weightloss

Wagashi are not some sort of magic Japanese diet food

maki — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:42:56 +0200

Someone alerted me to this entry on the Health.com blog which quotes me. (Health.com is a Time Inc. property.) I just wanted to set some things straight, because a couple of the statements there are just not right.

The Time Inc. reporter contacted me with some questions, based on her premise that wagashi or Japanese sweets were healthier for you because they were low fat (or at least no added fat; there is some fat content in the beans used). She wanted to know if this was a reason why Japanese people were generally thin.

What I basically said to the reporter was this: no, I don’t think the lack of butter and cream in wagashi have anything to do with the general thinness of Japanese people. As I am quoted as saying, things like smaller portions, more movement and societal pressure are the main causes. I also said that a traditional Japanese meal does not include a dessert course.

So I was not misquoted as such. But the rest of the article goes on to say some rather misleading things, which I am rather surprised by since I gave the writer plenty of information which would have, I thought, logically lead her away from her preconception that wagashi are some magical diet snack.

First and most inaccurate: “The Japanese are not fond of cream, chocolate, butter, or the fattening ingredients that comprise the typical Western dessert.” - As anyone who has spent any time in Japan knows, this is absolutely not true. Japanese people love cakes and gateaus and puddings chocolates and choux buns. Beard Papa, anyone? Pocky? Purin? Cute Sanrio characters named after sweet sticky buns? I would venture to say that Tokyo may have more French-style patisseries per capita than almost any other city except for Paris and Vienna. Those skinny Japanese women love love love Western style pastries. Those pastries may not necessarily be eaten as part of a main meal as dessert, but are eaten between meals for sure.

The article also goes onto recommend giving wagashi a try. Of course, why not? You may like them, you may not. (I’ve noticed that non-Asian people have very mixed reactions to Asian sweets in general.) However if anyone thinks that wagashi will aid your weight loss efforts, please think again. They are loaded with highly refined white sugar and often use white rice or wheat flour. They are in that sense about on par with those infamous low-fat cookies, Snackwells. Surely we are beyond the point of thinking that eating low fat but high sugar snacks leads to weight loss?

A point in favor of wagashi is that many are partly made with some kind of bean - though almost always hulled beans, so with a lot less fiber than say, your average baked beans. Also, most wagashi are made in tiny little portions which, because they are so sweet, you can only eat slowly, usually with a cup of green tea. Finally, they may make you feel full simply because you’re not used to the texture and taste. But all this is simply speculation. I for one could probably eat more taiyaki or ichigo daifuku than I could a dense chocolate cake in one sitting.

Comparing apples to oranges, or rather wagashi to Western pastries

Here are some calories for some typical Japanese sweets. The source is the official food nutrient database (五訂食品標準成分表) which is published by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the standard reference for all dieticians and health professionals in Japan. Numbers are rounded off for simplicity.

1 daifuku (mochi (beaten white rice) dumpling filled with sweet azuki beans): 160 calories
1 piece of yohkan (a block of azuki bean paste): about 100 calories for a piece approx. 1 cm (less than half an inch) thick
1 dorayaki (two little pancakes with a mound of sweet azuki beans in the middle): 240 calories, most of which comes from refined sugar and white flour

Now here are the calories for single portion sizes of Western style sweets as they are typically sold, and eaten, in Japan:

1 individual serving of purin (caramel custard): 110 calories
1 small choux pastry filled with custard: 150 calories
1 piece strawberry ‘shortcake’ (actually a spongecake filled and frosted with whipped cream, with strawberries in the middle and on top): 350 calories

Not such a huge difference is there? Yes, those typical Japanese cake and pudding portions are quite small. The piece of strawberry shortcake for example is just about the size of the palm of my hand. A choux bun is about 3 inches in diameter.

So we come to same old boring conclusion

Anyway, why are Japanese women generally thin? I’ve addressed this subject in depth a little while ago, but to put it in a nutshell:

They eat less. Portions are much smaller.
They move more.
There’s a lot of societal pressure to remain skinny

Not very novel or cute answers I’m afraid. There is no magic pill, or little sweet.

(Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nutritionist or health professional. But I would challenge anyone to get a Japanese health professional to come up with the conclusion that eating wagashi in lieu of Western style sweets can help people lose weight.)

My take on why Japanese people in Japan don't get that fat

maki — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:33:44 +0100

The majority of the comments posted for this Guardian Word Of Mouth blog entry about obesity rates and fast food places are about Japan, and how few people there are overweight. It seems that people latched on to this paragraph in particular:

There would appear to be more at play here than sheer wealth. Japan, which isn’t exactly poor, boasts over 3,000 McDonald’s restaurants, second in number only to the US, and is also home to many other fast food outlets to boot. Yet Japan has one of the lowest obesity rates in the world.

