Menthol Flavored Can Coffee

This strikes me as odd. I associate menthol with cigarettes, although that does not necessarily have to be the case. I am not really sure what the target group is, but Kirin will introduce a new canned coffee flavored with menthol.

Hot Summer 2

Speaking of seasonal foods, one offering I like during Japanese hot weather is cold noodles. Japanese eat noodles as meals in Japan, but a huge bowl of hot noodles will cause you to sweat profusely.

Nice alternatives are cold noodle dishes such as reimen (冷麺), a cold ramen dish, or somen (素麺) which is made from different ingredients and is often served on ice. Reimen has a stronger taste, while somen depends just on the taste of the noodles and the diluted soy sauce based dip. Somen really cannot be beat and I know of Japanese who choose somen for their first meal back in Japan after a long overseas trip.

Hot Summer

Ever since the rainy season ended, it has been very hot here in Japan - even hotter than usual. Not surprisingly some food items sell well when the weather is sweltering. Sports drinks, ice cream and beer come to mind, but other items as well.

One item which comes as a bit of a surprise to me is milk. I love milk and it is cold, but it is also thick. If I am really hot, I usually want to drink something a bit more watery, like a sports drink or water itself, but sales of milk are usually helped quite a bit by hot summer temperatures. Maybe people are smarter than I give them credit for and choose healthy milk over sugary drinks.

Hydrogenized Water

Ito en is coming out next month with a canned water product which touts naturally high levels of hydrogen, which it claims can act as an antioxidant. The water is from Oita Prefecture, and it is not cheap at 4,320 yen per case (24 cans). Itoen has a line up of 12 drinks and 11 supplements which have antioxidant properties.

Interesting idea, but I would like to see some hard evidence first.

The Health Report - Weight Loss Diets

One of the best science programs focusing on health and nutrition is Australia's The Health Report, which is also podcast.

Last week, both of the topics were very interesting. The first topic was concerning a study on various weight loss diets: traditional low fat diet (with calorie restriction), Mediterranean diet (olive oil, nuts and fish), and low carb diet (with no calorie restrictions).

The results for both weight loss and blood fats was the same: low carb > Mediterranean diet > traditional low fat diet.

There are many ways to conduct such trials and comparing diets is very difficult. One interesting aspect was that there was no attempt to standardize calorie intakes. Emphasis was placed on diets which could be maintained as permanent life-styles and the ability to closely monitor the subjects. The result were extremely low dropout rates.

The debate will surely continue, but this one study in the New England Journal of Medicine does support my personal opinion that refined sugars are more of a concern than fats.

Reference
Shai I et al. Weight Loss with a Low-Carbohydrate, Mediterranean, or Low-Fat Diet. New England Journal of Medicine, July 17, 2008;359;3:229-241

New Recaldent Gum

Here is an article about a new Recaldent gum which is going to be introduced next month called "Kamu Power" or "Chewing Power".

In addition to the CPP-ACP ingredient in other Recaldent gums, this new offering has a long lasting taste which will allow you to chew more. The company cites studies that show that people are eating more and more soft food and therefore chewing less, even though there are other studies which show that chewing has important connections to saliva production and mental functions.

So in addition to the dental health market, they are trying to target students and other people looking for any mental edge possible.

New Kirin Offerings

Kirin announced a new entry in the "Dai-3-Beer" (3rd beer) category called Kirin Smooth (which will go on sale in early September). Kirin claims it is smooth, light, creamy and will lower in alcohol than other brands (4%). Kirin already makes the best selling "beer" in this category, Nodogoshi.

Beer companies have been trying to counter high taxes for many years, now the high prices of ingredients is making this even more important for beer companies and consumers.

Kirin also announced a new winter season Happoshu (low malt beer) which is lighter tasting for the cold season (actually, I would prefer a richer taste for the cold season, but what do I know). This will go on sale in October.

They also announced a new limited edition beer which uses special hops from Iwate Prefecture and will go on sale in November.

To give you an idea of the prices in the 3 beer categories, the suggested prices will be as follows per 350 ml can:
beer 217 yen
happoshu 161 yen
dai-3 beer 141 yen

Cheese Substitute

With food prices, and especially dairy prices, so high it should come as no surprise that substitutes are now being considered. In yesterday's edition of The Japan Food Journal (Japanese language) there is an article about Marine Foods coming out with a cheese substitute made from plant oils. There are plenty of other products being offered as substitutes, but this one serves as a good example.

This cheese substitute is called sutirino (スティリーノ) and is aimed at the industrial use market or the private brand market. It costs 30 percent less than cheese and can be used at a mix with cheese or as a complete replacement.

I would have to think that the physical properties would differ somewhat from processed cheese and I also wonder about the trans-fats since this is processed plant oil. But the biggest question is taste - if it does not taste good, it will not do well. The taste of good cheese is very complex and almost impossible to copy. The complete set of compounds that contribute to the taste of cheese differ by the variety cheese and are still not completely understood.

Nevertheless, with prices what they are, there will certainly be many more alternatives proposed for a large variety of foods.

Update: Eel and PB

There was an article in the evening edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun, that I did not see until after my posting on eel (unagi). It concerns one of the many cases of mislabeled food in Japan. Food produced in Japan sells at a premium. As a result there have been many cases of imported food, being relabeled as Japanese and therefore sold at a premium. In this article a company was raided over the mislabeling of Chinese eel as Japanese eel. Therefore, the Taiwanese (as distinct from the Chinese) are trying to raise impression of their product so that it will sell at a premium similar to Japanese eel.

Concerning PB, I was mistaken about Seven and I Holdings' private branding, their PB products are sold at a slight discount. Although there is an article in the July 25 edition of Nikkei Shimbun about how all the companies turning to private branding are not immune to commodity prices and are having to increase their prices at the same paces as national brands.

There is also an article in July 26 edition of Nihon Nogyo which addresses if all these retailers are ready to take on the risks associated with product safety, ingredient sourcing, etc. Retailers claim they are ready to take on the risk, but the risks can be huge. One mistake, badly handled can ruin a company.

Musenmai

There is an interesting feature in daily The Japan Food Journal (Japanese language) on July 23rd about musenmai, which is rice that does not need to be washed before preparation. The rice is the same but the processing is different and the taste is essentially the same. Musenmai ends up being about 100 yen more per 5 kg, which is not much of a difference.

This type of rice has become very popular due to the ease of preparation, but the article focuses on the carbon footprint of the two types of rice. They conclude that if you include the consumer's washing and the added cost of cleaning up the solids in the waste water, musenmai has a smaller carbon footprint. Interesting, because I would have thought that extra processing would have lead to the opposite, but there is not extra processing, just different processing.