Customer Reviews

Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother's Tokyo Kitchen

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Well, the gauntlet has been thrown.

In the wake of Mireille Guiliano's runaway best seller, French Women Don't Get Fat and its common sense nudge urging dieters and just plain folk in general to look back to tradition rather than seek out convenience to buttress the pillars of your culinary and nutritional foundation, Naomi Moriyama with her husband William Doyle fire back with enough fact, statistics, recipes, menus and history to send Western Civilization back to the Dark Ages.

Naomi Moriyama, a chic and slim 45 year old marketing consultant, doubles as a powerhouse of energy and vitality as she meters out her rebuttal to Mme. Guiliano in a righteous defensive strike of her culture's dietary habits and staples worthy of any 10th century shogun --- i.e. Japanese women live on average to age 85; only a birdlike 3% are deemed obese) And she does this with a straightforward panache that puts all of Mireille's pandering of her French ancestry to shame. (Note: my review of FWDGF was favorable in as much as it underlines the need to return to a real slow food way eating rather than pre-packaged, chemically enhanced non/fast-food junk) However, where Mireille barefacedly underlines her anthem of quality over quantity by compelling her readers to nosh on pricey triple creams, imbibe expensive champagne by Veuve Clicquot ----the company for which she works--- and with these offers vague advise about love being a natural slimming agent, Naomi, just gives us a straight shot of brown-rice samurai wisdom backed by enough scientific sources and academic studies that keeps eating plain, simple, and a step above common-sense.. In a way, she kamikazes the competition into the Maginot line by providing more than 30 economical recipes, menu plans, and portion control with internet ingredient URLs provided for easy access to Japanese market staples. The biggest out of pocket expense, besides the price of the book, could be replacing your present dishes with the small and elegant place settings preferred by Naomi's countrymen.

But will the idea of becoming like the mysterious doll-like Japanese geisha succeed in capturing the attention of an American audience with the same whole-hearted obsession of morphing oneself into a Gitane smoking, cigarette skirted French demoiselle?

Like FWDGF, JWDGOOF abounds with little vignettes about the respective author's childhood comfort and food experiences. While the focus remains similar to that of FWDGF, namely real seasonal food, quality over quantity, no snacking, smaller portions, social eating and the very Eastern contemplation of the food's beauty and nutrition, the author relies on the tradition provided by her mother, an obviously clever woman who presents fruit carved like flowers for dessert instead of a mountain of cake and cookies like her American counterpart;

On a purely technical level, tradition for Naomi and her family consists of a food wheel of seven spokes: fish (her description of the Tokyo fish market with its sights and smell is a fish-lover's heaven), vegetables( an emphasis is on sea vegetables; no canned or frozen here except for edamame), rice (brown preferred), soy (no processed stuff here, only tofu, miso, beans and sauce), noodles (soba, udon, ramen and somen), tea (types and preparations are provided) and fruit. Note the obvious exclusion of dairy---full fatted or otherwise, ----bread and flours. Beef and chicken are used as condiments rather than main entrees. That's not to say that Naomi and husband Billy don't indulge in the occasional bagel or pizza binge; however their main nourishment takes place in Naomi's New York facsimile of her mother's Tokyo kitchen.

All in all, if there is a contest in the war of the dieting worlds, I doubt that JWDGOOF will win in spite of its right-on message and clearly stated facts. Unfortunately, as svelte and vivacious as Ms. Moriyama is, there is something good or bad about the French stereotype that utterly captivates Americans. Check out all the books on Amazon,com that feeds into this desire for sophistication French-style.

That said, don't discount this book. Although, I would have liked Ms Moriyama to address the issue of menopause and diet and provide a Japanese food pyramid, as a utilitarian manual, the book is a good buy for the money. It's got everything on its side, science, history, and how-to instructions on how to prepare Japanese staples that are unfamiliar to the typical American. I am confident that like Naomi's non-Japanese husband, you will find the pounds melting off by following her centuries-old secrets. Recommended as a lethal weapon in your real food arsenal against weight gain.

I read this book on a whim because of the funny title, but I must say, I am impressed with the simplicity, straightforwardness, and great recipes. The guidelines give you choice and clear direction, and after following them myself for just a few days, I can tell the difference in I how feel after every meal. I'm sure after incorporating this book into my lifestyle, I'll notice physical changes too.