Eating and snacking in Japan is very convenient. In urban areas there are so many fast food places, food stalls, kombini or convenience stores stocked with all sorts of tempting and often fattening readymade food, and the world’s most advanced food and beverage vending machine industry. The snack food industry is fiercely competitive. And, unlike statements made by English press sources like this one which implies that the fast food/junk food trend is some recent phenomenon, this state of affairs has been there for decades.

So at least in Japan the premise of the survey cited doesn’t hold true.

That’s not to say that there aren’t overweight or even obese people in Japan. Japanese people, especially women, are as obsessed with diets as their counterparts in the U.S. or the U.K. Every day there’s a new ‘miracle diet’ popping up. Go to Japanese food sites and every other ad there is for some sort of weight loss scheme. There are increasing concerns about the unhealthiness of fast foods and convenience foods.

Still, I think that at least for a while, people in Japan will continue to stay relatively slim. Here are a couple of reasons:

Peer pressure. Japanese society is largely based on how one fits comfortably and unabrasively into society, way more so than most Western societies. There is a huge amount of peer pressure to conform, and the pressure on women in particular to stay slim is tremendous.
More unplanned movement. Usually people who live in Japan, especially the urban and suburban areas, just have to move a lot more. Cars aren’t practical at all except for longer trips, so almost everyone commutes by public transportation. That’s not to say there aren’t any gyms and such (there are, tons of them) but people just naturally get more exercise than in a typical American city.
Despite recent supersizing trends, generally portions are way smaller. There are Mega-Burgers and Extreme Meals and all of that, but the average portion sizes are still quite a bit smaller than in the U.S.

But once you move out of the country, things change

A common complaint amongst Japanese people who go to live in another country, especially the U.S., is that a pretty substantial weight gain is almost inevitable. I haven’t been able to find any formal studies of this, but time and again I hear about people gaining around 15 to 20 pounds within a year or so after moving away from Japan. It’s not the Freshman 15, it’s the kaigai seikatsu (overseas living) 15. The author of Japanese Women Don’t Get Old Or Fat (my review here) starts off with a personal anecdote about how she gained 25 pounds after moving to the U.S. One of the bestselling diet books in Japan, Tatakawanai daietto: waka musume wa kooshite yaseta! (The Fight-free (struggle-free) diet: My daughter lost weight this way!) is based around the theme of a food and health journalist helping his daughter who came back “with a fat body” after a year of study in Arizona. (She’d gained about 10 kg, or 22 lb.)

This weight gained happened to me too. I wasn’t overweight at all until my family moved back to the U.S. when I was 17. Within the span of a year or so I went from around 50 kg to about 70kg. (I’m not actually sure what my starting weight was, since weight was not even an issue for me until I started to not fit in my clothes anymore!) I did lose a lot of it, but have since gained it back and more, hence my current efforts to get rid of the excess weight again!

Why did I gain 20 kg so easily? It comes down to fairly simple reasons: lack of unplanned exercise, lack of peer pressure, and the huge portions. Whenever my new school stressed me out (I hated that high school to be honest) I’d comfort myself with a bag of potato chips - the family size. We usually ate out as a family at local diners, where the club sandwiches could be stacked up about 15 inches high, and we started expecting home meal portions to be as big.

Living large around the world

I think it is just tremendously hard to stay slim in the U.S. compared to other places I’ve lived, which is why the obesity rate is so high there. Public transportation is not that available except in a few cities, and people just don’t walk much anymore in the suburbs. So one has to make a special effort and set aside a specific time to get any exercise. Busy people aren’t always willing or able to do that. Portion sizes at restaurants and such are large, and I’m fairly sure many people will complain if they were drastically reduced.

And, despite the attention paid to ‘size zero’ celebrities and such, I just don’t believe there is that much peer or societal pressure to keep yourself slim. When the people around you are mostly neither slim nor fit, why bother?

I haven’t lived in the U.K. since I was a child, but whenever I’ve visited there in recent years I gotten the feeling that it was becoming more and more Americanized in lifestyle - more reliance on cars, bigger portions and so on. Add that to the fact that traditional British food can be quite high calorie (pies, fish and chips, and well, curries) it’s not too surprising to see obesity rates there soar.

As for Switzerland, it has some factors that help keep people slim, such as great public transportation, a natural tendency for people to get a little exercise, and reasonably sized portions. Also, people don’t really eat out as much here, or rely on takeaways/takeout and readymade meals.

