, homeless, or both*. Many now consider the imposition of such disproportionate losses to be the ultimate form of discrimination.
This article is adapted from “Chapter Four: Wartime” in Steve Rabson, The Okinawan Diaspora in Japan: Crossing the Borders Within, University of Hawaii Press (2012). The book is based on the author’s two-year study in residence (1999-2001) in Taishô Ward of Osaka City, location of the largest Okinawan community (approximately 20,000) on the Japanese mainland, where he conducted interviews, collected writings, and administered a questionnaire survey.
Steve Rabson is Professor Emeritus of East Asian Studies, Brown University, and a Japan Focus Associate. His other books are Okinawa: Two Postwar Novellas (Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1989, reprinted 1996), Righteous Cause or Tragic Folly: Changing Views of War in Modern Japanese Poetry (Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1998), and Southern Exposure: Modern Japanese Literature from Okinawa, co-edited with Michael Molasky (University of Hawaii Press, 2000). Islands of Resistance: Japanese Literature from Okinawa, co-edited with Davinder Bhowmik, is forthcoming from University of Hawaii Press.
Source: Steve Rabson, "The Okinawan Diaspora in Japan at War," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 41, No. 1, October 13, 2013.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senka (Fruits of War)
In Okinawa under U.S. military rule, provisions were given by America but the people still suffered under chronic food shortages. For that reason there were many who stole stores from the depots of the U.S. military which they named the "Fruits of War."
Widely considered to be the most brutal battle of the Pacific Theater of WWII the Battle of Okinawa was Americans first large-scale introduction to Okinawa. This battle lasted from April to June of 1945.
From what Osensei has told students, the Okinawan people had great difficulty during these times between the destruction of their island and food shortages (Master Kyan died as a result of a food shortage).
During & after the war, the US military occupation herded almost all Okinawan civilian survivors into POW detention camps throughout the islands. Conditions in the camps were not good; many died of disease and inadequate food.
The civilians were not released until the US military had finished the seizure of private lands for construction of the first round of postwar US military bases on Okinawa. Futenma Air Base was one of the US military bases built on a seized & bulldozed village during the 1940s.
Refugees sang established minyo (folk songs), but also composed new lyrics about war trauma, loss, and pain in their current situation. The songs focused on nostalgic feelings for earlier times in Okinawa, regretting the realities of Okinawa as a battlefield. For example, the Okinawan refugee songs told of the mountains and fields engulfed in flames, and how the sea became the sole place for refuge, food, and life.
"These songs that encapsulated the hardships of daily life in the camps became known as yaka bushi, songs from the Yaka refugee camp, or PW mujo (prisoner of war songs). The camp songs and dances served as a crucial medium for beginning to convey wartime experiences, creating an embodied counter-telling to official narratives, but also for coping with life as postwar refugees unable to return home. Okinawans living 'everyday with the loss of their homes, separated from their parents and brothers and sisters' relied on 'sanshin songs and dances' in order to express their 'happiness to be alive.'[40]Nakamura Fumiko remembers, 'when I heard the sound of that sanshin in the midst of all the disaster, I got choked up. “At least the Okinawan spirit wasn't completely destroyed by the war," I said to myself.'"
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the kidnapping, rape and murder of 6-year-old Yumiko Nakayama by a US soldier. On September 4, 1955 - exactly 40 years to the day before the 1995 rape - Sergeant Isaac Hurt kidnapped Yumiko-chan as she was walking to kindergarten. Then he raped her, disemboweled her, & threw her into a military base garbage dump. Less than a week later, another US soldier raped another child.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is an old newsletter published by an American citizen who cared about the welfare of Okinawans and their food shortage crisis.
