Japanese Food

Tokushima School Lunch vs. Japanese Prison Food

A photo of a school lunch served at public schools in Tokushima city (bread, one weiner, milk, and corn soup):

It’s supposedly due to mismanagement of funds. The bread in the photo is made from rice flour, making it significantly more expensive than typical bread. It’s basically a subsidy for rice farmers. The leftover money is spent on very simple foods.

Over at Itai News, we can see that Japanese netizens were pretty surprised by the sad-looking school lunch, which looks far worse than meals served in Japanese prison cafeterias. Adult males require more calories than little kids, but the prison food still looks a lot nicer.

Note: The photo does not show a typical Japanese school lunch. It’s received a lot of attention in Japan because Japanese people think it looks abnormally meager. As a former ALT, I can tell you that Japanese school lunches tend to be very nice. Schools usually have monthly menus with new and healthy foods every single day. (No nasty frozen pizza)

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Japan’s New Limits For Radiation in Food: 20 Times Stricter Than American and EU Standards

A helpful Yomiuri chart shows the Japanese government’s proposal for new limits on radioactive cesium in food items, comparing it to current limits for Japan, the United States, and the European Union:

The limits are meant to be extremely cautious, assuming that almost all foods will contain some level of contamination. The goal is to avoid a cumulative exposure of one millisievert of radiation a year – 1/100th of the amount of exposure that is known to increase cancer risk:

The new limits were calculated by working backward from the figure of 1 millisievert of radioactive cesium, which is the maximum allowable annual dietary intake for an ordinary person, according to the ministry.

The 1-millisievert annual limit was set by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a body linked to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Health Organization, which is responsible for setting international food safety standards.

The Codex’s highest permissible level of radioactive cesium for general foodstuffs is 1,000 becquerels per kilogram, or 10 times the level now proposed by the health ministry.

This is because the ministry has assumed the “contamination ratios” of food, or the ratios of radiation-contaminated food compared to all food on the market, to be significantly higher than the ratios adopted by food-related international organizations, ministry officials said.

So far, tests have found in most parts of Japan does not contain detectable levels of cesium. But if somebody were to eat only food containing 100 Bq/kg of cesium, here’s the dosage information:

If a person keeps eating for one year food items containing maximum amounts of cesium allowed under the proposed limits, the total radiation exposure during that period is estimated by the ministry at 0.7 millisievert, below the 1-millisievert ceiling.

Some local governments have expressed concerns about the rule change, which would require some to replace existing testing equipment with more expensive devices that can detect lower amounts. It also looks like the government will also give 6 month grace periods for compliance to products like beef and rice.

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Greenpeace Distributes Radioactive Fish Advertisement Flier

I got to hand it to Greenpeace Japan. They’ve come up with a really great idea on how to publicize the results of some of their radiation tests of fish from Japanese supermarket shelves. A fake advertisement flier, listing the amounts of cesium instead of prices:

And the message it sends is very clear: Greenpeace could not find any fish that contained radiation exceeding legal safety limits. The legal limit for Japan is 500 becquerels per kilogram. The highest amount of radiation they found in one fish was 47.3 Bq/kg, or less than one tenth the limit.

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Korean Copies of Japanese Products

A Japanese TV report about snack companies in South Korea that have been blatantly copying some of Japan’s most famous products:

Since there was just a scandal involving bugs in Pepero, a Korean copy of Japan’s famous Pocky snack, this news report aired to remind Japanese viewers about the ongoing existence of Korean copies.

After taking a look at several of these copies, they ask random people on the street in Japan and Korea to comment. Both Japanese and Korean people think the copying is blatant and it is not a good thing. Few of the Koreans seem aware that so many popular Korean products are copies of popular Japanese products. One Korean guy notes how people in his country always speak ill of China for copying products, but Korea has been doing the same thing!

