‘Food faddism’ in Japan
An article on The Japan Times’ “Tokyo Confidential” quotes professor Kunio Takahashi who tries to dissect the factors behind ‘food faddism’ in Japan. For those of you who don’t know what food faddism is, it’s the tendency to believe any media report inflating the health merits of a specific food product, and to rush convenience stores buying heaps of it until a national shortage decelerates the craze, or until the media apologize publicly for falsifying data and backing it up with irrelevant pictures and fabricated testimonies. As cited in the aforementioned article, examples of such food fads are many: vinegared soybeans in 1988, cocoa in 1996, bittern (treated sea water) in 2002, agar (red alga extract) in 2005, and Natto in 2006, just to recall the most notable.
Kunio attributes this food faddism to four main conditions, that Japan meets all of them:
First: Overabundance. Japan produces a mere 40 percent of its own food, a markedly low self-sufficiency rate, but imported food is readily available, and consumers have a bewildering variety to choose from.
Second: A preoccupation with health that borders on obsession. Health is undeniably important, but Japan’s expanded life expectancy highlights the issue with particular, even lurid vividness. Can we protect our health through extended old age?
Third: Vague fears, not based on anything solid but unsettling all the same, that the food we eat threatens as well as sustains us. “Most of the food we eat is not dangerous,” writes Takahashi, “but . . . the fact is, the government and the food industry have failed to gain the trust of consumers.”
Fourth: “Insufficient media literacy” — defined by Takahashi as a tendency to take everything the media says at face value. “A disinclination to think things out logically, to think for oneself, is one reason food faddism is so rampant,” she says.
2007 might be a year of ‘food revelations’ as well. Any thoughts about what is next?
I’m not sure how the overabundance thing is relevant, or if it’s even true, but generally I agree with those conclusions.
If a person is credulous and prone to hypochondria and superstition, they’ll lap up any old crap that the man on the television tells them.
Japan seems to have a high preponderance of such folk.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:12 pmAnswers to the 4 reasons
1. It isn’t overabundance of food its overabundance of gullibility. It was a similar thing in the us about dragon fruit a few years ago. Whenever you import a new food from a far off place some unscrupulous marketer is going to claim its some magical food that cures AIDS or something. Its up to sophisticated consumers to see through the fraud. Not to mention that the article contradicts itself. All the fads it lists are Japanese foods, and we’re supposed to believe that these fads happened because their were too many cheeseburgers in Japan? Its just a marketing ploy to get people to buy crappy food and the media is used as a trusted vehicle (next year bilk will probably be the next fad).
2. Eat another hamburger and calm the hell down. No one lives forever on this earth, and living as a health nut hypochondriac isn’t really living. Its called mitochondrial DNA transcription and replication error. Its the cause of aging and you can’t stop it unless you have no free radicals or some sort of perfect polymerase. Drink wine or fruit juice for the free radicals, otherwise there is nothing you can do.
3. What are the food industry or the government supposed to do? If the food is safe and marketed as such and the population is still scared, then you have a society of paranoid wierdos. Put down the joint and calm down, take 10 deep breaths Japan, you’ll be fine.
4. No comment
A good Friday and a Happy Easter to all.
April 6th, 2007 at 1:26 pmWell, if the US is any kind of barometer, expect to see a pet food scare in the near future.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:29 pmReally, unless you are from a country where food really is scarce, it’s all glass windows around here. People who obsess over their food versus people who are happy to have any at all. America seems to have about one food scare per week. Who else in the world would pay a premium for wheatless bread, eggless mayonaisse, creamless ice cream, and chocolateless chocolates (Mmmmm…carob….). Let’s not even go to GM food, or radiated food fears.
Hell, they have to say something to get people to eat natto.
April 6th, 2007 at 6:29 pm