The bottom line is that home cooking is really better for you all around, health and taste wise. And it’s the best way to take control of your own, and your family’s health. (And all the better if at some of that home cooking is Japanese…a reason to keep coming back here to Just Hungry. :))

[Update:] See the followup discussion, Does going back to your culinary roots make you healthier?

Saturday morning thoughts no. 2: My take on online diet programs

maki — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:01:00 +0100

I’ve had to close off comments on this post. Like other articles here that have ‘diet’ or ‘weight loss’ in the title, it was attracting spammers from the so-called diet industry.

Around this time last year I immersed myself in studying the subject of losing weight. I read a lot of related sites and blogs, bought a few books, and joined some online programs. Since you may be in that situation right now, still flushed with the determination to carry out your New Year’s resolutions, here are some of my thoughts about online diet programs.

What an online diet program site has

An online weight loss program site usually has these components:

Some sort of diet/eating plan - this is usually the big hook they use to get you to join (“Our diet is revolutionary! Magic!”) while always stating in the fine print next to the alluring Before and After photos that ‘results are not typical’).
Weight loss tracker/online scale. (Some also body track measurements, BMI, etc too)
A diet diary/food tracker
An exercise plan of some sort
Community features - usually just a forum; some have online chat too
Some feature advice from ‘experts’: nutritionists, trainers, sometimes even doctors. Some of it is interactive, e.g. you can ask questions directly on forums or via chat and get a real human answer. Most is just in the form of articles.

Read the fine print!

If you are thinking of joining any online weight loss program, make sure you read the fine print about minimum membership periods and cancellation policies. I would stick to programs that allow a decent trial period (say 10 days). For example, ediets.com, which is probably the best known online program out there, charges a hefty $25 cancellation fee if you cancel within 3 months.

Take diet review sites with a grain of salt

There are several sites out there that review various diet and weightloss programs. But, beware - most of them are affiliates of the various programs they discuss (check the link code) and may not always be objective. (Incidentally, ediets.com is offering a pretty generous signup bonus to affiliate sites if they can lure new members to join up in January. Given their cancellation fee policy I could not recommend them but a lot of site owners might be.)

Diet Blog has tons of diet reviews, without (as far as I can see) affiliate links. The site does have diet ads but there’s a clear distinction between what’s a review and what’s an ad.

There really is no single magical formula

Consider this: Rodale, perhaps best known as the publisher of various health-oriented magazines like Prevention and Men’s (and Women’s) Health, operates the following online diet programs:

Biggest Loser Club
The Best Life Diet
The Sugar Solution Online
The Abs Diet Online
French Women Don’t Get Fat
Flat Belly Diet (this is apparently the hot new diet at the moment)

Each program may have its merits, but if there was one magical formula that worked, wouldn’t they only be running that one? They also publish a ton of other diet books besides (and they bombard you with emails promoting them too, if you allow it.)

Another company, Waterfront Media, operates a whole bunch of other ones such as the South Beach Diet, Cheat To Lose Diet, Sonoma Diet, Jillian Michaels, and more.

It’s quite obviously a pretty big industry.

So if you’re going to join an online program, I think you should do so for the other benefits besides that diet they trumpet as being your ultimate solution, such as the community aspects and access to ‘experts’.

Free sites

If you just want online trackers, food diaries and communities, there are free (ad-supported) sites that might be all you need. You should definitely try those out before springing for a for-pay program. Some popular ones:

SparkPeople
Calorie Count
FitDay (mainly tracking and dairy tools; the online version is free)
PEERTrainer (buddying up for fitness and weight loss)

(Somwhat off-topic, but if you’re a visually oriented person you might enjoying making ‘models’ of yourseif at various weights on My Virtual Model.)

My take

After fiddling around with a few of them, I came to the conclusion that online programs just weren’t for me. I prefer to track my numbers on my own, offline. I use CalorieKing because they have an OS X version (FitDay only has a Windows version) with a plain paper journal to supplement it. So far my exercise routines have been simple - mainly walking around the hilly terrain in our neighborhood (hey this is Switzerland after all), and some exercise DVDs - so I haven’t sought out much advice on it (I may eventually consult a personal trainer). And I know that peer support can be very helpful to a lot of people, but I just didn’t find a group that I felt comfortable with.

Maybe if there was a group of somewhat cynical, food-obsessed people who love to cook, are somewhat geeky, and live inside their heads a lot, I’d fit right in!

The refrigerator knows

maki — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:40:33 +0100

We had a major spillage accident in our refrigerator today, which required removal of all shelves and drawers. So I took the opportunity to give everything a wipe and wash and re-organize.

The end result was rather enlightening.

