Japanese Food
Japanese Food has gained a large amount of popularity in the past few years. Many people have come to appreciate the healthy Asian style foods. They think that eating slowly, enjoying every bit and within small portions is much healthier and helps avoid overeating. Traditional Japanese food servings are far smaller than those of the United States and far healthier than in so many other areas around the world.
You may be curious as to the health benefits of eating this type of food. It is known that traditional Japanese foods contain very high amounts of potassium and sodium, both of which help keep your heart healthy. Many times, the main ingredient in these dishes, especially meats, contains high amounts of sodium, which can lead to high blood pressure problems and even strokes. By cutting back on the amount of salt you consume, you will greatly improve your overall health.
Another important fact about this traditional oriental style of cooking is that they consume very little saturated fats. Saturated fats are considered bad for the heart and should not be consumed in large amounts during the Japanese diet. This could be one of the reasons why the Japanese diet is one of the healthiest among all the diets in the world. High amounts of sodium are avoided by eating high amounts of fresh vegetables and fish.
If you are interested in trying out the many amazing flavors and textures that are available in the Japanese food culture, all it takes is a little preparation and research. You can find out a great deal about Japanese dishes from travel brochures or even talking to others who have already tried out the different Japanese dishes that you are interested in. Once you start sampling the wonderful tastes and textures of Japanese cuisine, you will begin to understand why this is such a popular and delicious style of meal making throughout the world.
JAPANESE FOOD: I am pretty bad about linking to my Japan Times articles when they come out. I totally forgot to link to last month’s article, which is about lotus root, with an interesting historic recipe for karashi renkon (mustard-miso stuffed lotus root). It doesn’t age (the article that is), so I hope you take a look!
In any case, for this month’s article I was asked by my editors at The Japan Times to do something that looked back at the 2010s. I decided to talk about the influence social media has hand on the food scene. As is the case everywhere, social media or SNS as it’s called in Japan has really taken over as the main thing that influences people. The 2000s may have been the golden age of individual blogs, but the 2010s were mostly about social media.
I mainly talked about the impact of Instagram and Twitter. Japanese people are on other social media platforms too such as Facebook, but in terms of being influences on thagrae food scene in Japan, I think it falls far behind that of “Insuta” as Instagram is called, and Twitter. I hope you take a look!
Read How Social Media Changed 2010 Eating Habits
Incidentally, the two Twitter accounts I referred to in the article are Ryuji and Yoshiharu Doi; the first is an example of someone using social media (including YouTube) full on to emerge as a cooking “star”; and the other is an example of someone already well established as a TV cooking star using Twitter in an effective way.
The recipe (because of course I always include a recipe) is for really easy onigirazu, or rice sandwiches – something that got really popular via social media, with a big assist from Cookpad, in the mid-2010s, and has now become quite mainstream. The photo above is an alternate one I took for the article.
Filed under: japan times social media writing elsewhere onigiri onigirazu food history
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