Finding Your 'Blue Zone' in Japanese Plant-Based Cuisine

There was a time when, on an almost daily basis, the Japanese ate a nutritious mix of grilled fish, brown rice, fresh vegetables, seaweed, tofu, miso soup, pickles, and an assortment of fermented offerings.

Small dishes of whole foods, with minimal amounts of sugars, fats, and animal protein, a diet rich in nutrients, are still consumed. But these are being liberally supplemented with processed foods and preparations saturated in sauces and seasonings.

However, despite the onslaught of health-detrimental foods, good models remain.

Buddhist Cuisine

One of the early meals I sampled when I came to Japan, for example, was at a restaurant in Kyoto, where a succession of dishes based on varieties of tofu and vegetables were served. Admittedly, it wasn't cheap, but well worth the sensation of feeling the body both sated and cleansed.

A similar sensation was experienced when I put up for a few nights at a temple lodging on Mount Koya in Wakayama prefecture. The food served here, known as shojin ryori, temple or Buddhist cuisine, one eschewing meat or fish, is perfect for vegetarians and vegans.

*Rich in health giving ingredients: dinner in a temple lodging on Mount Koya.*

Utilizing wild, edible plants found in the mountains and vegetables provided by local farmers, the cuisine reflects a sense of the seasons. It features, according to Buddhist food preparation principles, five tastes, five colors, and five cooking methods.

Quality Proteins

There was even a tofu preparation named after the famous mountain: the sponge-like koya dofu. If there is a correlation between health and specific dishes believed to lower blood pressure, promote fluid urination, clear toxins from the body, relieve fever, and sustain good health, tofu, rich in protein, is a case in point. Its value lies in its isoflavone content, which helps, among other benefits, to prevent prostate and breast cancer, and bone depletion.

The consumption of quality protein rejuvenates blood vessels, helps to reduce the incidence of stroke, hypertension, and cognitive damage or impairment.

I did feel, though, looking at the beauty of the serving vessels and the diversity of dishes brought to my small room twice a day, that I might have been eating a rather superior version of shojin ryori to the one given twice a day to the temple's priests, monks, and acolytes.

Blue Zones

The world's Blue Zones, a relatively recent designation, are longevity spots identified by dietitians and lifestyle experts for their value as models for healthy consumption in a world increasingly addicted to convenience foods.

Spots include the Greek island of Ikaria, Pakistan's Hunza Valley, and the Ogliastra region of Sardinia. Before an onslaught of fast food chains, processed items, fry-ups, and high-calorie white rice reduced its ranking and the overall health index of its citizens, Okinawa was listed as a Blue Zone region. These days, the island's reputation is a little bruised, but good health cuisine models still exist.

*Depending on the restaurant, Okinawan yakuzen cuisine can be quite substantial.*

'Medicinal Food'

Deriving from the Chinese notion that the same principles apply to both medical treatment and daily diet, Okinawan yakuzen, or "medicinal food," incorporates an almost Ayurvedic approach to healing, seeking to restore the body's energy levels and rebalance fluids. While the life-sustaining, anti-aging properties speak for themselves, it is preferable to sample the food at the source.

One example of yakuzen cuisine I sampled wasn't a lunch or dinner, but a breakfast set at the small, family-run Daiichi Hotel in Naha, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture. Perhaps it was not so astonishing. One recalls an old Adventist adage, admonishing people to consume "breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper."

The morning set was created over 40 years ago by the mother of the present hotel owner, Katsue Watanabe. It can be baffling taking in the smorgasbord of light dishes and bowls that are placed on the table, which is why Watanabe and an assistant are on hand to explain each item in Japanese or English.

Okinawan Herbs and Veggies

I began with a glass of soy milk, light, unsweetened, and pure, took a sip of green goya (bitter melon) juice, and another of shikuwasa, an Okinawan lime, whose astringent edge opens the palette for solids. A sampling of these included shima ninjin, island carrots rich in beta carotene, nigana, a bitter long-life plant, and other local veggies like tougan (ash gourd), and handama, an Okinawan herb believed to promote blood circulation.