PEACE-NEWS-LETTER
October 21, 1949
There is still 100% hunger on OKINAWA (October 1949) and Americana have a peculiar responsibility . The best way to help here is to send a goat . Cost, $50. We will collect and pool smaller gifts if some one wants to start a new invasion of Okinawa . Remember "a goat is more than a goat ."She is'4 M's : Milk for children, a Mother for kids, Manure for worn soil, Morale for shattered souls."
http://www.peacecouncil.net/pnls/PNLs1941-50/PNL138-1949.pdf
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In late 1945, Kaneko was moved to Haru (Spring) Island in the Truks as a prisoner of war. He worked on construction of a runway and roads under the supervision of the U.S. military.
“Looking at the young, vigorous U.S. GIs, I could not help remembering those civilian workers who died of hunger. My pity for them deepened. I thought I had to reform myself, having spent my youthful years being shallow, so that I could console the souls of those who died such pitiful deaths,” Kaneko said.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2008/02/27/reference/special-presentations/war-exacts-top-toll-on-bottom-echelons-vet/#.VizKfyvIWcw
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The cost of living rose about ten percent a month for two years, and by the end of 1949 the consumer price index had multiplied to 240 times the pre-war level. Millions of people in Japan had their homes destroyed by the bombing, and many lived in shanty towns or were homeless. In February 1948 the number of orphaned and homeless children was 123,510.
Rice was 32% below prewar production, and fishing was down 40%. Official food rations provided each person with only 1,050 calories per day.
http://www.san.beck.org/21-9-JapansWar1937-49.html#a8
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When school first opened, the children’s faces were pale because of food shortages, so thecurriculumwas minimal.
Testimony1-2
Recollections of Motomura Tsuru who worked as a teacher whenTsuboya Elementary School was founded. I was assigned to Tsuboya Elementary at the end of January 1951.There were about 150 pupils with a staff of 8, teachers and principal. We were paid in such U.S. military supplies as canned goods, bivouac mattresses, mosquito nets, and army fatigues.The free rations of food we got were never enough, though. So sometimes after class or on Sundays the M.P.’s would lead us out to the Mawashi or Haebaru areas to dig for sweet potatoes. Lying under thick growths of green vines were the white bones of corpses, places where we found lots of sweet potatoes.We gathered the harvest of sweet potatoes to store, and all the families were told about it.
In March, the schools received mimeographed teachers’copies of textbooks, one for each grade.As I recall, they were for Japanese language and math.The first small-scale elementary school sports meet was held around that time. One U.S. military field-use fold-up organ was our only musical instrument, but, with each class using an empty fuel can as a drum, it was a lively occasion.When grade assignments were made in April, I was assigned to the fourth grade class.Teachers were paid in wages, and I remember that my first salary was 240 B-yen.
Motomura Tsuru, “From theTime Tsuboya Elementary School First Opened,” Naha City Educational Research Center, in “Post-conflict Education, Starting from Zero (1) 1988,” excerpted from Bunka,1974, No. 5.
In its Tsuboya district, where much of the land was seized for use by the American military, there were about 1,000 neighborhoods with many children, but the adults were so consumed with making a living from day to day and rebuilding their homes that they had little time for the children. Just after the defeat in war, unexploded shells were lying all around the district.“People agreed this was dangerous and something had to be done about it. At first the school was built as a place where someone could look after the children”.
http://jica-ri.jica.go.jp/IFIC_and_JBICI-Studies/english/publications/reports/study/topical/post_conflict/pdf/post02.pdf
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is a document by the US government that gave insight to the postwar food shortage in Okinawa:
Foreign agriculture : a review of foreign farm policy, production, and trade
by United States. Bureau of Agricultural Economics; United States. Foreign Agricultural Service; United States. Office of Foreign Agricultural Relations
Published 1949
Topics Agriculture Statistics Periodicals
https://archive.org/stream/foreignagricultu137unit/foreignagricultu137unit_djvu.txt
Okinawa's Agriculture
In the Wake of War
July 1949, Vol. XIII, No. 7
By JOHN C. HOBBES
Okinawa, a small, densely populated island southwest of
Japan, was the stage of one of the most savage battles of
World War II. As a result, its population was displaced,
its economy disrupted, and the area of cultivated land re-
duced. Before the war, the Okinawans could not produce
enough food to meet their needs, but they exported sugar to
Japan to pay for the necessary imports. Today there is no
market for Okinawa's sugar, and American taxpayers must
pay for a large part of the native diet until Military Govern-
ment can rehabilitate the island's agriculture.