[The report ends with the older news anchor laughing about how it is similar to Japan during the immediate postwar period, when there were many Coca-cola knock-offs. His example, however, may not be exactly relevant because the term "cola" had already been recognized as a generic term at that point in history. Companies like Pepsi-Cola had been using "cola" in their name for years.]

Here are some of the examples shown in the report:

The Japanese vitamin/energy drink Ripobitan D has been sold since 1962. South Korea’s Bacchus D energy drink, which has the same label design and similar ingredients, has been sold since 1963. When asked about the striking similarities, the company claimed it was just a coincidence.

Kinoko no Yama snacks have been sold in Japan since 1975. A similar product popped up years later in Korea. When reporters called the Korean manufacturer and asked why the products were so similar, the company spokesman refused to comment.

There have also been more recent examples, such as Korea’s “17 Tea,” which has been sold since 2005. The manufacturer denies copying Japan’s much older and much more famous “16 Tea” and says its ingredients are totally different.

There is at least one case of a Japanese company taking legal action against Korean manufacturers who are violating trademarks. In 2004, Morinaga sued the Korean company that makes “My Chew” – a copy of its “Hi Chew” snacks. This TV report mentions that the two companies reached a settlement. [I am not sure of the details. The Japanese Wikipedia entry for trademark infringement states that the lawsuit was rejected by a Korean court in 2005.]

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“Radioactive” Baby Formula Recalled: Contained Less Radiation Than A Banana

Hundreds of thousands of containers of Meiji Step Formula have been recalled after a citizens’ group ignited a radiation scare by detecting trace amounts of radioactive cesium in the product.

The amount of cesium in the formula was 22 to 31 becquerels per kilogram, far below the legal limit of 200 becquerels per kilogram. Since it is powered formula, it would be mixed with water before consumption, a process that would further dilute the cesium and probably make it undetectable low when in liquid form.

For comparative purposes, here is the amount of natural occurring radiation that can be found in commonly consumed foods:

• Bananas – 130 bq/kg of radioactive potassium (about 15bq per banana)
• Brazil Nuts – 44 bq/kg of radioactive potassium
• Carrots – 126 Bq/kg of radioactive potassium
• Lima Beans – 170 bq/kg of radioactive potassium

According to the CDC, the human body treats radioactive potassium-40 and cesium in a similar manner. Both exit the body quickly via urine and feces.

Although the amount of radiation in the formula is far below a level that can be reasonably considered dangerous, its manufacturer was forced to recall its products because fearful consumers believe that any amount of radiation in food is dangerous.

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Profitable Activism: Sea Shepherd’s Skyrocketing Income

A graph from a recent Sankei Shimbun article shows the amount of money that the radical animal rights organization Sea Shepherd has brought in over the last ten years:

The graph, using the latest data from 2010, shows that Sea Shepherd’s income has sharply risen since the non-profit organization escalated its violent actions against Japanese whaling ships. The airing of the “Whale Wars” TV series has had an especially profitable influence.

In February, Sea Shepherd claimed victory over whalers when its aggressive and dangerous attacks forced an early end to a hunting expedition. Japan has responded by dispatching a Fisheries Agency patrol boat to provide security to its latest hunt. As usual, almost all of the 900 whales on this year’s quota will be unendangered minke whales.

Western media reports about this year’s hunt have predictably followed anti-whaling talking points about the alleged misuse of government disaster relief funds to aid the whaling program, downplaying or ignoring the fact that an important whaling community was destroyed by the March 11th tsunami. One Television New Zealand has included this quote from Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson:

“I think that its totally disgraceful. People from around the world sending money to help the victims of the Tsunami-earthquake were not expecting their money to be used to fund killing whales in the Southern Ocean.”

Like so many of Watson’s past statements, it is a lie. The whaling program is subsidized by the Japanese government, not by international charity donations for tsunami relief. The Japanese government does not have authority over the millions of dollars of international charity donations, which are being handled by non-profit relief organizations. Television New Zealand’s failure to fact-check is lending credibility to a very ugly falsehood.

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