Japanese diet vs American diet
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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.They eat fish and rice for breakfast.
No thank you.
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Totally! I grew up eating salmon roe and butter sandwiches for breakfast... I still eat them for breakfast. When I first came to the states and took out my breakfast in school, well lets just say I was the "girl who eats fish eggs" for the next 5 years.0 -
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.
I've lived there too and agree 100%. Japanese people have the fattening restaurants and food we have, they just don't have the ridiculous portion sizes we do. Also, like you said, they do a lot of walking.0 -
I'm from New Zealand and a couple of years ago my in-laws went to USA for a holiday. They were gobsmacked at the amount of food the American people eat, and physically could not eat a whole dinner themselves, so they learned pretty quickly to order one dinner and share it between the two of them. Pretty scary that a "one-person dinner" could easily feed two adults.0
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Sorry I lived in Guam and Saipan and believe me, they are small in height, but not in girth.I agree, friends of mine from Guam eat smaller amounts and no junk they are small people. Life style is very important. When I move more and eat healthy I lose no matter where I am. Keeping my Head in that mode is the problem!
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I lived in Guam too. Always like to meet people who lived there too. Loved Guam!
Here's a thought. My boyfriend moved to Japan for 3 months to build cabins. He lost about 20 to 25 lbs very very quickly when he first moved there. (He gained most of it back by the time he got back to Utah). Mostly because the construction team lived with Japanese families and had to eat what they served. Well they served fish with the head still on "looking at you" as he would say and he "had" to use chopsticks and the portions were about half of what he normally would consume no matter what type of food it was. So he lived mostly on rice for the first 3 weeks or so. You could conclude that yes the Japanese have a better diet and therefore are thinner/healthier. Reality is that he ate a hell of a lot less than he usually did and so the weight fell off. When he finally mastered the chopsticks and learned to eat the fish even though it was looking at him and found the vending machines with beer sold right there on the streets, the weight came back. So now my conclusion is once again, if you eat more than you burn, you will gain, if you eat less than you burn, you will lose and if you eat the same as you burn, you will stay the same.0 -
I JUST WANT SUSHI!0
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I'm from New Zealand and a couple of years ago my in-laws went to USA for a holiday. They were gobsmacked at the amount of food the American people eat, and physically could not eat a whole dinner themselves, so they learned pretty quickly to order one dinner and share it between the two of them. Pretty scary that a "one-person dinner" could easily feed two adults.
QFT...
American restaurant portions are by and large at least twice a recommended serving...and this carries over from the restaurant to home cooking. Unfortunately, this is what is valued most by the US consumer...a lot for not that much money...it is viewed as getting a deal. All it really took for me to cut my calories and lose weight was basically portion control.
I used to be one of those people who easily sat down to three massive restaurant sized meals per day...whether it was actually at a restaurant or I cooked it myself...and on top of that I drank a lot of soda and had all kinds of other sweets and snacks throughout the day. Having pretty much grown up with those kind of portions I really knew no different.
When I started actually weighing out my portions at home as per the recommended serving size I was astounded. Initially it seemed like a paltry amount of food....I was just so used to looking at those massive portions. Now, I can't even imagine how I used to do it. When my wife and I go out these days, we split an entree...my stomach is just not that big anymore and I can't imagine how uncomfortable I'd be eating an entire entree like that...I'd probably have to puke.0 -
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.
Having also been to Japan, what we Americans consider a normal portion is usually closer to what the sumo wrestlers eat and yeah, there's a lot more movement. Bicycles were everywhere where I visited. Things like apartments are also smaller, so being "larger" simply doesn't seem to be conducive to their culture.
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.
Agreed! I remember my Japanese friends asking why my family was so fat. Just blatantly asking that outright. "Why is your mom so fat??". They were genuinely concerned/curious!
This. I was 14 when I lived in Japan, and I remember being asked all the time why I was so big or being told that I looked too big for my age. In retrospect it makes sense, but I had no sense of why this kept happening when I was teenager.0 -
If America actually ate smaller portions and relied less on vehicles we probably would be a lot healthier.