Okinawa is unique among the islands of Japan,
having a different type of people, a different pattern
of agriculture, and being the only one on which actual
combat took place during World War II. As a result
of the havoc wrought by the occupation in the spring
of 1945, its economy and social fabric were almost
completely destroyed, and the
island's ability to pro-
vide its food requirements was greatly reduced.
Okinawa, along with other islands of the Ryukyus,
has been severed from the Japanese Imperial Govern-
ment and added to the chain of American defenses in
the Pacific. Under the aegis of Military Government,
efforts are under way to restore to the natives some
semblance of economic solvency. Since power and
mineral resources are almost totally lacking, "economic
problems" are "agricultural problems." The island's
principal asset is an abundant supply of agricultural
labor. The population is excessive, the soil is poor,
and, as a result, Military Government is faced with
an urgent and delicate problem of agricultural reha-
bilitation.
Okinawan farms, averaging about 1%
acres, were slightly more than half as large as those
tilled by Japanese farmers, which explains the poverty
of the natives.
A third aspect in which agriculture on Okinawa
varied from the Japanese norm was found in its live-
stock population. In both the ratio of animals to
cultivated land and to population, Okinawa was the
more favorably situated.
This small island had rela-
tively more draft animals than the rest of Japan, and
more than one-third of the goats in Japan were to be
found on Okinawa. The small sure-footed native
horse predominated among draft animals. The
native cattie are suitable only for draft power and
meat and few had ever been used for dairy purposes.
Swine and goats played a strategic role in the tightly
knit subsistence economy of the island by providing
an economical means of disposing of garbage and
waste. In addition to augmenting the native diet
and supplying draft power,
the large animal popu-
lation afforded the farmers relatively greater quan-
tities of manure.
Even before the island was invaded in April 1945,
it felt the effects of the war. In the preceding few
years the cultivated area had contracted slightly and
animal population declined because of a lack of feed.
The battle for the island centered in the populous
agricultural area in the south. More than 90 per-
cent of the buildings and equipment were destroyed,
and most of the people were displaced from their
homes and from the food-producing areas.
The
armed forces found the livestock scattered and under-
nourished, and, lacking sufficient food for both the
animals and the natives, they were forced to kill the
former to feed the latter. To add to the food problem
created by moving the farmers from the land, re-
patriates began to pour in from the mandated islands,
and in a short time the population exceeded that of
the preceding decade. In anticipation of an assault
on the main islands of Japan, military establishments
mushroomed over much of the cultivated area on
the island. The normal facilities for governing and
feeding the natives were destroyed completely by
the occupation, presenting Military Government
with an immense task involving the health and liveli-
hood of half a million people.
For more than 4 years, the Okinawans have had
to rely upon the United States for a substantial
portion of their diet. The problem of agricultural
rehabilitation has been one of reconciling the military
needs for land and civilian food requirements, the
latter having increased abnormally due to the influx
of repatriates. Heavy earth-moving equipment lev-
eled some of the hilly, sparsely settled northern region
in an effort to reclaim land for farming so as to com-
pensate for the areas of farm land necessarily occupied
by military establishments and to expand the area
available to native farmers. The equipment de-
stroyed in battle has been replaced by imports or by
native craftsmen using metal salvaged from war
surplus and battlefield debris. Military Govern-
ment has also provided fertilizers and supplies that
otherwise would not be available to the Okinawans
and without which they would be helpless. In the
rehabilitation of the rural community, a large prob-
lem centers around the depleted livestock population
that declined to a small fraction of prewar. There is
an urgent need for the manure and draft power that
they supplied, and years will pass before a balance is
attained between the increased food production made
possible by the animal population and the amount of
feed they themselves consume. To date, the live-
stock population has been replenished largely by im-
ports from other islands less affected by the war and
by natural reproduction.
