Japan’s traditional diet is cancerous

Besides the wacko folks I talk to back home who think China and Japan are the same place, there’s one thing that drives me bonkers:
Westerners’ complete misunderstanding that the traditional Japanese diet is “healthly.”
Actually, there’s nothing more unhealthly on earth.
The average salaryman’s diet consists of MSG-ladden ramen, cigarettes, coffee and beer. Japan’s rate of stomach cancer is about the highest: ” USA incidence is <10 (the world’s lowest) and Japan’s rate is about 60 (competing with Korea as the world’s highest).”
Likewise, the traditional Japanese diet of asbestos-tainted polished-to-death white rice, miso, salted fish and pickled vegetables contains only nutritious salt and MSG.

Western and Japanese diets up colon cancer risk
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Both the meat-laden “Western” diet and the traditional, salty diet of the Japanese apparently increase the risk of colon cancer … among more than 42,000 adults followed for 10 years, women (but not men) with either a Western pattern of eating or a diet heavy in traditional Japanese foods like salted fish and pickled vegetables had a higher risk of colon cancer compared with women who were deemed healthy eaters.

RICE: from Answers.com
Talc-coated rice is white rice that has a coating of talc and glucose, which gives it a glossy appearance. The coating acts as a preservative and the practice was once widely used to protect exported rice during long sea voyages….. It must be thoroughly rinsed before being cooked, as there is a chance that the talc can be contaminated with asbestos

BOTTOM LINE: The real secret of the so-called “healthy” Japanese diet is that they eat a lot less of it, since the portion size served in a Japanese restaurant or home is one third that in the US.