Yes, that pretty much sums it up! Eat less, move more!
Hey and just overlook the mocking that is on here from time to time.0 -
The portion sizes in the US are crazy. Order the same meal as you would here in Russia or something and you'll get a quarter of the amount of food.
I call that having leftovers for two to three lunches. When I load up my to go box, I always say to my husband score one for me I am getting at least two more meals out of this one we just payed for.0 -
I also watched a youtube video about a baby (8 months old) brought here from japan and put on american food- DIED because of the additives and preservatives we put in our food. SOoooooo its not just about the "diet". And they also walk everywhere and use public transportation where the elderly, invalid and pregnant are the first seated and everyone else stands.
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I love this topic, very interesting. Also appreciate all the input from people who have lived in Japan.
I also made the observation that in America, we have so many "additional dishes" that we have with our meals. Most places you go, you get a salad, a basket of bread or breadsticks, biscuits, etc., plus your meal with 2 or more side dishes (usually pasta or potato based, not many people choose the veggies), then we have dessert after. And when we aren't served these things with our meal, we become incredulous. "What? We don't get bread and butter with this? Where's my side salad?" We just don't need all these additional things with our meals. I mean, think about it. We get food.... before our food comes. Normally we order an appetizer and eat the bread as well just to "hold us over" until our meal comes.
Also, a lot of kids in America today are brought up without having a balanced meal at dinner. I remember in high school my boyfriend asked what the deal was with my family that we always had to have a veggie at dinner. He lived on a farm and they were purely meat, bread and potatoes type of people. We (Americans) eat so much food on the go and dinner is not viewed as a time for family or for socializing... it's just viewed as eat whatever food we can grab on the run or stuff into a bag, even if it is 3000 calories in one sitting.
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.
I think it's actually a positive thing that their culture openly discusses concern for weight gain and points it out when it happens. Maybe if we weren't so secretive about it in the US and tip-toe around feelings instead of actually telling the person you're concerned for their health, we wouldn't have one of the highest obesity rates in the world and all of the health issues that accompany it.
Glad to take a break from all the "I'm up 1 pound from yesterday- HELP!!!" topics and actually read something interesting on here.0 -
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.0
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That's it. I'm going on a Japanese diet. Sushi, pocky and sake only. Doing it for reals
Which Pocky flavours? You know, for science.0 -
That's it. I'm going on a Japanese diet. Sushi, pocky and sake only. Doing it for reals
Which Pocky flavours? You know, for science.
Preferably chocolate almond crush or you know. ..chocolate. Strawberry isn't too bad either. Next time I'm near a Meijers I'm making this happen.0 -
Portion control is everything. I have some "rules" for myself. I only eat at a restaurant if I have a gift card, so this might be 6 times a year. When I'm there, I do get what I want, but I have never ordered dessert at a restaurant, and I didn't grow up having dessert after meals. We always had vegetables with our meals as well, and we do this at home, too, with the kids. They love asparagus, cauliflower, green beans, etc.
They have had McD's a few times, but the last time they were there was September. Even when we're there, as a family of five, we share an order of fries between all of us.
I think the Japanese, in general, incorporate a lot more vegetables in their diets, and I'm not saying people here don't either. I think if a person is smart and works on portion control and more fresh, whole foods, he/she can eat well here too. If the food is not in your house and you bring/make your own lunches, you are more likely to succeed and less likely to have out of control portions and unhealthy foods.0 -
Pointing at the foods a particular nation consumes is just another way of deflecting attention from individuals' poor eating and exercise habits.
It's not what they eat or do, it's how much they eat and do.
Once you accept responsibility for the condition of your own body, it's amazing how things change. Look at all the successful people on this site. Regardless of what actual diet they use - IIFYM, paleo, raw, vegan, etc - they all have one thing in common. They took responsibility, ate less, and moved more.
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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.0 -
No. Japan has GMO's. They just label them.it's all the GMO's American foods have!
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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).0 -
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.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.0 -
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.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.0
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