Harvest Time Burger King Pumpkin

Here are some better photos of the pumpkin sandwich I mentioned earlier. They have also announced that a heavy pumpkin version where you get 10 slices of pumpkin instead of the usual 2 for an additional 100 yen.

http://www.burgerkingjapan.co.jp/campaign/cp63.html

Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.

Dole Sports Banana Lakatan

Dole is promoting the banana is a sports food and as such is using the Japan's Women's Soccer Team in commercials. They are calling the promotion and related sports goods giveaway Lakatan, but the meaning of that escapes me (and the Japanese I asked).

http://www.dole.co.jp/campaign28/index.html

Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.

OpenSecrets.org PepsiCo

From across the Pacific, the state of democracy in the US is pretty depressing no matter what your politics. Respect for the truth or for the facts seem to be in short supply, corporations are people and unlimited contributions by individuals, organizations and corporations is considered free speech.

There is one silver lining in the form of transparency laws. Groups like OpenSecrets.org do a wonderful job of putting publicly available information up for all to see. I thought it might be interesting to show some of the spending of the top US food companies running up to the election.

For the record, I am not am not anti-industry or anti-big corporation, and I realize these companies have to play the game or suffer the consequences. The system is the problem. However, it is instructive to know how some of the choices we all make as consumers ends up affecting the political process.

Another good site with good information is http://vote.sigfig.com/. Anyone interested should visit that site also, but it is much more interactive and I was looking for static visuals.

I will be going down this list of top food processors in the US.
http://www.foodprocessing.com/top100/index.html

Politics in Japan has its own set of unique and troubling problems. Such openness here would not solve those problems, but would be a nice start.

This is the link for the charts shown above.
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000200&cycle=A

Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.

Kirin Rich Taste or Koi Aji

Kirin's Koi Aji 濃い味 3rd category beer claims to be Japan's No. 1 low calorie beer. It contains 19 kcal/ 100 ml, 2.5-3.5% alcohol, 0% sugar and a rich taste due to a special Kirin manufacturing process and the use of caramel malt and fine aroma hops. I like the photo of the somen noodles piled high. This is apt, because somen noodles are a mouth watering summer treat, but are nevertheless relatively healthy and would go well with a low calorie beer.

http://www.kirin.co.jp/brands/koiaji/index.html

Photo is a web capture for explanatory purposes, copyright belongs to the company.