I hope the following seven secrets pique your interest in Japanese food and cooking more. It’s an amazing food culture.
1. The Japanese diet is based on seven foods: fish, vegetables, rice, soya, noodles, tea and fruit, so all meals are centred around these seven ‘pillars of Japanese cooking.’ The Japanese do not have to worry if their meals are nutritious, healthy or fattening, because all of these ingredients are highly nutritious and balanced for humans. And the way they are prepared and cooked is also guaranteed to be healthy. Fish is definitely still their main source of animal food, with the Japanese eating very little red meat, around 45kg a year, compared to almost 100kg in Australia, the US and the UK.
2. The Japanese eat much smaller portions of food, more often, and serve their food on beautiful, smaller tableware. They have a proverb that says ‘Hara hachi bu’ (stop eating when you are 80% full). They don’t overeat, mainly because they eat quality food, so they don’t need the quantity of food we consume in the West, as well as their food not being fattening in general.
3. Japanese cooking is very light and gentle. The Japanese tend to handle their food, both in preparation and when eating, with care, gentleness and respect. If you’ve ever been to a Japanese restaurant and watched a sushi-sashimi chef preparing slices of raw fish and seafood, you know what I mean. Most Japanese food is lightly grilled, sautéed, stir-fried, lightly fried in oil, such as tempura (a kind of battered dish), steamed or boiled, such as with soups. The cooking methods used in the East save more of the nutrients when food is cooked, and allow more flavour to be enhanced and enjoyed.
4. The Japanese eat rice instead of other starchy carbohydrates like bread and pasta. Rice, and some other grains, is much better for your health than white bread and pasta. Although mainly white rice is eaten, brown rice is used sometimes in Japan, and was the traditional choice before the late 1860s. I recommend eating brown rice instead of white rice for maximum nutrition.
5. The Japanese are the masters of the power breakfast. But the typical Japanese breakfast looks more like a meal we would have at night – green tea, a bowl of steamed rice, miso soup, tofu, shallots, seaweed, a small omelette and maybe some grilled salmon. But unlike most Western breakfasts, this is a highly nutritious, energy-filled and sustaining start to the day, and not loaded with simple sugars, which burn up in a short time, leaving you ‘empty’ of energy again and craving more sugar. (If you think this kind of breakfast is strange, there are many more different breakfast traditions from other countries too. The top American motivational speaker and success coach, Tony Robbins, eats steamed broccoli for breakfast everyday. Try it for a week and feel the difference!)
6. The Japanese love dessert and sweet foods also, but in a special way. They do eat cakes and pies and candy and desserts, but the difference is, they eat them in much smaller portions. Japanese portions of cakes and pies, etc in cafés and restaurants, or at home, are about a third the size of Western-style portions of these foods.
7. The Japanese have a great relationship with food. Now I don’t mean they’re into anything kinky with food, but they do have unusual connections to food, which I think many other countries have lost. I have lived with Japanese people for a long time, and they have amazing senses of smell, taste and feel when it comes to food preparation, cooking and eating. They can detect the smallest changes in most foods, especially fruits and vegetables, if they are ripe or fresh or not. The Japanese also have a very delicate sense of taste, preferring lighter, fresher, less overpowering tastes. This is largely why Japanese cuisine does not boast heavy tasting or textured sauces. They also eat slower, savouring their food – each mouthful, each kind of food in their meal – the crisp, freshness of fruit, the meaty texture and softness of a piece of grilled salmon or the refreshing warmth of a cup of green tea.