Military Government is actively improving social
and economic conditions on Okinawa by reestab-
lishing and improving on prewar institutions and by
furnishing on a welfare basis the necessary food, equip-
ment, and supplies.
Despite the efforts of military and native personnel, the
current agricultural situation is far from favorable.
Only in the case of vegetables and sweet potatoes are
yields equal to those of former years, and total production
of all foods is still below normal.
Military authorities anticipate that the best use of
the maximum area of cultivable land made available
to the natives will necessitate food imports only
slightly less than those currently required. It is im-
probable that the small amount of farm land available
will ever produce enough food for the islanders. Two
alternatives, or a combination of them, might be
adopted to make the natives self-sufficient to a greater
degree. One would be to plant the land formerly
producing sugarcane — one-fourth of Okinawa's arable
area — to food crops. The other would be to concen-
trate on the production of some new export crop,
which would utilize the abundant manpower avail-
able, and to buy abroad the balance of the food re-
quirements with the income so derived as was done
before the war. Greater production under any pro-
gram is the object of the Military Government.
Because of the more pressing military problems, it has
not been possible to work out completely the postwar
pattern of agriculture for Okinawa. Until a satis-
factory agricultural economy is established, the island
and its people will continue to be a burden to the
American taxpayer.
The only Japanese island to suffer direct invasion, Okinawa
lost 90 percent of its buildings and equipment.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the end of WWII, the US took over the administration of the Okinawa islands. Immediately after the war, Okinawan civilians, displaced by the terrible Battle, were placed in POW camps while the military claimed land for bases. In 1951, the San Francisco Peace Treaty placed Okinawa under US military administration until 1972 when Okinawa's administration reverted to Japan. Today there are 37 US bases and military installations in Okinawa, 23,842 troops and 21,512 military family members.
Some of the most productive land, used for farming and sustaining people's livelihood, was requisitioned for US military use. In historically populated areas in the central and southern part of Okinawa island, the rebuilt towns were squeezed around the bases.
Even after reversion to Japan in 1972, most of the US bases remained in Okinawa. Seventy-five percent of the US military facilities in Japan are located in Okinawa, although Okinawa is only 0.6% of the land area of Japan.
US bases take up 20% of the land area -- land that could be used more productively to benefit local people. US troops live in spacious, fenced-off enclaves -- some with golf courses and swimming pools -- in marked contrast to the close-packed cities nearby.
Kin, a small, old town of 10,000, for example, is squeezed between Camp Hansen, which houses 5,000 Marines, and the sea. The city of Ginowan has been built around the sprawling Futenma Marine Corps Air Station, one of the largest airfields in Asia. Local people cannot enter the bases. Traveling around them adds miles to everyday trips.
Environmental Contamination
Highly carcinogenic materials (fuels, oils, solvents and heavy metals) are regularly released during military operations, affecting the land, water, air, and ocean, as well as people's health.
Okinawan people suffer deafening noise from low-flying military aircraft. In other parts of Japan, US planes cannot leave or land after 7pm. At Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, they can leave or land any time, and generate severe noise. Students in schools near the bases often have classes disrupted due to noise, and suffer from poor concentrations.
White Beach, a docking area in Okinawa for US nuclear submarines, is an area where regional health statistics show comparatively high rates of leukemia in children and cancers in adults.
Under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA, Article 4), the US is not responsible for environmental clean-up of land or water. As in Korea and the Philippines, host communities do not have adequate information on the extent of military contamination.
http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/know/read.php?itemid=16492
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Historical records show Okinawans consumed a lot of pork, the only time their pork consumption decreased was due to WW2 when American troops killed half of the Okinawan population and most of the 100,000 hoof livestock to stop Japanese troops from surviving on the islands.
