Eiyou (栄養) Means "Nutrition"

The past two weeks: registration. First, a level test. Then pick, within whatever level they give you, from among very similar classes which ones to register for. The descriptions of said classes are all in Japanese. Then, attend each class you registered for as well as the class you actually want. Then you may or may not be able to register for the class you actually want.

Gotta love the Japanese bureaucracy.

I was lucky enough to ascend a level in my core class. Most of my classmates are more fluent than me, but I feel that they're within reach. The core class I chose is a textbookless class. We're going to talk about our own topic, write essays on our topic, read each other's essays, discuss them, interview people, write more essays, and finally produce a final report to be bound in a book. Yes, all in Japanese.

The important thing is to pick a topic that is important enough to you to hold your own interest for four months. So what to pick. I at first thought about linguistics. Too abstract, and, without a specific focus, people might not know how to discuss it with me. Then, over the weekend, it came to me: nutrition!

As some of you may know, when I was [redacted] this summer, I was in the middle of a summer-term nutrition class. I wasn't able to finish the class due to being [redacted], so I worked out a deal with the teacher. If I can get a proctor over here to give me the exams, I can get the credit.

Taking 13 Japanese classes (1.5 hours each) doesn't leave many hours for studying an unrelated subject on my own. But, if it's tied to one of my courses, I might make the time. So I picked nutrition as my topic for the core class.

Specifically, I'm interested in the idea of nutrition in Japan as compared to the idea of nutrition in America, and how the statistics work out. It's common knowledge that the Japanese are very long-lived, and many have tried to claim that the Japanese diet is responsible. Yet the Japanese eat little meat, lots of rice, and very little insoluble fiber. What's the recommended dietary intake here? What's the average intake of those nutrients? How do those figures compare to America's? What's considered a "balanced diet" here? What do people think makes a healthy meal?

Another reason nutrition is on my mind may be because of the health check I went through last Friday. I, like almost all the other foreigners, was told that I should lose weight. I reacted a little strongly to that. I was told to lose about 20 pounds (9 kilos). I happen to know that, for my height, by American standards I would be in acceptable range with a loss of 5 pounds.

While weight has little to do with nutrition per se, this encounter has made me keep more of an eye on my serving sizes. (At the health check, I told the doctor how much rice I ate with my nattou, how much curry-rice I have for lunch, etc. She asked if I drink, and I said never. She asked if I drank water. I said "A lot." She asked, "No-Calorie water?" I said of course. She had nothing to say after that, except that, once my [redacted] gets better, I might exercise a bit more. She did not know who she was dealing with, obviously.)

All of this is to explain that, from now on, I would like to start documenting my meals once again. Long-time readers may recall February of this year I reported my food intake daily. That was partly to lose wintergut, partly to irritate G., and partly to get over a blogging slump. I risk alienating my readership here if I indulge in such self-metrics, but, well, I don't really think anyone reads this anyway. Also, it fits in with the original theme of this blog: how to eat on the cheap in Tokyo. (Mainly: eat rice.)

Perhaps for my final project I will get some Japanese people to record their meals for a week or two and then we can compare. Do you think any Japanese people would be into that?

Today's Meals:

Breakfast:
45g of natto with chopped green onion, cherry tomatoes, and whole shirasu (little white fishies)
white rice
instant miso soup (wakame seaweed and fried tofu)

Lunch:
small bowl of Japanese curry on white rice
small portion of sauteed spinach (olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, hot pepper)
one hardboiled egg
iced green tea

Dinner:
apple
five big gyoza (at a brand-new restaurant, only 290 yen)

Second Dinner:
two grabs of spinach mixed with a bit of kimchee
a small amount of curry with a small amount of rice