Kudos to the author Moriyama for her well laid out and researched book!

This was a great read! The author uses beautiful, nostalgic and descriptive language while recounting her memories of growing up with Japanese food. Both her mother's kitchen and her grandparent's country farm are vividly described with colorful images of a veritable paradise of fresh food. Although the author states she lives in New York today, Japan looks to be a pearl in her memory.

The bulk of the chapters speak about the author's personal food experiences, along with Japanese food history and legend. I've never read a cookbook that had only one or a few recipes at the end of every chapter - it reads more like a novel than a cookbook. The only problem I had with the book was that towards the end it seemed a little too full of nationalistic pride. Other than that, I really enjoyed reading this book.

Other reviewers often compare this book to one I haven't read, "French Women Don't Get Fat." That must be a great book, because this one is SO interesting. Not sure why everyone complains about this one being a copycat, since the author honestly states in the book that the title of that book inspired her to write this one.

This book is great! Not only does it make sense when you read the stats about why Japanese women seem to beat the fat and look so good but it is really easy to learn how to do it too without much fuss or expense. Love the recipes. You can buy the book and start cooking that night. This food really is different than the neighborhood Japanese place- you will love it. I wish there was a 2nd edition!

I lived in Japan for close to 10 years. In Tokyo. Mine is an unscientific observation.

The diet in this book is a stereotypical "Japanese diet", one that most naive Americans and others think the Japanese eat.

I lived with a number of Japanese female roommates. The way they eat in public (picky and delicate) is nothing like the way they eat at home (they could get in a contest with a vacuum cleaner and win). I saw three of them down a large bag of cookies in 3 minutes flat. It was gone by the time I got back from the bathroom.

Japanese women are very cognizant of the way they are seen in public, and will also go to extremes to lose weight and stay underweight. I used to think that the popularity of Comtrex, a type of milky looking mineral water from France, was due to health concerns. I found out that young Japanese women take it because it has laxative qualities. Other popular diet aids have been "nata de coco", a colorless, calorie-free jelly made from coconuts, and water pills. The water pill thing got so out of control that at some point there was an epidemic of gout among young Japanese females, and pharmacies quit selling these pills to them.

As for green tea as a diet aid - funny thing, the Japanese don't drink THAT much green tea (except at the office) and not one of them ever told me it was a diet aid. I was told very often by the Japanese, however, that oolong tea was the secret to weight loss. Oolong is a popular diet aid in Japan. Green tea went for a long time unmentioned.

Beer should be listed as a major food group in the standard Japanese diet, considering the level of consumption. Popular dishes are "curry rice" - a football sized pile of rice with curry sauce and little bits of meat; ramen - which is usually high fat and loaded with msg; "pizza toast" - a very thick slice of white bread with pizza sauce and some veggies; "Tonkatsu" or "chicken katsu" - deep fried and breaded (with panko) pork or chicken cutlet; "hamburger steak"; rice omlette - a thin egg omelet loaded with rice and topped with ketchup; spaghetti; and certainly the ubiquitous white rice three times a day. I was told by some school children there that the brown rice I preferred to eat was "for cattle".

A major cause of house fires in Japan is the well-used deep fat fryer, a standard article in most kitchens. This is used to deep fry shrimp, "croquettes", oysters, tonkatsu and tempura, among other items.

The Japanese diet changed with modernization and exposure to western culture, but not always in a bad way. Around the late 1800's to early 1900's, the average Japanese lived on little but rice and some pickled vegetables, and perhaps some fish if it could be gotten. Consequently, the life span was apparently not any better than the rest of the world - I once read an old Japanese fairy tale with a picture of two "elderly" people with long flowing white hair, and they were supposed to be in their 40's, according to the story.

Since the Japanese contact with the west, the amount of protein in the diet has gradually increased. This was in part due to agricultural reforms imposed by the US. The increase in protein in the diet over the years has not only lengthened the lifespan of the Japanese, but has made more than a few of the younger people much taller than their elders. So a slightly westernized diet has not been an entirely bad thing.

