When you think about Japanese food, you probably think about healthy, beautiful, simple, aesthetic dishes that were made in heaven or something like that, right?
Well, yes, a lot of traditional Japanese food fits that description. However, don’t get mistaken, other kinds of food are found in the country too.
Greasy, fat, more or less junk food, usually inspired by the food from a country that shall not be named (the US) is also pretty common as soon as you stray a bit away from nice restaurants and…
OH MY GOD!!! WHAT IS THAT??? JAPAN, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THESE FRENCH FRIES?!? HOW IS IT POSSIBLE? IS THIS A DECLARATION OF WAR? HOW COULD YOU? HOW… Japan… Seriously… I thought we were friends… I mean, it’s not even about me and you… I thought you respected food… This is my whole understanding of the country that’s being shattered right here and now… Where do we go from here? Japan… Why?… 😢
Indeed, Japan has produced food that is more visually appealing. Your post reminded me of ‘Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zone’. Okinawa was praised in the docuseries, but there is trouble ahead. The Fukumine et al. study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41440-023-01293-z said that Yonaguni Island, a remote small island in Okinawa Prefecture, has been showing a recent trend of increasing obesity and hypertension. Bad omen for the near future of Japan.
Source https://rdcu.be/dmPPn
Thanks for stopping by.
I wonder why this is happening to Yonaguni, but it’s small enough and remote enough (It’s the Westernmost point of Japan, it’s closer to Taiwan than to Naha, the capital city of Okinawa, and it has less than 2,000 inhabitants) than whatever happens there has little to no chance of influencing the rest of Japan (except on the geopolitical sphere, as China has been looking at the island funnily at times).
With that being said, yes, it’s true that there is more junk food in Japan, and while the number of obese people is increasing, it’s still very small, and nowhere comparable to North America or even Europe.
Also, to be fair, this picture is in no way representative of a normal dish in Japan. If it was normal, I wouldn’t have made a blog post about it. 😉
The supermarket where the picture was taken also has a great selection of fish, most of it local, as well as lots of (almost mostly local) fruit and vegetables.