In the 10 years after WW2, the US military restricted Okinawans from fishing, hunting and farming for foods, that caused a serious food shortage crisis for the Okinawans. It was at that time the US government conducted a dietary survey on Okinawans, Willcox uses that survey for his lying "Okinawa Sweet Potato Longevity Diet" scam!
For many centuries Okinawa was famous for its traditional pork cuisine so much that for centuries it's traditional nickname was "Islands of Pork"!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is how much Okinawans loved their pork and how important pork was to them.
In September 1948, the immigrants shipped 550 White pigs back to Okinawa to help the island, which had been devastated a few years earlier by the Battle of Okinawa, deal with severe food shortages. The pigs, which are easy to breed because of their high fertility rate, are believed to have helped ward off starvation for many Okinawans.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/19/national/history/hawaii-pig-shipment-after-the-war-to-be-memorialized-in-okinawa/#.VizILSvIWcw
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Willcoxs know the fact the Okinawa had a food shortage in the several years after WW2, it lasted at least into the early 1950s, Willcoxs never mentioned a word of it in his papers, but instead they lied and covered up the truth, tricking people into thinking Okinawans traditionally lived mainly on sweet potatoes when in fact Okinawans ate plenty of pork for centuries at least since Chinese taught them to cook pork cuisine.
It's a common myth that Okinawa has low meat or animal protein consumption, the truth is Okinawa has always been known as Island of Pork for centuries. Willcox also hid the fact that for hundreds of years before WW2 since the introduction of Chinese cooking from China, Okinawa has always been known as the Islands of Pork because of the popularity of Okinawan pork cuisine dishes on the islands, and that Okinawans had the highest pork consumption compared to entire Japan at for hundreds of years. Another traditional Okinawan food is raw goat meat sushi.
The Chinese dating back to the 14th century influenced the Okinawans’ love for pork. Okinawa is just 400 miles from China and they established an economic and cultural relationship that thrived to the 16th century. When Okinawans started migrating to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations in 1899 they brought their pork traditions with them.
http://shegrowsfood.com/explore/food-traditions-security/
Postwar food shortage in Okinawa was caused by US military on the islands. Farmlands were confiscated by the US government and made into US military bases with air strips to launch attacks on Korea and prepare for war with China. Many Okinawans were detained in POW camps and intern camps where they lived in horrible living conditions. Okinawans weren't allowed to farm, fish or hunt like they had been doing before WW2, their freedom is restricted by the US military.
Willcox did admit that sweet potatoes were brought in by Chinese from China, what he didn't say is the fact that sweet potatoes were grown and used as pig feeds, not for human consumption but for the pigs that had also been brought in by the Chinese from China decades before sweet potatoes!
Okinawan has had a culture of using livestock since the Edo era (1603 to 1868). A traditional Okinawan saying states that Okinawan cuisine "begins with pig and ends with pig" and "every part of a pig can be eaten except its hooves and its oink." A characteristic of traditional Okinawan cuisine is its reliance on meat. The main protein sources of traditional Okinawan cuisine are derived from livestock, specifically pigs.
Dr. Willcoxs used a 1950 US government report that contains a 1949 survey on Okinawan dietary statistics, at that time most Okinawans were confined in temporary intern camps imposed by the US military, Okinawa was in complete ruin due to WW2, meat supply was low, even the US military had meat shortage, most of their meat is in the form of SPAM canned meat, but Willcox portrays 1949 dietary data was responsible for longevity in Okinawan people, it's like Adolf Hitler claimed that Jews had high IQ because of their starvation diet in German Nazi concentration camps.
Before WW2, Okinawans didn't normally eat that kind of postwar era starvation diet that consists of mostly sweet potatoes, this is something Willcox invented and tries to fool people with. The Okinawan sweet potato diet is a myth invented by lying vegan cult promoter Dr. Willcox. In postwar sweet potatoes were Okinawans only abundant food source because sweet potatoes easily grow wildly everywhere on the islands.