This is supposed to be our low-humidity meat, ham and cheese drawer.

There are two rather pathetic bits of cheese in there. No ham. (Meat is in the freezer.) A couple of blocks of tofu. And several packets of shirataki and konnyaku!

(I should say that some of it is ‘special’ konnyaku that my mother brought along from Japan, and we hoard it.)

There are signs that someone in this house is trying to lose weight. Cough. Maybe we can change the ratio later.

What does your fridge say about you?

A special welcome to CalorieLab visitors, about having my pork belly and eating it too

maki — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:59:43 +0100

My post about losing 30 pounds using bento lunches as a tool is featured as a guest article on CalorieLab, a great weight loss related news site.

For people who’ve clicked through here from there, welcome! If you take the time to look around, you might wonder why this woman is saying she’s on a weight loss plan (notice the avoidance of the word ‘diet’) while writing about things like braised pork belly and spaghetti Bolognese. Earlier this year, I wrote a series of articles about my plans and thoughts for losing weight, but the one that stuck to me the most these many months later is the one about reconciling my food obsession with trying to lose weight.

And about that pork belly - we had it on Sunday, but it was so very rich, that just a little bit was enough for me. And some days later the memory and taste still lingers in my mind and on my tastebuds. For me, good, rich foods were never the problem - it was mindless eating, stress eating, and junk food. Now instead of going through a whole bar of chocolate, I have one row and savor it slowly. If I want a piece of cake, I make or buy a really good one and enjoy it, instead of trying to sublimate the urge with a poor substitute.

So simple, but so far it’s worked!

The Great Natto Diet turns into the Great Natto Scandal

maki — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:50:44 +0100

Following up on the Great Natto Diet story:

The producers of the show Aru Aru Daijiten II commited several serious faux pas: falsifying data; presenting made-up data for tests that were never conducted; and, what I find the most amusing yet outrageous of all, showing an American university professor on screen then superimposing made up subtitles that had nothing to do with what he was actually saying. (Here is a YouTube video of the official on-air apology (in Japanese of course). The man speaking is just an announcer, not a station official. Here's a news report (Japanese again) of the press conference where the officials issued their apology.)
This story was front page news and a top story on national media outlets in Japan on Saturday. Like the Celebrity Big Brother thing in the U.K. last week it's the Scandal of the moment. It's made the international media too.
The program was produced by Kansai TV (KTV), a local television station and Fuji Television affiliate in Osaka, and broadcast nationwide by Fuji TV (which was also the network that carried the original Iron Chef...which is sort of ironic, maybe).
The program was pulled off its usual broadcast slot on Saturday evening. It remains to be seen if it will ever get back on to the air. (It was a very popular show...as the influence it had by causing a mad rush on natto shows.)
Its sole sponsor, Kao, has pulled its sponsorship.
Natto manufacturers may lose hundreds of thousands of yen in revenue because of cancelled orders. Natto has a short shelf life of about a week, and makers had stepped up production to try to meet the increased demand.

It sort of seems that the program producers went about creating this particular episode with the best of intentions, and based on actual studies about DHEA and isoflavons. But perhaps in a rush to get the show out by a deadline or sheer sloppiness (we may eventually find out, as this whole mess is being investigated by the Japanese government now) they really messed it up, to put it mildly.

One of the sad things that may arise from this is that some people get the mistaken impression that natto is a worthless food. It's certainly not, and as I have written earlier if you can get to like it it's a terrifically nutritous food. Just not a miracle diet food.

I guess the lesson to be learned here is never to take media reports on food and nutrition at face value; do the research, question everything, and make your own educated decisions.

The Great Natto Diet Rush: The sticky road to weight loss (maybe) (OJFTMHYLW extra)

maki — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 16:19:30 +0100

I was not going to talk about natto as part of my Odd Japanese food that may help you lose weight(OJFTMHYLW) series this week. But coincidentally, natto as a diet aid has been in the news big time in Japan, with claims that a 'magical' substance in this sticky food helps people to effortlessly lose weight.

Natto is one of those legendary really odd traditional foods that you probably have had to grow up with to appreciate, in the same league as Scottish haggis or Norwegian lutefisk. Natto are cooked soy beans that are fermented with a natural bacillus that is found on rice straw. The fermentation process makes them very sticky (think of the insides of okra, but much stickier) and very smelly. They are an excellent source of protein, and easily digestible, so if you can stand the smell and texture they are probably great additions to your food plan. But...from experience I have to say that the number of people who didn't grow up with natto who like it is pretty low. As I reported back in my original post about natto, most people back away with a look of fear and disgust.

