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Answerman - Are There Any Vegetarians In Japan?


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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 12:24 am Reply with quote
mrsatan wrote:
I spent most of my one year as an exchange student in Kyushu eating white rice and sometimes salad at the school cafe. If I went to a place that had sushi, I could eat kappa-maki and inari-zushi.


What about natto rolls? They are a staple of sushi places around here, and every Asian market here in a Japanese district or otherwise serves a lot of Japanese people sell natto.

Then again, I know lots of people hate that stuff. I'm a freak for liking it enough to special-order natto gunkan at sushi restaurants when I learn they're available.
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NeverConvex
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 5:17 am Reply with quote
Alan45 wrote:
As pervasive as fish is in the Japanese diet it is likely that any hereditary cause of a seafood allergy would have died out before there was any way to treat it. The same with the cause being specific to the individual. I doubt that the incidence is as high in Japan as in the US where it is not terribly prevalent.

My sister-in-law developed a shell fish allergy as an adult. She was sent for several weeks to a different city by her employer on an expense account. Since she had to eat out every evening she indulged her love of shrimp and lobster and ended in the hospital for an allergy she didn't know she had. She remained able to eat fish and for some reason scallops. After more than a decade of no shell fish, recent testing showed minimal allergic reaction to it. On the advice of her physician she has again begun to eat shell fish, though she was told not to over do it.


That's an interesting argument; I think any simple genetic marker for a highly fatal food allergy would surely have died out, but if the genetics of food allergy involve complex epigenetic or pleitropic effects then I'm not so sure the effect of natural selection on food allergies is clear at all. Both seem plausible given that our understanding of allergies and their treatment is in its infancy, and that one of our body's most complicated systems, the immune system, is the primary culprit.

Your sister's case raises a point that's often overlooked: allergies fluctuate throughout our lifetimes, often unpredictably. They also seem to do so over time on the scale of populations; for example, allergy authorities report that " food allergies among children increased approximately 50% between 1997 and 2011," but "but there is no clear answer as to why." which is quite a startling (and mildly disconcerting, heh) idea. Some portion of that may just be increasing awareness / medicalization leading to increased reports, but it seems doubtful that's all that's going on.

leafy sea dragon wrote:
Yikes, that sounds like a pretty severe allergy. Is it the kind that's so bad that you have to keep away from certain places? In any case, it definitely doesn't sound like the type that's easy to treat.


I can travel pretty freely (I even roamed around a fish & shellfish festival in the island subnation of Zanzibar while traveling abroad, despite barely speaking any Swahili/Arabic, and I got away with eating and drinking a handful of items, though admittedly this probably wasn't the wisest choice I've made), just have to watch what I eat; it's a strictly gustatory food allergy. I have developed a separate, more mild allergy in the past few years that seems to have something to do with airborne particles from raw onions, but thankfully the food allergy only kicks in if I actually eat fish/shellfish. I've only actually gone into anaphylaxis once (when we discovered I'd developed the allergy initially); a rapid trip to the hospital with my family and a handful of hours there were enough for them to control the swelling. Epipens also serve as a temporary countermeasure (to buy time to get to a hospital, heh ).

Quote:
My mother swears up and down to desensitization of allergies, at least among cases not severe enough to be life-threatening in even small quantities. Interesting to see that among medical circles, it's not really recommended. But I guess that holds true for a lot of these home remedies like this too.


I think the central issue's that allergies are just very poorly understood right now, and what works in one case may not work in another, and in some cases may even worsen symptoms in one case while improving them in another. The immune system's just an obnoxiously complex beast. For mild allergies, the wiki does note that some studies have found positive evidence for oral densensitization, but the jury's still out on the final verdict, so to speak. I think it's also worth distinguishing subdermal serum-injected desensitization, which is widely administered by trained allergists; it's not a cure-all (e.g. didn't work at all for me), but my understanding is that it is often at least partially successful.

Quote:
I was comparing lactose tolerance to allergies because I was thinking they follow the same desensitization principle. I am a case myself: Just as my sister was desensitized to eggs and peanuts, so was I to lactose, and my mom did the same gradual tolerance program. It was done at such an early age I was actually not aware of it until way later in my life. Maybe I was one of those cases where I was born not producing lactase. My entire family is like this, every member of it going back at least two generations: They all had to ease into consuming lactose, and my mom decided to do it as soon as possible.