There has never been any clinical study done on sweet potato consumption in relation to human life span, but without any scientific evidence Willcox the fraudster concluded that sweet potato was the cause of longevity in Okinawans. UN data reveals countries with high sweet potato consumption but have shorter life span than countries that consume little or no sweet potato. India is one of world's largest consumers of sweet potato, but it has short life expectancy and very poor health index.
This makes WIllcox's fabrication of Okinawan sweet potato "longetivty diet" very unethical and misleading, because low-calorie sweet potato diet wasn't what the Okinawans traditionally ate before WW2.
Even Willcox doesn't deny the fact that Okinawans quickly dropped eating sweet potatoes as meat and other food supplies resumed. Even in the paper by Willcox it showed a chart for Okinawan sweet potato consumption dropped 90% from 1950 to 1960, in only a period of 10 years or so. If Okinawans loved sweet potato so much why did they drop it so fast?
Since 1960 to current, a period of 55 years, the per capita sweet potato consumption in Okinawa has been very low, only about 3% of their diet (was 60% in 1949), while their pork consumption increased more than sweet potato consumption , but their life expectancy didn't drop, it has been on rapid increase since 1960.
Before WW2, Okinawa was known to had highest pork consumption in Japan. Today's Japan as a whole has higher pork consumption than Okinawa, many other prefectures in Japan have higher pork consumption than Okinawa, their life expectancy is longer than Okinawa's.
The quantity of pork consumption per person a year in Okinawa is larger than that of the Japanese national average. For example, the quantity of pork consumption per person a year in Okinawa in 1979 exceeded by about 50% that of the Japanese national average.
Now you are seeing the truth that Okinawa suffered food shortage crisis during 1949. So why does Willcoxs use 1949 data to mislead people into thinking the poor diet of mostly sweet potato is the cause of long life span in Okinawans?
A proper scientific study must use official data of life span trend decade by decade and/or year by year, actual official food consumption statistics of item by item in precise amount per person within a certain period during the entire period in the study. Okinawa Diet study by WIllcox has extremely little amount of data, and those data are not reliable and applicable because they were of the war and postwar time period, that can reflect the diet Okinawans ate before WW2.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pork - The Favored Meat of Okinawan Cooks
Pork in Okinawa originated from China and seemed almost tailor made for the tiny island nation. Okinawa had very little grazing land so it could not support cattle but the pigs were another story as they have thrived on Okinawa for hundreds of years. Compared to cattle pigs were quite easy to raise and could be kept on relatively small areas of land. However, during World War II the population of pigs was desimated in the heavy fighting and Uchinanchu people who had emmigrated to Hawaii realizing the grave food shortage after the war set sail to deliver new stocks of island pigs. Thanks to their efforts the islanders were able to once again establish a sustainable food source on the islands. Here is a short film from an old japanese TV show telling about the Island pigs today and the wonderful food source they provide.
It is often heard in Okinawa that the only part of a pig that an Okinawan won’t eat is the “Oink.” I actually think some Okinawans enjoy the oink too. Although, maybe only with a little awamori on the side. In Okinawa the word meat has always been the equivalent to pork. It is the most important ingredient in Okinawan Cookery. Literally everything is usable to the Okinawan cook even the ears, feet, blood, and internal organs.
Hello, my name is Tom Corrao and I am the blogger behind the Okinawaology Blog. I created this blog to share and discuss all things Okinawan. I’m also the Public Relations Officer and Minkan Taishi to the Chicago Okinawa Kenjinkai. My experience with Okinawa is derived from the time I spent there during the 1980's and 90's (10 years) when serving in the United States Air Force. I've also been married to an Okinawan woman for 30 years now and have been immersed in many things Okinawan through both friends and family.
http://chicagookinawakenjinkai.blogspot.com/2010/03/pork-favored-meat-of-okinawan-cooks.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If Okinawans were nearly vegetarians then why did they have to hunt Dugong, a sea mammal for food in post-WW2 time if they were happily on a sweet potato diet?
