Food Prices in Japan . . . Going Up

Food prices are big news all over the world and Japan is no exception. In fact, there is little upside to high food prices here, because Japan produces such a small percentage of what it consumes. Food companies and restaurants are caught in a squeeze, just trying to eek out a profit. Raise prices too much and you loose customers.

In a very unscientific survey, sampling size n=1, my wife said typical trips to the grocery store which used to cost around 6 to 7 thousand yen, now lost around 9 thousand yen.

Coffee Hunter

Coca Cola's Georgia coffee brand has come out with an interesting new product called Coffee Hunter, which has an silhouette of someone who might be confused with Indiana Jones. This explorer travels the world looking for the best coffee beans. This looks to be the first in a series.

　

This coffee is from beans grown in Flores Island, Indonesia. 「コーヒーハンターが世界中の産地を巡って探し出してきたとっておきのコーヒー豆をお届けました。」 It tastes pretty standard to me, but it might very well be a good promotion to go along with the new Indiana Jones movie.

A Label to be Envious of

Meiji Dairies "Ocha" Green Tea

Energy 0

Carbohydrates 0

Protein 0

Fat 0

Sodium 37 mg

Ingredients: Green Tea, Vitamin C

"Natural Water is Used"

"Shizuoka Tea Leaves are Used"

　

Nothing to hide or cause concern on this label, and it is all natural. This is a good example of popular tea products in Japan. Teas and coffees outsell soft drinks here, and aside from the health benefits of tea ingredients which have been proposed, simply consuming a natural, calorie free drink likely helps a great deal in keeping weight off.

If you eat Japanese food in a restaurant or if you buy a Japanese boxed lunch (bento, 弁当) in a railway station, various teas are frequently your only choice of drink, because stronger tasting or sweet drinks are thought not to go well with traditional Japanese food.

PET Bottles and Cats

This post certainly has nothing to do with science. A number of years ago (7 or more), the urban myth spread in Japan that you could keep away cats by putting out PET bottles filled with water. I didn't realize that cats were that big of a problem, but around that time you started to see water-filled PET bottles everywhere.

This myth has been proven false repeatedly, but water-filled PET bottles are still easy to find on a stroll down almost any street.

Burger King Celebrates 1st Anniversary in Japan . . . again

Burger King was in Japan from 1996 to 2001, but reportedly could not compete with McDonald's in a price war. I also heard at the time that there were marketing disagreements with partners and people in different parts of the company. Even if that was not true, it made sense to me at the time. The offerings were largely the same as in the US, where you forget about calories and focus on size and strong taste.

Personally, I thought that the Burger King taste was the main problem, even though I like it myself. Burger King sandwiches have a strong meaty taste and aroma which is not common in Japan. This is in contrast with McDonald's sandwiches which are much milder in this respect.

Now they are back for another try. They only have 6 locations so far - all in Tokyo. Japanese tastes have been changing over the years, so maybe Japan is ready for Burger King now. Recently monster-size burgers at McDonald's and other chains have been popular, so the size of Burger King's sandwiches might prove to be popular.

This time around, Burger King Japan opened its first store on June 8, 2007 and therefore is now celebrating its one year anniversary. Good Luck.

100 Yen Vending Machines

The current price for 350 ml cans of non-alcoholic drinks is 120 yen, but you can find discount outlets and vending machines if you keep you eyes open. Here is a picture of Dydo and Suntory discount vending machines side-by-side.

The "To" in Torui and Muto

This is a picture of a typical "muto" (or zero sugar, 無糖) black coffee - Pokka brand Biz Time Cafe Black. On such products there is a listing for torui (sugars, 糖類) separate from the obligatory carbohydrate (炭水化物) category. What exactly are the criteria for sugars?

This is a link to an informative guide which can be found on a Kanagawa Government webpage, but is also referenced and linked to by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Sugars are any mono- or disaccarides (excluding alcohols). It is that simple, but it is certainly not perfect. By this definition, products might be fructose-free but still contain sugars - milk for example.

Canned Coffee Survey

One very good source of information on Japanese trends and products is Nikkei Trendy (Japanese). This week there is a survey on canned coffee use and preferences. For those interested in this topic for professional reasons, the entire survey is available for sale. For those who simply have an interest in trends, the on-line version should be quite sufficient.

I will just mention a few points I find interesting.
1) preference: sugar free/black > latte-type > low sugar/milk added > sugar/milk added > low sugar/black > no sugar/milk > expresso > sugar/black,
2) the biggest deviation in the above is with latte-type drinks (including cafe au lait) which are much more popular among younger people than older people,
3) canned coffee is much more popular than chilled cup coffee, only among women does the preference come close to that of canned coffee,
4) reason for drinking canned coffee: change mood or feeling > relax > wake up > no reason > need for something in mouth > to concentrate,
5) people who smoke or frequent convenience stores have the strongest preference for canned coffee,
6) ability to mention a brand name: Boss > Georgia >>>> Wonda > Fire > others

The interest in low sugar products is clear, as is the excellent marketing job Suntory has done with the Boss brand.

Breast Milk or Infant Formula not Water

There is an important posting on the Junkfood Science blog concerning hyponatremic seizures resulting from infants being given water to drink. This can also occur if infants are fed diluted infant formula. In short, inadequate sodium levels cause hyponatremia, which in turn leads to an osmotic shift of water from the plasma into cells (such as brain cells) and finally symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. It can also happen in adults (causing confusion and coma), but infants are particularly susceptible.

There is a concern that with increasing food prices, poor mothers may try to stretch infant formula by watering it down. This is certainly not the right thing to do.

Breast milk is the best option for infants. If mother's cannot breastfeed their infants, infant formula is the next best option. Food companies put a great deal of research into making infant formula as close to breast milk as possible. The science in this area has progressed a great deal in recent years, but it is important to use infant formula as directed. After all for that important period, infant formula will be the only nutrition the child will consume.

Taking the discussion a little further, cow's milk is not appropriate for infants either. The composition of cow's milk and mother's milk is significantly different. This is something that was not fully realized a generation or so ago.

Soft Drinks and Cavities

There is an interesting paper in Nutrition Research "Acidic Beverages Increase the Risk of in vitro Tooth Erosion". A group at U of Iowa College of Dentistry compared the effect of Gatorade, Red Bull, Coke, Diet Coke, and Apple Juice, as examples of sports drinks, energy drinks, carbonated soft drinks, diet drinks and juices, respectively, on extracted teeth.

In a pretty simple setup, they simply soaked the extracted teeth in each drink for 25 hours, refreshing the liquid every 5 hours. The acidities of the drinks were measured by straight forward titration. They only went high-tech, and thus beyond what you could do in a high school chemistry class, when they started to measuring the lesions.

Interestingly, the lesion depths corresponded roughly but not exactly with the acidity of the drinks. The most acidic drink was Red Bull, but Gatorade did the most harm. The lesions were measured in micrometers and the results were Gatorade (131), Red Bull (100), Coke (92), Diet Coke (61) and 100% Apple Juice (57).

Anyone who has seen the chemistry demonstration in which a highly acidic solution is used to dissolve a tooth, will not be surprised. This study appears to be a more scientific recreation of the same thing. It still does not tell you exactly what is going to happen under in vivo conditions, but basic chemistry suggests that anyone who spends a great deal of time each day swishing around acidic liquids is not doing his or her teeth much good.

If you want the opposite effect, try dairy. There appear to be a number of reasons why dairy actually acts to inhibit tooth decay (calcium, active proteins, beneficial bacteria, low acidity, etc.). Below are two representative papers on dairy and dental health.

Dairy Products and Caries

Dairy Products and Periodontal Disease