Earlier this month, a Japanese "health" TV program called Aru Aru Daijiten broadcast a show about the amazing natto diet. Aru Aru is very popular in Japan, but it has more in common with programs like Ito-ke on shokutaku, pseudo-science presented in an entertaining and comical way, than serious science. Citing some scientific studies (none, oddly enough, conducted in Japan, where you'd think scientists would be most likely to study the health benefits of natto in depth) they claimed that eating 2 packs of natto, one in the morning and one in the evening, would help people lose weight without any further effort or change in diet. This was, they said, due to the isoflavones in the natto (and some other substance) which caused the secretion of DHEA.

[Update: now the president of the network that shows the program has publicly apologized for "broadcasting a programme containing content that was not based on facts". So maybe it's not such a sensational discovery after all :) ]

They then conducted their own 'scientific' test, consisting of 2 groups of 4 people each, who ate the prescribed natto for 2 weeks. The results were quite impressive: up to weight 3.4 kg (7.5 pounds) was lost by the subjects in those two weeks. They also claimed that various health barometers like cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. went down dramatically too. They recommended that the natto be mixed at least 50 times to really develope those sticky strings, as well as leaving it for at least 15 minutes before eating, for maximum effect. I guess this means that the beneficial ingredients are in the sticky parts. Here's how natto looks after this treatment.

Yes this natto was eaten after the shot.

Interestingly, today (January 20th) there is a statement (Japanese) on their web site retracting many of those claims, such as the fact that that two of the subjects' announced results were erroneous; that the statements that were supposed to be made by an American scientist were wrong or nonexistent, and that they didn't even conduct some of the tests that were shown during the program. They even admitted to showing different people in the 'before' and 'after' shots! Whether connected to this or not, they've cancelled the showing of their regular program this Sunday the 21st. (The program has now been suspended indefinitely. Also see retraction by network president above. Incidentally, apologizing to the public is a popular thing to do by company officials and politicians in Japan when things go wrong.)

It may be too late though, because the original program caused a mass rush on natto in Japan, causing sellouts at supermarkets.

The one thing that I think is valid is that natto is soy beans, which are quite filling, so that may decrease food consumption anyway. About those other claims...well I just don't know. It just goes to show how fad-crazy Japan is, and how diet fads are prevalent all over the world.

Now I did grow up with natto, and I love it. But two packs a day, every day? I don't think even I could stand that. Besides the fact that natto in Switzerland is not cheap, and making my own natto is territory I have yet to explore. (My grandmother used to make it sometimes, and all I remember is that it takes on the odor of an uncleaned toilet at one stage, before it 'settles' at the end to edible levels.) There's also the issue of natto-hating co-habitants, friends and other acquaintances who may not appreciate Perpetual Natto Breath.

If you're brave enough though and want to test those claims... If you do, let me know how it went. :) Remember, that's 2 packs of natto a day, morning and evening, every day, with your regular meals. You may have to adjust your breakfast and dinner menus though...cornflakes with natto may not fit well.

Bonus recipe: natto with raw egg

1 pack natto
1 raw fresh egg
soy sauce to taste
1 cup hot rice

Mix the natto well until it's very sticky. Break in the egg and whip rapidly with chopsticks until all creamy. Add soy sauce to taste, and optionally mustard (the English kind, not the French kind), finely chopped green onions, bonito flakes, etc.

Mound the rice in a bowl and make a hole in the middle. Pour in the natto-egg mixture. Mix well. Slurp immediately.

Seaweed: Hijiki, wakame, kombu, nori... (OJFTMHYLW no. 2)

maki — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:23:41 +0100

Next up in the OJFTMHYLW list is seaweed. But..why not call it sea vegetables? Weed sounds so unappetizing, so unwanted. Yet, seaweed is a terrific food.

There are many kinds of seaweed commonly consumed in Japan, and all are quite low in calories, contain many minerals, and are high in fiber. The only problem for a lot of people is that seaweed has a distinctive texture and flavor.

Wakame for instance, which often appears in salads, as garnish for sashimi, and in miso soup, has a rather slimy texture which just gets more slimy the longer it's soaked. If you can get used to this all the better of course. But if not, there are ways to get around this. First, try chopping it up very finely and sneaking it into food. Second, if you put it into soup (like for miso soup) the sliminess, which is actually a form of fiber, will melt into the liquid and be less noticeable. Also, sautéing in oil, or mixing with an acid like vinegar, counteracts the sliminess.

Kombu seaweed is most commonly used to make dashi stock, but it can also be eaten. The best way to eat kombu is to chop it up very finely unless you develop a liking for the leathery texture. You can also find kombu-cha, kombu tea, which is dried, salted and flavored pieces of kombu steeped in water.