The History of the Okinawan Dugong
There was formerly an abundant dugong population spread throughout the Ryukyu Archipelago. Dugong bones have been excavated from many shell mounds and archeological sites in the same area. Dugong meat was eaten and its bones crafted. During the Ryukyu Dynasty dugong meat was used as tribute paid to the Ryukyu Court and to the Chinese Emperor. There are numerous traditional songs, sayings and folklore related to dugong. The dugong population suffered a sharp decrease due to over hunting over the late 19th century and early 20th century. The
use of explosives to hunt dugong during the post-WW2 food crisis caused a further decline. Today, the dugong has disappeared from much of its former range with only a limited number observed off the Main Island of Okinawa.
http://sea-dugong.org/english/we_do.html
Dugongs are manatee-like animals which used to be common across Okinawa. But residents hunted them and - after WWII - ate them because of food shortages. Now they are critically endangered in Okinawa.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11390280
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just the fact that Willcox's paper is based on unreliable information from questionnaire survey in 1949 when Okinawans were starving due to food shortage crisis is enough to throw his paper into the garbage can.
Why doesn't Willcoxs point these out?
1) In 1949 Okinawa had just came out from losing WW2 when the islands were totally ruined by bombings and battles.
2) At least half of Okinawans who were mostly young people killed in the war.
3) US military snatched farm lands from Okinawa and prevented them from farming.
4) US military restricted Okinawans from living their traditional way of fishing, hunting and farming. Okinawa turned in a US military base prepares for more wars. Okinawan people abused by US military and their livelihood jeopardized.
5) Serious food shortage for Okinawans due to lost of their farmlands, fishing rights, hunting rights and civil rights, all snatched away by US military.
6) Massive numbers of malnutrition and diseases in Okinawan people caused by a war-ruined Okinawa. Their homes destroyed in the war, they lived under poor living conditions in rundown temporary shacks.
Pork is longevity food according to Okinawa traditions and Japanese scientists.
Let's look at the amount of pork eaten by Okinawans and how it helps them live longer life span. Okinawans life expectancy has been on the increase, they consume more pork than they did in 1960, now their life expectancy is 20 years longer than in 1960.
Let's compare pork consumption and life span in Okinawa and other places in the world. Okinawans consume 20% more pork than world average, their life span is 20% longer than world average.
India, on the other hand, has almost zero pork consumption, and has very little meat consumption. A large percentage of people in India are dietary vegans either by economic or religions, but their life span is a lot shorter.
Pork Consumption (grams/person/day), UN 2007 data:
Okinawa Islands 51
World Average 41
India 1
Life Expectancy in years, UN's average of 2005-2010 data:
Okinawa Islands 82.76 (Japan Government 2005 data)
World Average 68.84
India 65
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pork is Okinawan Longevity Food
From the mid-1960s until the early 1990s,
in my laboratory we have conducted experiments with foodstuffs our Okinawan elders eat everyday as being ‘good for the health’, feeding them to white rats in freeze-dried powder form. In one of these experiments, we fed pigs feet, ears, stomach and intestine to hyperlipidaemic white rats and examined the effects on lipid metabolism.
The results, as shown in Tables 3 and 4, show that a
statistically significant reduction in serum and hepatic triglyceride levels was seen in rats fed pigs feet.
This indicates that
pork cuisine is not simply a source of protein, but also has health-giving effects as a result of its collagen content. It
deserves attention as an integral part of Okinawan longevity food.
We tend to avoid pork in this present era of overeating, but in Okinawa it is a major pillar of the longevity diet.
