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dackinator · Joined: 17 Sep 2010 Posts: 105

I do a lot of weightlifting/boxing so I like to eat carb/protein heavy foods: chicken, pasta, eggs, tuna, milk, etc.

Is it possible to get all of these in japan? I only know from what i've seen on tv - I've never been to asia, but i've never seen a japanese person drinking a glass of milk or roasting a chicken.
The impression i get is that they eat a lot of small stuff like sushi.. not great for what i like to do. Can anyone living over there help?

ultraman111 · Joined: 17 Sep 2011 Posts: 148

You can eat well enough. Stay away from the fried stuff which is everywhere. Rice is the staple....and fish is everywhere, beef is ok when its discounted, and tofu is a cheap form of protein. You just need to have a favorite supermarket close by....and use it regularly.

steki47 · Joined: 20 Apr 2008 Posts: 1029 Location: BFE Inaka

seklarwia · Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 11:04 pm Post subject: Re: whats food like in japan?

dackinator · Joined: 17 Sep 2010 Posts: 105

Thanks a lot guys, good to know i was wrong!

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

As others wrote, everything on your list is here in abundance and in very convenient places.

Be a little careful about the milk. Not sure what type you prefer, but there is a dairy product here that looks like milk but is very sweet. Can't recall what it is. Regular milk is sold only in 1-liter cartons as maximum size as far as I've seen. Perhaps Costco has bigger sizes, but Costco is not widely available.

Pasta is almost exclusively the typical dried type. You can get lasagna, spaghetti, or a handful of small curved shapes. Your biggest problem there would be spaghetti sauces, because you shouldn't expect things like Ragu over here. What they have is far smaller in size and IMO much less tasty. Prepare to make your own. Tomato paste does not come in cans, either, but in 1-tablespoon foil packages, and tomato sauce is limited to a 1-cup bottle of "puree". Unless you can get to a specialty store with international foods, that's what you're going to see, anyway.

seklarwia · Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:38 am Post subject:

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

seklarwia · Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 8:08 am Post subject:

OneJoelFifty · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 463

Never had a problem finding pasta sauces here, either in Kasumi (a popular Ibaraki supermarket), or the Mega Donkihote (my favourite shop in the world ever) that sells literally everything and is five minutes from my apartment.

TokyoLiz · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1548 Location: Tokyo, Japan

Here in suburban Tokyo, we have a Pakistani grocer who sells all kinds of canned goods from various "old countries" - lentils, garbanzo beans, saag chicken in a can, specialties from Indonesia, Indian subcontinent, all halal. I shop there for curry ingredients.

Teishoku, or set menus, are common in small diners. You get rice, pickles, soup, and either meat or fish. Izakaya, taverns, feature a lot of fish, pork and chicken on their menus.

I cook at home a lot. Typical home cooking is frypan or nabe hotpot dishes followed by a bit of brown rice. Every morning I have a cup of coffee, yoghurt, brown rice and some kind of furikake, sprinkles, on my rice. Usually fortified veggie stuff.

99 yen groceries are common in the Kanto area. I get pork, chicken, eggs, milk, fruit, and veg for that price. The quality is good.

I'm not doing MMA. I do Japanese budo here 3-4 times a week. I'm an average height 40 something woman, and in ten years in Japan, and I've eaten to retain muscle and have healthy BMI. Is it good genetics, or the Japanese diet, I don't know. After training, I sometimes go out for yakiniku, a kind of barbeque restaurant, with my dojo mates. You won't go hungry or lack for protein here.