Nori may be the most familiar seaweed since it's used as a wrapper for sushi. It's usually not cooked, though there are traditional recipes calling for softened nori. (Some people like a sort of soft nori paste to eat with rice...it is sort of like a Japanese version of Marmite.)

Kanten, or agar-agar, is a coagulant extracted from a seaweed called amakusa. It's used like gelatin, but it has slightly different coagulation properties, and is all-vegetable of course.

Then there is hijiki, which may be the most versatile seaweed of all. It's also extremely high in fiber - about 40% of it in dried form is fiber. Hijiki is not commonly seen on the menus of Japanese restaurants since it's used mostly for homely home cooking. It comes in dried form, as do most other seaweeds (except for salted 'fresh' wakame). It's usually soaked for about an hour beforehand, then rinsed, before use, If you're in a hurry though you can blanch it for a couple of minutes in boiling water, which hydrates it quite fast. Hijiki when reconstituted swells to about 5 times its original weight, so don't use too much! A serving is usually 1 or two tablespoons worth at most.

Hijiki comes in two forms mostly: regular hijiki, which is rather twig-like in dried form, and me hijiki, small buds of hijiki that looks like black tea in dried form. Once regular hijiki is reconstituted, it looks like long black noodles. Star Trek fans may see a remarkable similarity to gagh. However hijiki does not move on your plate or have feet.

The traditional way to cook hijiki is to stew it in dashi stock flavored with soy sauce and often sugar, together with vegetables like carrot or lotus root, or fried tofu (aburaage). Since it's fairly neutral in flavor, it can be used in salads, or stir fries and such.

There is just one caveat about hijiki. Four countries have issued warnings (but no outright bans) for hijiki, citing its more than accepted levels of inorganic arsenic. I am rather skeptical about the basis for these warnings, since hijiki has been consumed on a regular basis in Japan for thousands of years, and has been touted for its health benefits for almost that long. In any case you should not consume large quantities of this or any other food (it's actually very hard, if not impossible, to eat a huge amount of hijiki) and it's often recommended to eat it with vegetables which may help to eliminate the inorganic arsenic from the body efficiently. Pre-soaking it and rinsing it before eating, which is the traditional way to prepare it, eliminates much of the arsenic content also.

Recipe: Hijiki and vegetable "Napolitan"

This is a non-traditional way of cooking hijiki. It adds fiber, flavor and interesting color to a pasta dish that's inspired by "Spaghetti Napolitan", a common item served in Japanese family-style restaurants and such, that has nothing at all as far as I can tell with Naples. It has tons of vegetables and a little bit of ham, which can be left out to make this a vegetarian dish.

This yields 4 generous and very filling servings.

100g / 3.5 oz dried whole wheat or regular spaghetti
A small handful (about 5g) regular hijiki
1 red pepper
1 green or yellow pepper
1 carrot
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
120g / 4 oz proscuitto crudo (raw ham like proscuitto di parma)
1 400g / 1lb (small) can of crushed tomatoes
2 Tbs. tomato paste
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbs. olive oil
Salt and pepper

Soak the hijiki, drain and rinse following the directions above.

Heat up a pot of water to boil the pasta.

Slice the vegetables thinly. Chop the garlic finely. Cut the ham into strips.

While you boil the pasta, heat up a sauté pan or wok. Put in the can of tomatoes and the vegetables. Simmer until the vegetables are soft and the moisture is almost gone. Add the oil and ham and hijiki and sauté briefly. Add the tomato paste and Worcestershire sauce. Season if needed with salt and pepper.

Drain the pasta and add to the pan, stir around to coat the strands well. Serve immediately, optionally topped with some freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Recipe: Seaweed and chirimenjako furikake

Don't just settle for commercial furikake that's often loaded with MSG and other dubious ingredients. Furikake is quite easy to make at home, with only the things you want in it.

This furikake, which is just bursting with umami, can be made with any seaweed you like, or a mixture. Be sure to chop up the seaweed finely. This is most easily accomplished in a food processor, but you can chop by hand too. This one has a mixture of me-hikiji and nori. Chirimenjako is small, salted whole fish - you can find this or something similar in most Japanese, Korean or Chinese groceries. You can leave it out if tiny whole fish bother you.

About 3-4 Tbs. of reconstituted, rinsed and drained me-hijiki, wakame, kombu etc.
2 sheets of dried nori, well shredded
3 Tbs. of chirimenjako
A large handful of bonito flakes
3 Tbs. soy sauce
1 Tbs. sesame seeds
Red pepper flakes, or seven ingredient pepper powder ( shichimi or nanami tohgarashi
Optional: 1 Tbs. very finely chopped orange or yuzu zest

Chop the seaweed up finely. (If using me-hijiki you don't need to do much chopping.)

