Sep 12,2014
In this series, our editors Nobue and Miyoko speak with experts on such topics as food, customs, Japan, and traditional lifestyles.
Miyoko：The weather has been all over the place, turning hot and then cold.
Nobue：I know. I don’t have much of an appetite right now because of the changeable weather.
Miyoko：Today, let’s hear what Ichii has to say about regular diets.
Ichii：I know that today you want to talk about diets. But I believe that to evaluate your diet, you need to reevaluate all aspects of how you live on a day-to-day basis. It has only been in the postwar period that Japanese people began to experience the levels of lifestyle-related diseases that we have today. If we consider what happened in the postwar period, the biggest thing is people’s lifestyles became much richer. And along with this, how people spend their time changed radically.
Miyoko：How we spend our time?
Ichii：Long ago, when it got dark, the father would come home and the whole family would sit down at the dining table for dinner. That’s how people lived. But during Japan’s period of high economic growth, it was a given that fathers would work overtime. For many families, it became difficult for the entire family to eat meals together.
Nobue：Indeed.
Ichii：Mothers got busier too, so they did everything they could to reduce the time spent on housework. Vacuum cleaners and washing machines made housework much more efficient. And with the spread of microwaves, ready-made meals only needed to be heated and served to keep up the appearance of homecooked meals to a certain extent. And in the 1970s, we saw the roll out of convenience stores.
Nobue：Everyone became that much busier.
Ichii：Definitely. I’m sure people were happy about this added convenience that helped them out. But from the standpoint of diets and food culture, this convenience had a negative side as well. As people get busier, they want to spend less time on food, so they choose items they can eat quickly and easily. This means people go for foods with stimulating tastes that seem delicious even when swallowed quickly without chewing properly. Fast food is a prime example of this.
Nobue：I see. There’s a connection between how you spend your time and the tastes you seek out.
Ichii：I believe so. That’s why if you want to regulate your regular diet and tune up your physical condition, you have to begin with reevaluating how you spend your time.
Ichii：So the question is where should we start. My suggestion is to revert back a little to past ways that have been made easier in our modern times. That is to have a diet centered on Japanese washoku cuisine and the food culture Japanese people used to follow.
Miyoko：But making proper washoku meals is quite hard…
Ichii：When I say washoku, I’m not talking about elaborate meals like a kaiseki course dinner. Of course, it may take a little more time than heating something up in a microwave. But I’m suggesting we go back to a time where food was extravagant in quality but not in quantity.
Miyoko：Extravagant in quality? Okay, I get it.
Ichii：I was watching a taiga historical series on TV the other day, and there was a scene where samurai who had to run throughout the night to get to a battle asked some villagers to provide them with food. What the villagers gave the samurai was water, large onigiri rice balls made with brown rice, and miso. Watching that, it made perfect sense to me.
Miyoko：Of course.
Ichii：The brown rice contains vitamins, minerals, and carbohydrates, the miso, which is a fermented food, provides energy, regulates gut health, and boosts the immune system. It also replenishes salt levels. And they drank lots of water. I realized again that these are foundations of the Japanese diet.
Miyoko：The foundations of the Japanese diet?
Ichii：That’s right. They are the foundations, the origins, of the Japanese people who live on this land called Japan. It is said that koji rice malt and other Japanese microorganisms do not ferment well when taken abroad. In the same way, we have a food culture rooted in the land of Japan, and because we are Japanese who have long been adapted to this food culture, we should return to washoku. If, for example, you lived in Italy, I think you should adopt Italian food culture and have meals that come from the local land. There are definite reasons why things become deeply rooted in the land and climate for generations.
Miyoko：I see. It’s about choosing food suited to the climate and environment.
Miyoko：So if you want to tone up your physical condition, you probably have to rethink how you live.
Ichii：That’s true. When everything is going fine, you are probably okay as it is. But when your body is not functioning as it should and you can’t do anything, then it’s necessary to reevaluate.
Miyoko：It’s important to adapt on your own to changes before such problems develop.
Ichii：As we have talked about several times in this series of columns, what’s truly important is to listen to your body and figure out what’s important to you. Once you know what’s important for your body, your diet will follow naturally.
Above all, many Japanese people simply eat too much. When you feel unwell, rather than immediately thinking about what you should eat, it might be better to skip a meal. Instead of attempting to restore your health by eating something, you should figure out what you have been eating that made you unwell and stop eating it. That’s the better mindset.
Nobue：You spoke before about not thinking of food as medicine.
Ichii：Absolutely. And another thing I recommend is drinking plenty of water. Not necessarily for people who eat lots of raw vegetables, but many people today eat a lot of cooked and processed foods. To process these foods, the kidneys and liver have to work hard, which requires lots of water. The normal recommendation is to try to drink 1.5 liters of water a day, but I recommend that adults drink about two liters of water a day.
Nobue：It should be water, not tea or coffee?
Ichii：That’s right. Tea and coffee have to be broken down, digested and absorbed, and then eliminated. And the body needs water again for these processes.
We’ve talked a lot about food so far, but you can’t solve all problems with food. The internal organs, muscles, and bone structure work closely together to keep the body functioning. If your internal organs are fatigued, focusing on what to eat doesn’t make sense. It’s like trying to make your car go with a flat tire by buying high-quality gasoline.
If you wish to tune up your physical condition, you should start by reevaluating your entire life from the bottom up, rather than thinking only of your diet. From there, eliminate the things that you overconsume. After that, it’s necessary to listen to your body and understand what it truly wants.
Nobue / Miyoko：That’s an excellent explanation. Thank you so much.
At Karada Design, Ichii provides lessons on healing foods, a method of revitalizing the body through food that is good for your body and easy to incorporate into your daily routine. Ichii also gives lectures based on the latest nutritional science and talks on recipes centered on familiar washoku fermented foods, such as miso and koji, and vegetables rich in enzymes and dietary fiber.
CEO of Karada Design
CEO of Karada Design
Based on the principles of holistic medicine, Ichii has developed healing food, a concept for simple, sustainable dietary improvements that respects the body’s natural rhythms, and self-body design, a method of balancing muscle tone and energy flows and regulating the body. With these methods, she guides people on enjoyable holistic self-care lifestyles.
Ichii is a certified physical therapist, certified chronic disease prevention therapist, holistic self-care coordinator, healing food researcher, a professional member of the Japan Holistic Medical Society and Kanto administration committee member, and member of the Natural Hygiene Promotion Association.
She is the author of Chiropractic Care for Women Over 40: Stay Beautiful for Life (Aspect).
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