Japanese diet vs American diet

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  • SarahBeth0625
    SarahBeth0625 Posts: 685 Member
    Yeah, although I only live 5 miles from my work, my only routes to walk/bike are along the interstate (illegal, not to mention a little deadly, LOL) or over a spillway (dangerous, as water rushes over it and I think it's frowned upon to bike over that thing).
  • danimalkeys
    danimalkeys Posts: 982 Member
    Plus, as others have commented- the United States is more spread out population-wise. It's just not feasible for some of us to bike 20 miles one way to work, and walking is obviously out of the question too for that distance.
    Where I live now, there is virtually no public transportation, some bus routes, but nothing really useful. Where I come from, you could take a bus or a train anywhere, and then walk the rest. That is how a lot of people in Japan do it, it is not that they live that close to their destination, they walk to the bus, they take the bus, then walk to their destination.
    Same here. I can walk a mile to the main north/south road, get a bus that'll take me in either direction, it'll drop me off on that same main road, then if my destination is 8 miles from there, there is no way to get there. To get to the data center where I need to go on a semi regular basis, it'd probably take me 3 hours via public transport because it's all buses, and I'd have to transfer 4-5 times, vs 45 minutes by car. If I lived in San Fran or NYC- I wouldn't even need a car. When I've travelled to those places for work, it was all public transport- trains, trolleys, buses. Easy.
  • tegalicious
    tegalicious Posts: 629
    Plus, as others have commented- the United States is more spread out population-wise. It's just not feasible for some of us to bike 20 miles one way to work, and walking is obviously out of the question too for that distance.
    Where I live now, there is virtually no public transportation, some bus routes, but nothing really useful. Where I come from, you could take a bus or a train anywhere, and then walk the rest. That is how a lot of people in Japan do it, it is not that they live that close to their destination, they walk to the bus, they take the bus, then walk to their destination.

    They take mass transit in Japan because congestion makes it difficult for people to get anywhere in a car in a timely fashion. It is also a financial issue. Lots of people in Japan simply can't afford two cars, let alone one.
  • in_the_stars
    in_the_stars Posts: 1,395 Member
    Are you Japanese?
    Eat what your ancestors ate. :)
  • mamma_nee
    mamma_nee Posts: 809 Member
    My son was working in a place with 5 men from Japan … They would go grab lunch at a subways together and my son said he ate a 6`` hero with his bag of chips plus a soda while the 5 Japanese men shared a 6`` hero and nothing more for their lunch !! Can you imagine?
  • aprilwilliams2729
    aprilwilliams2729 Posts: 107 Member
    If America actually ate smaller portions and relied less on vehicles we probably would be a lot healthier.

    I imagine those who live in urban areas walk/bike as much as Japanese do. For us on more rural areas, it's not practical. 30 miles to work in 10 degrees (or 100 degrees in July) on a bike? Portion control is a major factor- but it's easy to 1: not eat it all or 2: not order the super jumbo size of everything even though it only costs 50 cents more than the normal portion.

    I was going to point this out as well. People talk about all the walking and bike riding - which is great except that I live 15 miles from work. And on rural 2 lane highways you would be taking your life in your hands trying to bike on those roads in the winter (we actually have quite a few recreational bike riders in the warmer months). Of course I certainly wouldn't trade my trail along ther river or through the pine trees for the convenience of walking on concrete through smog! :)
  • BaoCat
    BaoCat Posts: 42
    They eat fish and rice for breakfast.

    No thank you.
    Yep. It's a great way to start the day. If you're raised that way, it's normal. You weren't so you don't think it's normal.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness industry for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

    Agreed, Fresh trout for breakfast is something I grew up on, my wife thinks it's a horrible breakfast food. Then again, I could eat fresh trout for every meal.

    Rigger

    Not that I eat fish regularly at all... but when I was a kid, when we'd go fishing in the summer, flounder was a regular for breakfast if we caught some in the morning. Fresh caught fish really spoiled me (and makes me still turn my nose up at store bought fish.) Same thing with picking peaches / fresh fruit. Once you've had the good ripe local stuff, it's hard to stomach the avg store 'ripe' fruit.