*The extraordinary yakuzen breakfast at the Okinawa Daiichi Hotel in Naha.*

A pot of herbal tea was just right with petite desserts of pink bread and sesame, yellow turmeric jam, acerola, and amagashi, made from wheat, beans, and the island's black sugar. In all, my yakuzen choshoku (medicinal food breakfast) contained 50 items, totaling a modest 585 calories.

*Healthy Okinawan cuisine does not preclude a small quantity of either meat or fish.*

Salt, Reconsidered

Those who pay attention to health matters will be wary of the negative correlation between salt intake and life expectancy. But as Kiyoshi Okuhara, the food safety team leader of a refinery on Aguni-jima, an Okinawan island, told me, "Good quality salt contains several types of minerals, like chromium, which promotes muscular contraction, and selenium, a powerful antioxidant. Salt can promote good health." His factory produces hand-made steamed and sun-dried salt that has become an international brand.

*Masaru Takaesu works for short periods in extreme heat inside his salt factory on Hamahiga-jima Island.*

I had a similar experience on the small island of Hamahiga-jima, where Masaru Takaesu showed me around his small salt factory, one he runs with his wife, a staff of two. As I watched him boiling, raking, and sorting salt particles into large ceramic jars, the thermometer on the wall rose to 50 degrees centigrade. Takaesu's products are rich in minerals like magnesium, copper, zinc, and potassium. They contain a lower, artery-hardening sodium nitrate content, qualifying them as healthy salt.

Exploring Nara

In another effort to track down healthy dishes and food traditions, I rented a small motorbike to explore the rural landscapes and country towns of Nara prefecture. As the urban shredding at the edges of the city receded, fields of rice, vinyl greenhouses, private orchards, and neat kitchen gardens appeared. The world seemed a little fresher, a touch more natural, more invigorated.

My reservation for a full-course lunch at Daigan-ji Temple in Uda promised to be a culinary adventure, one based around the concept of yakuso, a preparation closer to temple or herbal cuisine than yakuzen.

Vegetarian Gastronomy

The first course, an elegantly arranged set of small, tasty morsels, epitomized the virtues of slow food. It was the beginning of a program that would take almost an hour and a half to present and consume.

*The yakuso lunch set at Daigan-ji temple includes black rice, an ancient variant of the grain.*

This consisted of pumpkin and carrot cubes, a small portion of compacted brown rice, sesame tofu, and lily sprouts, all grown in the temple grounds. They reminded me of the cornucopia of healthy vegetables and herbs grown during the medieval era in the monastic herbal gardens of Catholic Europe.

Mugwort, mint, jujube, strawberry geranium, and fish mint, this latter plant better known to garden owners in Japan as a fast-growing, bitter-smelling weed, were served as fried tempura treats, a highly unconventional, but tasty treatment.

The town of Uda is known for kuzu, or Japanese arrowroot, a rapidly spreading vine, whose roots are rich in starch. It has been used for centuries throughout East Asia as an herbal tea, traditional medicine, and tincture.

*The elegantly prepared dessert at Daigan-ji temple.*

Served on a bed of shiso (perilla leaves), I found the dish cool and refreshing, the flavor hinting at grape jelly. Dessert was an elegantly arranged tray of fish mint sherbet, yokan bean jelly, and mint leaves. Entirely vegetarian, this was gastronomy at its purest.

Finding Your Blue Zone

Everyone, as a famous Queen song once proclaimed, wants to live forever. That might not be possible in the literal sense, but there are ways for us to enjoy healthier lives through a more judicial choice of what we eat.

*A thick, healthy-looking potage, served at a food market on Ishigaki-jima Island.*

Spend a little time seeking out the healthier offerings in Japan's culinary world, adapting their ingredients and the wisdom underpinning their preparation. You can find your own Blue Zone, less a search for place or physical space, than an exploration of self, an inquiry into how healthy, appetizing food can open doors to a long life.

Author and photographer: Stephen Mansfield