A breakfast very different from our eating habits
Fed up with your sweet toast, bowls of cereal, cakes and other sweets, and looking for new ideas? The Japanese breakfast is made up of recipes very different from our eating habits. We present the main foods that make up their meal and the reasons to adopt it.
The ingredients that make up the Japanese breakfast
The traditional Japanese breakfast is made up of savoury foods. So it's important for Japanese culture that this meal be made of easy-to-digest, balanced ingredients. However, many young Japanese now introduce more Western habits like toast, jam, cereal, fruit, coffee in order to save time. Indeed, traditional breakfasts are made up of several small dishes that require preparation in advance. A traditional breakfast is made up of:
- Rice
The main ingredient, found in every breakfast. Japanese rice has the particularity of being very sticky, which lets it be easily picked up with chopsticks. In France, you'll generally find it under the name "sushi rice".
- Protein
The Japanese eat protein from the morning. It's found in animal forms like fish — very often salmon — chicken or pork, generally fried, or eggs, sometimes raw mixed directly with the rice or as an omelette. But Japanese breakfasts can also be made up of plant proteins like tofu or seaweed (Nori and Wakame). Finally, for the most curious, you can try Nattō, a fermented soybean base. Its sticky appearance and strong smell tend to put off foreigners who aren't used to it. It is, however, a much-coveted food in Japan, thanks to its nutritional values and its benefit on intestinal flora.
- Vegetables
The Japanese breakfast is very often made up of marinated vegetables like white radish, cucumbers, aubergines. Better known as Tsukemono in Japan, this technique consists of preserving food in brine, vinegar, spices or shōyu (soy sauce).
- Drinks
Of course, green tea, hot or cold, accompanies the Japanese breakfast. Matcha is also much used. It's a green powder also used as a natural colouring. It's sifted before being mixed with hot water. Finally, miso soup, considered more a drink than a dish, is a soup rich in nutrients. About 75% of Japanese eat it at breakfast. Miso soup is made up, as its name suggests, of miso — in other words, a fermented soybean paste — and Dashi, a Japanese broth made of seaweed.
The ideal breakfast according to nutritionists
According to an article in the Huffington Post, Japanese children have the lowest obesity rate among developed countries and, more generally, the best nutritional indicator. But how do they do it?
The school breakfast would seem to be the solution. Indeed, Japanese children have their breakfast at school, and this breakfast is said to be made of rice, grilled fish, spinach, soybean sprouts, a pork miso soup, all accompanied by milk and prunes.
So, as many other articles show, many nutritionists and health and nutrition specialists strongly recommend following the model of the Japanese breakfast.
Recipes that will give you ideas for your breakfasts
And to finish, we give you a few ideas:
The Japan Centre site offers an extra-healthy Japanese breakfast recipe. Made of the ingredients seen above, prepare a nutritious and tasty breakfast that would suit parents and children alike.
If you want to try traditional dishes, find here a Nattō recipe — you'll tell us what you think! And of course, you can't enjoy a traditional breakfast without trying miso soup; the recipe is simple, so don't hesitate.
Finally, if you're still not convinced, discover in an article on the Japanese site RocketNews24, 20 photos taken by Japanese people of their breakfasts in the early morning.