History and characteristics of Okinawan Longevity Food
http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/APJCN/10/2/159.pdf
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okinawan Food
Learn About Okinawa
...the roots of the various popular pork dishes began with pork introduced from China in the 14th century. Moreover, ingredients and cooking methods as well as the spirit of “Ishoku Dogen, Healthy Eating to Prevent Disease” were also passed on through exchange with various countries. In Okinawa, dining is regarded as “Kusuimun” (meaning “something which becomes medicine”) in the Okinawa dialect.
The statements below comes directly from Okinawa government:
Ingredients of Okinawa
One of the most popular ingredients in Okinawan food is pork. For the pig, which had been introduced from China to Okinawa [600 years ago], all parts are consumed from the head and tail to the organs*. Pig’s feet, “Rafute”, or clear soup of pork tripe in the Okinawa dialect, and “Soki”, or spareribs in the Okinawa dialect, are famous.
Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau (OCVB) 1831-1 Oroku, Naha City, Okinawa 901-0152 JAPAN (Okinawa Industrial Support Center 2F)
http://en.okinawastory.jp/learn/food_okinawa/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okinawa Traditional Food Guide
Rafute
Rafute is a traditional Okinawa pork dish featuring thick cuts of meat from the pig's belly that have been boiled to become very soft. It was originally part of the cuisine of the Ryukyu royal court, but has since become a common dish.
An order of rafute typically comes with one to three pieces of meat, but each piece is quite thick. The meat is cooked in soya sauce and fish broth, and sometimes awamori as well. The pieces of rafute are sometimes served with a bit of mustard as seasoning. The taste of the meat is usually very rich and savory.
Mimiga
Another traditional Okinawa pork dish, Mimiga consists of thinly cut pig's ear that is boiled or steamed. It comes with a crunchy texture and is usually seasoned with a ponzu sauce, salt or a peanut dressing.
Yagi Sashimi
Yagi sashimi is raw goat meat, one of Okinawa's more challenging traditional dishes. The slices of raw goat meat are presented and eaten in a similar fashion as regular seafood sashimi. The meat has a rather strong goaty flavor and is somewhat chewy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rapes Committed by US Military
The rape-murder of Yumiko-chan took place during "Bayonets and Bulldozers" – a period of US military forced seizure and destruction of 50,000+acres of Okinawan land (including entire villages), to construct military bases across the Okinawa islands. The seizures – usually at gunpoint – left 250,000 Okinawans homeless and without means of livelihood. Because the US did not allow Okinawans any real legal protections, Okinawans had no recourse against the US military violations of their property rights and human rights.
Okinawan mass protests, marches, and sit-ins date back to this period because the people had no legal power to resist the US use of force against them. The pattern of American soldiers taking young girls from civilian houses at gunpoint to rape (and even murder them) began during the early days of the US occupation of Okinawa and worsened during the 1950's violent period of "Bayonets and Bulldozers." Rape has been used by soldiers for centuries as a weapon to dominate and control local populations. At this time, the US military rape of women and children became synonymous with the rape-like taking and destruction of their land.
The 1955 murder of Yumiko-chan outraged the Okinawan public, sparking what Okinawan Moriteru ARASAKI calls the first wave of the Okinawa Struggle for human rights and property rights. Okinawan resistance culminated in the 1956 "island-wide struggle" (shimagurumi toso) challenging US military domination.
Korean American filmmaker Annabel Park's five-minute video interview of Hirotoshi Iha brings us back to 1955 by illuminating how deeply Okinawns have been injured by the pattern of US violent violations of human rights, land rights, and also why the US and Japanese governments have never been able to extinguish the Okinawan struggle for rights, self-determination, safety from US military violence, and peace.
Filmed in Takae in 2010, Mr. Iha explains why he became an activist and the deep meaning of the "Heart of Okinawa." Yumiko-chan was his cousin.
The life-long activist then explains why the majority of Okinawans don't want Futenma training base "transferred" to Henoko: "because we know the human cost of it."