Still, the average Japanese diet tends to lack protein - the most obvious result is the tendency for Japanese nationals to have leg issues - if you have a chance to hang around Tokyo, you might want to spend some time "leg watching". Bowlegs, crooked legs, pigeon toes, knock knees and other issues with bone structure are very common in Japan, however, they don't seem to be as prominent in China or Korea (where more land animal protein is consumed). It has been stated that a mainstay of protein in the Japanese diet for many years has been natto (fermented soybeans) - not exactly a protein powerhouse.

The Weston Price foundation focuses on various cultural diets and protein and the problems issuing from having too little in the diet - bone structure and bone density being affected most of all.

The main difference in the Japanese diet (as well as the Chinese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese) compared to the American is the absence of the huge amounts of sugar that Americans consume. This really is the secret. Most Asian sweets, no matter if they are traditional or commercially made candy or cookies, have a low sugar content compared to their American counterparts. Asians in general do not have a sweet tooth. Often, they cannot stand the super sweet foods that Americans consume, and therein lies the main difference.

Many in Japan, once they reach middle age, suffer from "middle age spread", the women in particular can start looking square or "chunky". There was a Japanese comic strip called "Obatarian" (rough translation: Aunt-Zillah) which lampooned this type of Japanese middle aged woman. This may simply be due to increasing insulin resistance because of age. Beer drinking and an over consumption of carbohydrates doesn't help much here.

Regarding breast cancer - the one factor the media has (deliberately?) overlooked is that birth control pills have never been legal in Japan - Dr. Lee's book, What Your Doctor Isn't Telling You About Breast Cancer, cites artificial hormones as the culprit behind most breast and prostate cancers.

Also, Japanese don't eat as much soy as the soy industry would like you to believe. The whole soy as health food mess was cooked up based on faulty information - Japanese on the average consume about 2 tbs of soy sauce per day as their main source of soy. They may eat tofu once in a while, though it is considered the "poor man's meat" and has a generally low status. Edamame (boiled soy beans) are usually consumed as a bar snack with copious amounts of beer.

In addition, radioactive iodine is also a culprit in breast and other cancers - the Japanese higher consumption of raw fish and seafood guards against any intrusion by Iodine 131. Seaweed, it has been found, needs certain enzymes to be digestible - these enzymes are usually found in the systems of those who consume raw seafood (i.e. Japanese). So if you've adopted seaweed into your diet, it may not be beneficial without the help of some sashimi to go with it.

If you are worried about breast cancer, you'd probably be better off getting off the soy and taking instead iodine (like Iodoral) and ditching the bc pills and / or fake estrogen menopause hormones.

The concentration of super-elderly people in Japan tends to center in Okinawa, which has a somewhat different diet - bitter melon being a part of it. Bitter melon keeps blood sugar levels steady, which adds to the longevity factor. The small village in central Japan that had a great deal of active elderly was noted to be a place where people consumed vegetables (grown fresh in their gardens) and did not consume much or any rice.

If you are a major consumer of fast food and have a sugar jones, any diet that emphasizes low sugar, lean protein and fresh vegetables will probably be a major improvement and you will no doubt see an improvement in your health from the change.

This book, however, is riding on the coat tails of the French Women Don't Get Fat diet, which is nothing but another low sugar, low cal option based on more myth. Anyone can get fat on traditional Japanese food - sumo wrestlers eat a traditional, though hefty, Japanese diet - they don't get that way from consuming burgers and twinkies.

As an update to this review - the main success I've had with diets so far has been with The Leptin Diet (not really a "diet"). YouTube has a video titled The Five Rules of the Leptin Diet, if you don't want to spend the time reading "Mastering Leptin".

I keep finding myself referring this book to family and friends, even my sister who is studying Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture. It reads equal parts novel, supporting research, cooking prep and easy to follow recipes.

As a busy professional in quest of eating well for both health and optimal energy, I find the book offers guidance and specific recipes to achieve this on a day to day level. Already I have incorporated the eat until 80% full philosophy, am making conscious choices when ordering out to include more fish (especially at lunch), and at home use smaller plates to reduce portion size and enjoy the art of the fresh food in front of me.

