A Ryukyu manuscript
Surviving versions carry different dates and textual details; the story is larger than a single edition.
OUR HERITAGE / THE YOTSUBA PERSPECTIVE
食養生Old wisdom.
A living perspective.
From the royal tables of Ryukyu to the way we care for ourselves today. A story of food, plants and thoughtful preparation.
Open the storyGozen Honzo · an artistic interpretation
01 / A BOOK FOR THE ROYAL TABLE
Before the formula,
there was the meal.
Gozen Honzo — 御膳本草, also read as Gyozen Honzo, is a food-materia-medica text associated with the royal court of the Ryukyu Kingdom. Physician Tokashiki Tsūkan brought together knowledge of foods, their preparation and their combinations.
Its pages describe around 300 ingredients: grains, vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, seaweeds, fish and other foods. It is a window into an early nineteenth-century understanding of eating and caring for the person.
A complete food world
Everyday ingredients are considered alongside preparation, combinations and the circumstances of eating.
A knowledge that travelled
The Sakamaki/Hawley Collection holds manuscript copies, made accessible through university archives.
02 / A CULTURE OF EVERYDAY CARE
Food belongs
to the whole story.
Okinawan food culture gives nourishment a place within daily life: what is available, how it is prepared and the care expressed through a meal.
Care through eating
Attention to meals, eating habits and the person. A dietary expression of yōjō — nurturing health through daily living.
Food with a caring purpose
An Okinawan cultural expression for something regarded as medicinal, reflecting the place of food in local traditions of care.
Nourishment for life
Often translated as “medicine for life”: a way to speak about the restoring value of good food and the experience around it.
We carry these ideas forward as a food culture and a philosophy of attention. Historical descriptions are read in their own context, alongside modern nutritional knowledge.
03 / BOTANICAL CONNECTIONS
Different roots.
A considered composition.
Some connections lead directly to the food manuscript. Others belong to the wider botanical tradition. Each deserves its own story.
THE RYUKYU FOOD STORY
A familiar plant. A story still unfolding.
An entry for kuwasau in Gozen Honzo describes edible young leaves and flowers. It places this plant within the food culture of the Ryukyu Islands.
Its association with sleep belongs to a developing tradition: researchers distinguish the early manuscript from a 1931 adaptation that explicitly mentions sleeplessness. Modern research asks further questions about particular daylily preparations.
THE YOTSUBA CONNECTION
GABAVEN includes daylily powder within a contemporary composition of fermented GABA, Venetron®, passion flower and selected plant extracts.
Discover GABAVEN04 / THE WAY WE CARRY IT FORWARD
Heritage gives us questions.
Care gives them purpose.
Which plant? Which part? Prepared in what way? Combined with what? These questions connect an interest in tradition with the work of contemporary formulation.
At Yotsuba, ingredient identity, preparation, composition and quality sit alongside the everyday foundations of food, movement, rest and connection. Our formulas are contemporary food supplements, each assessed on its own composition and evidence.
Our ME-BYO philosophyCONTINUE THROUGH THE ISLANDS
A place where
the story keeps growing.
Explore Okinawa's longevity heritage, island ingredients and Yotsuba's perspective on everyday care.
Explore Okinawa Blue Zone