Put the moist seaweed and the chirimenjako in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Stir around until it's dried out quite a bit and is getting a bit crispy but not burnt. Add the soy sauce, the bonito flakes, and the shredded nori, and continue stirring until it's almost dry. Add the sesame seeds, citrus rind and red pepper, and stir until the sesame seeds are popping. Take off the heat. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator, and try to use it up within a week.

Konnyaku and shirataki (OJFTMHYLW no. 1)

maki — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:23:24 +0100

[Update:] Take a look at this spicy Korean flavored shirataki recipe, and this konnyaku gyuudon (beef bowl). Both are perfect for bento!

The first (odd) Japanese food that (may) help you lose weight, or OJFTMHYLW (maybe not the best acronym), is konnyaku and shirataki. Both are made from the same substance, the corm of the konnyaku or konjac plant. Shirataki is also known as konnyaku noodles, to further confuse things, but I prefer the original name which means "white waterfall". It's basically konnyaku shaped like long thin noodles.

Konnyaku is about as close to a zero-calorie food as you can get. No wonder, since it's about 97% water. The remaining 3% is mostly fiber in the form of a viscous substance called glucomannan, plus some traces of protein, starch and minerals like calcium. It's the glucomannan that makes it so interesting as a weight loss food though. A big block of konnyaku has about 10 calories, but it's very filling. It's long been called a 'broom for the stomach' in Japan because of that.

While there are several kinds of konnyaku available in Japan, outside of Japan we can usually only get ita konnyaku, basic slabs of konnyaku. Some konnyaku are white and translucent, and some are grey. Transclucent/white konnyaku is plain konnyaku made from dessicated konnyaku powder, while the grey kind is usually grey because of the addition of a powdered seaweed called arame.

True konnyaku made from raw ground up konnyaku corms, called nama-konnyaku (raw konnyaku), is actually quite grey, and the seaweed-added grey industrial konnyaku is meant to look like that. (It's still made in some areas of Saitama prefecture and other places. My mother is from Saitama and I remember those grey, rather rough konnayku showing up a lot for dinner at my grandmother's house.) Other types of konnyaku mostly seen just in Japan include sashimi konnyaku, which is konnyaku with various flavorful additives in it like powdered nori or citrus skin (mostly yuzu, but other citrus too), ito konnyaku, thick noodle-shaped konnyaku, and tama konnyaku, ball-shaped konnyaku. This Japanese page on a konnyaku manufacturer's site has pictures of these.

There is very little difference in flavor or texture between industrial white and grey konnyaku, so it's mostly a matter of aesthetics. I like the grey kind myself, but that's probably because I grew up eating the real grey kind.

Konnyaku itself has very little flavor. It's the texture that will either be interesting or completely off-putting to the eater. It's gelatinous and firm, rather like agar-agar but firmer but rubbery. Since it has little flavor of its own, and because it's almost all water, it takes on the flavor of whatever it's cooked in. So, if the texture is okay for you you can add it to all kinds of food for the added almost-no-calorie bulk to fill up those spaces in your belly.

Shirataki has been getting some attention in the U.S. recently because it's noodle-shaped, and there seems to be this obsession with finding noodle and pasta-shaped food that isn't so high in calories and carbs as the real thing, like spaghetti squash strands (which are nothing like pasta either). A lot of people are disappointed when they actually try the shirataki because the texture is nothing like pasta and noodles made from flour. But again - it's a matter of getting used to it perhaps.

[Edit:]Note that there is something called "Tofu Shirataki" or "Noodle Tofu" sold by House Foods America - this is made from tofu and konnyaku yam. It's a little bit higher in calories. They're not the shirataki I'm talking about here, which are called "Yam Shirataki" or "Yam Noodles" - these say they have 5 calories or so per 100g. "Tofu Shirataki" is not very traditional, but shirataki has been around for centuries. You can however use "Tofu Shirataki" in most recipes that call for plain shirataki.

I happen to like konnyaku better than shirataki, because shirataki is often so thin that it's almost not there. Konnyaku is substantial enough to get your teeth into.

More recent konnyaku innovations include sweet konnyaku jellies, chewy gummy-like konnyaku chips, and grain shaped konnyaku to mix in with rice so that you are fooled into thinking you're eating rice while taking in less calores.

How to prepare konnyaku and shirataki for cooking

Both konnyaku and shirataki come packed in water - no wonder, since they are mostly water anyway. Open the package in a bowl or over the sink. The water will smell slightly odd usually; drain it all away. Rinse the konnyaku or shirataki in cold water, then blanch in boiling water for about a minute and drain well before using.

