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Japanese People Stay Thin by Eating Fried Food…
Have you ever seen a fat Japanese person?
I’ve seen five walking the streets of Japan and — although I have no way of proving this — I bet most of them were from other parts of Asia.
Seeing stick thin Japanese people wandering around has led the Western world into thinking they must be health gurus. I, myself, used to say foolish things such as, “The Japanese eat healthy all the time. They eat simple dishes of raw fish, rice and vegetables. A balanced diet must be how they stay so amazingly thin.”
That conversation pattern has been dodging mental bullets in my brain, desperately trying to stay alive but today — amidst overwhelming evidence — it’s time to acknowledge that Japan is anything but conventionally healthy.
Deep Fried Convenience
*Warning: I got hungry after writing this section. If you on a diet, good luck to you.
Freshly deep-fried food is available at convenience stores dotted around Japan’s idyllic landscape. Yes, that’s right, your hankering for fried food can be sated with a leisurely 5-minute walk and a modest amount of cash. Make no mistake, this is not bad fried food, this is the kind of deep fried perfection that KFC wishes they could replicate 100% of the time.
These convenience stores — called combini in Japanese — have a warm display case next to the checkout counter. It’s filled with all sorts of golden goodness… Deep fried chicken thighs, deep fried chicken breast pieces on a stick, deep fried corn dogs (more sweet fluffy dough than hot dog) and deep-fried potato cakes of happiness called kurokke(croquette). It’s the place where diets go to die and serves as many a drunk person’s dream pit-stop.
In addition to all this crunchy goodness, you can find neatly packed bento boxes filled with pork tonkatsu and mounds of white rice. The pork is tenderized, coated in a full centimeter of bread crumbs and deep fried. A perfect lunchtime solution.
Many an unsuspecting foreigner has come to Japan with the assumption that the food here is healthy…
