Teishoku Completely Changed the Way I See Healthy Food

Healing my relationship with food

Fried chicken, white rice, and potato salad. I used to think that these foods couldn’t be part of a healthy diet. That if we are to be healthy, our meals needed to be composed of foods like salad greens, raw broccoli, and plain chicken breast. Healthy food was whole grain bread or brown rice, and unhealthy food was refined carbohydrates. I used to describe certain foods as “good” and “bad,” and that enjoying certain “bad” foods was a forbidden indulgence or a shameful show of weak will.

But I later realized that thinking like this was not just wrong. It also really sucked.

Why are the Japanese so healthy?

I was in Japan for the summer and staying at my grandmother’s house. She is a health aficionado, so I was expecting my summer days to be filled with bland-tasting vegetables and dry, lean fish. I thought I would never get to eat white-bread toast or sweet yogurt for breakfast, and forget about an ice cream dessert.

But to my surprise, this wasn’t the case. For dinner, we would have pork cutlets or creamy, Japanese beef curries. On the side, she served us fried tofu and stir-fried eggplant in a thick teriyaki sauce. After dinner, she would bring out fruit jellies and vanilla ice cream, and she would eat it with us, too. I asked her, “Do you always eat like this? Or is it just because we’re here?”