Shirataki may need to be cut up into manageable lengths. Konnyaku can either be cut up into cubes or slices, or torn apart into rough chunks with your hands. The torn chunks are good for putting into soups or stews, since the rough surfaces help to absorb more flavor. For stir-frying, sautéeing and such the cubes or chunks allow for more surface to be in contact with the hot pan.

The longer konnyaku cooks, the more it takes on flavors. It's like a sponge.

The easiest way to try konnyaku is to put some small pieces into a well flavored soup or stew. Putting some chunks into miso soup is a good place to start - just be sure to cook the konnyaku in the dashi stock for a while, so the flavors can penetrate. Traditionally shirataki is put into sukiyaki and mizutaki, both of which are flavorful sort of stews. It's also put into small bags made from fried tofu (aburaage) which are put into an oden, another kind of stew with lots of fish cakes, root vegetables and so on in it.

Some caveats

Since konnyaku is almost zero-calorie, high fiber and very filling. But since it has no significant nutrients other than fiber, be sure not to overuse it.

If you're serving konnyaku to kids (if they'll eat it...) make sure that the pieces are small enough, and that they chew it well, before attempting to swallow. This was a problem a few years ago with sweet konnyaku jellies that could get stuck in the throat - since konnyaku is so glutinous it was considered to be a choking hazard. (Konnyaku jellies nowadays are manufactured in smaller or different shapes to avoid this.)

Recipe: Stir-fried konnyaku with tuna and garlic chives

I rather like konnyaku that's been stir-fried or sautéed. It will brown up a little bit in whatever oil you are using, and take on the flavor of the oil besides. I've used a combination of sesame oil and (gasp) butter. Here I have used a can of tuna instead of bonito flakes, which I might use normally, but you can use any kind of flavorful protein instead (ground beef may be good..) The garlic chives (nira), which are available at Asian groceries, add a lot of flavor too.

This whole thing is about 400 calories in total, very low-carb, and yields at least 4 servings. It's very filling indeed, and a great one-dish lunch. (Since I'm not following a low-carb regimen I add a cup of rice or something to this.)

1 1lb or 450g pack of grey or white konnyaku, pre-prepared following the directions above
1 Tbs. butter
1 Tbs. dark sesame oil
1 small can of water-packed tuna
1 large bunch of garlic chives (nira), or substitute green onions and add a couple of cloves of garlic
About 2 cups of bean sprouts
Dried red pepper flakes
Soy sauce
Salt and pepper

Cut up the konnyaku into slices, and dry the surface well with a paper towel. Cut the garlic chives into approximately 10cm/4 inch pieces. Drain the can of tuna very well and flake. Wash the bean sprouts.

Preheat a wok. Once it's very hot add the konnyaku to the dry pan. It will make squeaky noises as it dries up on the surface. Add about 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, and half the butter and sesame oil, and sauté until the pieces are a bit brown on the ouside and the liquids are absorbed.

Add the red pepper flakes (as little or as much as you like), and the rest of the butter and sesame oil. Add the tuna, then add the vegetables. Stir fry until the vegetables are done. Season with salt, pepper and a bit more soy sauce to your taste.

Links and resources

Konnyaku Day has links to several konnyaku recipes (mostly with a traditional Japanese bent)
A few konnyaku recipes are on the House Foods America web site. You're most likely to encounter this brand in groceries, especially in the U.S.
Japan Konnyaku Association site (Japanese)

A week of (odd) Japanese food that (may) help you lose weight

maki — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 14:05:21 +0100

Dieting is just as popular in Japan as it is in other countries, despite the low obesity rates and things there. Fad diets are very prevalent, as are a lot of dubious diet supplements (sapurimento). But if you look at traditional Japanese food, there are a lot of items that are naturally low in calories, carbs and glycemic indeces, high in fiber, and in some cases even have a lot of beneficial nutrients. These items are being looked at anew as weight loss aids in Japan, which is a great thing I think.

This week I'll describe some of these foods. They may seem odd to you if you're not Japanese (some more than others), but one thing is for sure - they have all been eaten for hundreds of years, if not longer, so they are likely not to kill you anyway. :)

Note: I've already described two foods here that are being touted nowadays as great diet foods: natto (fermented soy beans), and okara (the fibrous parts of the soy bean left over after making soy milk). I'll be talking a bit more about okara, but natto is such an 'acquired taste' that I'll let it be for now.

[Update:] Links to the entries:

Konnyaku and shirataki - almost zero calorie!
Seaweed, yummy.
Dried vegetables