Even though its only been a couple of weeks, I feel more confident in my food choices. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to improve their health, energy and ultimately their physique.

In reading the reviews, K.M. Harris and T. Tanaka (Japanese residents) have got it (mostly) right. This is not the reality of the modern Japanese diet, it is a look at traditional dietary habits. I disagree with reviewer Harris that Japanese genetics are the whole story - there is an increase in body fat and weight gain as reported by T. Tanaka and an increase in chronic diseases. These changes are in line with dramatic changes to the Japanese diet in a short period of time so it is indeed quite evident that nutrition can influence genes.

For a more useful overview of the changing Japanese diet and the differences between Western diets and that of Japan, see the excellent new book by Logan - The Brain Diet. This book is based on the realities of the Japanese diet and includes more practical ways to take advantage of the best components of the Japanese diet for health promotion.

The title of this book is pretty clearly a marketing tool and not a reflection of reality. Anyone who has spent some time in Japan knows that the title and the attitude put forth in the book is ethnocentric and smug nonsense. The minute you read that Japanese people eat brown rice, you know it's not a reflection of the real Japanese diet. Japanese people eat only white rice except for when they are ill and except for a few rare souls who are health food fanatics. White rice is the order of the day.

That doesn't mean that the author's recommendations have no value to those wishing to pursue a healthier lifestyle. However, presenting her recommendations as a reason why Japanese appear not to age as much as westerners and why they are thin is simply misleading. And I'm not so sure that one needs this sort of book to tell them to eat fruit, vegetables, fish, whole grains, and avoid fats and dairy. I'm pretty sure most health-conscious people already know such things.

If you want to know about Japanese food, a cookbook featuring Japanese dishes would likely present greater diversity of recipes and be better written. And that is the big problem with the book. It isn't especially well done. The fact that the author is pretending Japanese know something Americans don't about diet and that's why they're small is just a minor annoyance.

As other reviewers have noted, the real secret to Japanese thinness is portion control, lots of working where they have little time to snack or eat (or even think about food), a culture which doesn't easily accomodate cars and relies on walking to a far greater extent than the U.S., and a far heftier societal pressure to be exactly like everyone else pushing people never to allow themselves to stick out by getting fat.

Okay, let's point out the obvious - this is a rip-off of 'the French book'. And it reads like a hastily put together rip-off too: packed with facts about how healthy a Japanese diet is, feeling like it was all a cut and paste from a Google search. And you don't read this one for the food writing - Moriyama is not the new MFK Fisher.

That said, there is a lot going for this book. I didn't mind it. Perhaps that is because i like Japanese food. Perhaps that is because tofu and miso are kitchen staples in this household. But just like 'the French book' this is mainly just a packaging of common sense - don't stuff yourself, eat fresh, enjoy what you are eating rather than wolfing it all down and moving on, get off your fat behind and walk more. The food in this book is a lot easier to prepare than French food (most food is easier to prepare than French food).Perhaps it will be a revelation for some people, and good on them if they take it on board. Otherwise, just apply some common sense to your life and you will probably feel better is the digested read.

I started the Japanese way of eating after completing an extended Master Cleanse (I also highly recommend that one, by Stanley Burroughs).

Written like a letter between old friends, Naomi is brilliant in illustrating how the Japanese diet has worked for Japan's women spanning over several centuries. The amount of supporting research is unbelievable. She just puts it out there for readers to decipher, allowing you to arrive at your own conclusion.

The basic idea is that the Japanese eat a lower fat, higher carbohydrate diet while STILL remaining thin and ageless. All food consumed is natural and clean. Nothing is really off-limits per se, but the diet primarily consists of whole, natural foods. I do not know about you, but I would rather have lobster than Cheetos any day of the week.

There are no prescriptions (cut out all sugar, excercise 5 times/week, eat only protein), as with many diets, mainly because...this isn't a diet. It is simply a story of one woman's life of eating, and what she has found to be the truth.

A suprising aspect Naomi describes in great detail is the components of the Japanese cuisine...much more than sushi and miso soup! Who knew that the Japanese were such foodies?

You must read this book. It is a phenomenal insight into one of the world's amazing communities. Even if you do not adopt the Japanese way of eating completely, or at all, this book is defintely worth the read.