    Really FRESH fish is good just about any time of the day. 'Cause it doesn't smell / taste fishy! And good lord, fresh tuna steaks?!? gah... drool worthy the few times I've had them. Makes you want to throw a can a tuna on the floor and shout 'how could you?!' to the gods of canning...
  • WhiteRabbit1313
    WhiteRabbit1313 Posts: 1,091 Member
    Most countries serve multiple courses for at least one meal every day. It's certainly not an American thing, and in some countries, it is incredible to consider skipping a course. Salad course, soup course, fish course, pasta course, main course, dessert course, coffee course, cocktail course, and on and on. The difference, again, comes down to portion sizes, not the number of courses involved.

    ^^This.

    My Lebanese friend always has multiple courses, when we're invited over for a "lunch" that lasts hours! I.LOVE.BEING.INVITED.OVER!!! Haha! She; however, says that they don't always eat big meals like that, usually just on Sunday's and that their dinners usually consist of (and I've observed this) standing around the kitchen island together, snacking on pita, hummus and/or Labne, olives, and nuts. She says they just don't "do" big meals at night, and that they are very conscientious about their waistlines. She often shares lower sugar (not sugar substitutes!) cake recipes with me. :happy:

    It's no secret that the main difference between the American diet, and many other diets, is the emphasis that is placed on quantity, instead of quality. (Which is not to say that you can't lose weight on "lesser quality foods;" plenty of people do that, also.)
  • WhiteRabbit1313
    WhiteRabbit1313 Posts: 1,091 Member
    I imagine those who live in urban areas walk/bike as much as Japanese do. For us on more rural areas, it's not practical. 30 miles to work in 10 degrees (or 100 degrees in July) on a bike? Portion control is a major factor- but it's easy to 1: not eat it all or 2: not order the super jumbo size of everything even though it only costs 50 cents more than the normal portion.
    I live 22 miles away from my job. IF there was a bus stop/train station I could walk to and take a bus that wouldn't let me off too far away to walk to the building, I would do it. I don't live in a rural area, I live in the suburbs, but the mass transportation in my state is pretty bad. Instead of making mass transportation better, they make the railroad tracks into bicycle paths, not that I mind having them, but both would be better.

    My job is 30 miles away from home. I take the park and ride (bus) in to work which drops me off 6 blocks from the office. I love it! However, it's done little to nothing for my weight loss efforts. Apparently, you have to walk more than 60 blocks/week to see real results from "moving more." ha ha!
  • Fullsterkur_woman
    Fullsterkur_woman Posts: 2,712 Member
    And Japan have their own problems when it comes to food. Among other the heavy metal levels in seafood higher on the foodchain like whale and dolphin (that gets labeled and sold as whale).
    Why is that a problem? Dolphins are whales (of the toothed variety).
  • Dugleik
    Dugleik Posts: 125
    And Japan have their own problems when it comes to food. Among other the heavy metal levels in seafood higher on the foodchain like whale and dolphin (that gets labeled and sold as whale).
    Why is that a problem? Dolphins are whales (of the toothed variety).

    Other then not getting the kind of meat you're paying for, which was what the horse meat scandal in Europe was all about. The dolphin meat, and meat from other toothed whales, are high in mercury. But then that is a problem with...um...sea animals (?) higher on the food chain.
  • teachmom32
    teachmom32 Posts: 183 Member


    That, and my experience is that cultures like Japanese (and Chinese) are usually more vocally critical about weight. It's not taboo to comment on it as if you were commenting on a pair of shoes. My Italian relatives tell me I'm too skinny and that I need to eat more. A Chinese relative told me "how fat" I'd gotten (20 lb gain) since last time he'd seen me. ;)

    So, yeah, I think it's a combination of the portions AND the culture. ;)

    Yes, I lived with an exchange student from Taiwan and she was looking at pictures of me as a kid. She then looked at me and told me I had gotten really fat! Definitely a cultural difference there.
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,008 Member
    I have lived in Japan. It all boils down to calories in and calories out. People in Japan don't eat huge servings of food and are pretty active. The cities are fairly congested and people walk and bike a lot. It isn't necessarily the foods they eat that makes them have a healthy weight, it is the fact that they don't eat huge servings of food and don't sit around all day doing nothing while consuming huge portions of food.

    Amen!

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