This isn't how I've understood lactose intolerance previously, but I'm certainly not a medical doctor, so it's possible I've just labored under a misconception. Maybe it's sometimes possible to kickstart the body into realizing it needs to produce lactase by feeding someone lactose? I didn't think it was, but it would be interesting to know.

Have you or your family members ever gotten formally tested for lactose intolerance by a medical authority? Might help to puzzle out what exactly is going on.


Last edited by NeverConvex on Thu Oct 27, 2016 5:47 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Banken



Joined: 29 May 2007
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 7:22 am Reply with quote
mrsatan wrote:
I'm late to this conversation, but I must confirm how awful it is to be vegetarian in Japan.

I tried ordering a simple salad. They put bacon on it, which is apparently customary.

I stayed at a friend's house and informed them that I was vegetarian. They said they understood, but made the dish with fish anyways and told me to take it out.
Katsuo-dashi (bonito flakes) are in almost everything. It is correct that the Japanese just don't understand the concept.

I spent most of my one year as an exchange student in Kyushu eating white rice and sometimes salad at the school cafe. If I went to a place that had sushi, I could eat kappa-maki and inari-zushi.

Most of the restaurants were very far away from my dorm. I started going a little nutty from eating white rice every day, and would irritate friends when they drove by an American restaurant by begging them to stop there.

When I visited Tokyo I was really impressed by the culinary variety offered there. The hotel I stayed at even boasted about their vegetarian options. But Tokyo is not the norm.


This! Tokyo is not Japan, just like New York City is not America and London is not England.
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mrsatan



Joined: 06 Jul 2005
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Location: Olympia, WA, USA
PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 1:48 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
What about natto rolls? They are a staple of sushi places around here, and every Asian market here in a Japanese district or otherwise serves a lot of Japanese people sell natto.

What is it called, Natto-maki? I'll have to look into that. Thanks!
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omiya



Joined: 21 Sep 2011
Posts: 1822
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
PostPosted: Thu Oct 27, 2016 7:33 pm Reply with quote
H. Guderian wrote:
Interacting with enough Japanese things over time and the phrase "Food is Culture" comes to mind when seeing this.

...

but the question I would pose is at what point do you restrain your own preferences for the greater culture? We visit Japan to see how they do things over there, not to show off to the locals.


It's also interesting to try the sometimes adapted for Japanese tastes non-Japanese cuisine in Japan (like the many Indian restaurants in Tokyo that includes vegetarian options ).

Certainly be prepared to eat what is available where you are going, even if the culture that interests you is primarily not culinary culture.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 12:46 am Reply with quote
NeverConvex wrote:
I think the central issue's that allergies are just very poorly understood right now, and what works in one case may not work in another, and in some cases may even worsen symptoms in one case while improving them in another. The immune system's just an obnoxiously complex beast. For mild allergies, the wiki does note that some studies have found positive evidence for oral densensitization, but the jury's still out on the final verdict, so to speak. I think it's also worth distinguishing subdermal serum-injected desensitization, which is widely administered by trained allergists; it's not a cure-all (e.g. didn't work at all for me), but my understanding is that it is often at least partially successful.

...

This isn't how I've understood lactose intolerance previously, but I'm certainly not a medical doctor, so it's possible I've just labored under a misconception. Maybe it's sometimes possible to kickstart the body into realizing it needs to produce lactase by feeding someone lactose? I didn't think it was, but it would be interesting to know.

Have you or your family members ever gotten formally tested for lactose intolerance by a medical authority? Might help to puzzle out what exactly is going on.


Our family's not the kind who will go see the doctor unless it's a life-threatening emergency. (It's not because they don't trust doctors, but that they don't trust health insurance and governmental programs and prefer to pay 100% out of pocket.) My mom's side of the family is also very traditional-minded and mostly keeps away from the surrounding culture. Together, it means we've never really had a medical expert look into this (despite us having a doctor within the family, though she specializes in a differnet field). The lactase buildup has never been a big concern, as it has consistently worked within the family, so there's no reason for anyone in the generations older than mine to doubt it.

Perhaps we've always had a small amount of lactase but was sensitive to it when young...? I know that is the case with caffeine. I am caffeine sensitive; I cannot drink caffeinated drinks or so much as eat dark chocolate without suffering insomnia for at least that night. I'm certain that's because I was raised without consuming anything with caffeine except milk chocolate (which has so little of it that it's negligible). At the same time, I've also known people who take in so much caffeine that they barely feel its effects unless they take lots of it at a time, like those large NoZ energy drink cans.

mrsatan wrote:
leafy sea dragon wrote:
What about natto rolls? They are a staple of sushi places around here, and every Asian market here in a Japanese district or otherwise serves a lot of Japanese people sell natto.

What is it called, Natto-maki? I'll have to look into that. Thanks!


A warning though: Natto is very divisive even in the places where it's made. It is Japan's counterpart to Vegemite. If you're interested in it, order only a little bit of it, just in case you don't like it.

The most common natto roll I find is indeed natto-maki. Natto is put in the middle of the roll, surrounded by rice, and the chef slices the whole roll. Natto gunkan is the next most common kind, with sushi rice wrapped in seaweed, sliced like a maki, but served with its axis vertical and topped with natto. I've also seen natto nigiri (rice shaped into a brick topped with natto), but that's rare.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
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Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 2:43 am Reply with quote
omiya wrote:
It's also interesting to try the sometimes adapted for Japanese tastes non-Japanese cuisine in Japan (like the many Indian restaurants in Tokyo that includes vegetarian options ).

If such restaurants stand to lay any claim to authenticity, one would expect vegetarian options to be prevalent on their menus. An equally important issue is whether they pass muster as far as spices are concerned.
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Banken



Joined: 29 May 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 9:31 am Reply with quote
Natto is great but natto-maki are gross. Natto is only good when it's mixed with soy sauce and a little Japanese mustard.

Vegemite is also great, but it needs a little butter to enhance the flavor.
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Ravendruid



Joined: 13 Jun 2010
Posts: 13
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 2:24 pm Reply with quote
Looking at natto, I've found that at least a few varieties I've found online seem to contain some form of fish ingredients, so even there you need to pay a little attention.

Regarding exposure therapy for allergies, I managed to overcome an allergy to onions and peppers this way, but both my wife and I have an allergy to sunlight (technically the UV component), that actually gets more severe with increased exposure over time.
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k4comicbook



Joined: 28 Oct 2016
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2016 8:44 pm Reply with quote
I've never been to Japan, but I've been a vegetarian for 22 years and a vegan for 5, so I can tell you about one resource that is pretty reliable for Vegetarians and Vegans, the Happy Cow website and app. I'm not shilling for Happy Cow, just so you know.

Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto look pretty hospitable to Vegetarians and Vegans, based on Happy Cow. 202 of Japan's 683 listings are in Tokyo, so Vegans and Vegetarians may find that city the most accommodating. There's a Loving Hut in Tokyo; we have one of those here in Pittsburgh, and the food there is outstanding. Tokyo has more vegetarian restaurants than all but nine U.S. cities, based on this article: https://priceonomics.com/ranking-the-most-and-least-vegetarian-friendly/

Most restaurants aren't that accommodating to vegans and vegetarians in the USA, either, and many of the things about "meat culture" that the writer of the article says could also be applied to the U.S. In Pittsburgh, there are tons of places we can eat out, but we have been to cities both small and large that didn't have as many V&V locations. For every city like Pittsburgh or Portland, there is a Detroit or a Dallas.

In terms of anime and manga not being accommodating, that is probably so. However, there are a few vegan recipes in the manga Food Wars.
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omiya



Joined: 21 Sep 2011
Posts: 1822
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
PostPosted: Sat Oct 29, 2016 8:43 am Reply with quote
Zin5ki wrote:
If such restaurants stand to lay any claim to authenticity, one would expect vegetarian options to be prevalent on their menus. An equally important issue is whether they pass muster as far as spices are concerned.


The Darjeeling Restaurant in Nishi-Nippori is run by a vegetarian, and includes a fair amount of vegetarian dishes, and also functions as an Indian style tea house. I've eaten there on several visits. It's a short walk from Nippori station on the Yamanote line south towards Yanaka Ginza.

https://tabelog.com/en/tokyo/A1311/A131105/13015467/

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