I was tasked with discussing healthier dietary options especially for those in the Japanese American community and immediately ran into a roadblock. For instance, though the Japanese no longer have the longest life expectancy as of 2022 (Hong Kong surpassed Japan by about 3 months), the average woman in Japan has a life expectancy over 88 years and the average man has a life expectancy just under 82 years. A lot of this is due to diet as the Japanese consume a lot less beef, more than 144 lbs. per year less than Americans and more than 59 lbs. less pork per year than Americans while also consuming more than 59 lbs. per year of seafood compared to Americans. They also consume 16 lbs. more soybeans than Americans per year.
So that doesn’t leave a lot of room for dietary tweaking. But as they say, there’s always room for improvement, right?
Sukoshi Shio
Though salt consumption in Japan has slowly been declining, the average Japanese still consumes about 10gm of salt per day (about 2 teaspoons) which is about 10% more than the average American. This likely is in the form of pickled vegetables and shoyu. If you live in an environment that faces harsh winters, pickling is a necessity to store vegetables during the cold season. However, once we arrived in America, most vegetables are available year-round, even for those residing in the Northern latitudes so salt pickling is no longer a necessity. And there are lower sodium alternatives or vinegar to pickle your excess bounty in the garden.
For those addicted to shoyu, reduced sodium shoyu has always been an option at most supermarkets. All the larger brands produce a reduced sodium product which usually contains 40 to 50% less sodium than their usual product.
Less Gohan
If your fasting or random blood sugars are running outside of the normal range or if you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, you should reduce your consumption of rice to 1 cup serving portions if rice is the only starch you’re consuming, even less if you’re also consuming other starches like noodles, potatoes or bread. And better yet eventually make the switch to whole grain rice better known as brown rice. Because brown rice still has the fiber and bran coating, it takes longer to digest so it won’t spike your blood sugar right after eating. The only drawback to the fiber is it does take a little longer to cook brown rice and to get the best finished product, you should also soak brown rice for a longer period. The good news is that many of these newer rice cookers have a brown rice setting that does the soaking and cooking for you so that your brown rice is just as fluffy as white rice. Another benefit to brown rice is that due to the outer bran coating, you can actually make great fried rice as soon as the brown rice is cooked. With white rice, I normally use day old rice that I leave in the refrigerator for 2 days so that the rice doesn’t remain clumped when making fried rice. Clumping isn’t an issue with brown rice so right after it’s done cooking, you can immediately use it for fried rice.
In late 2003, celebrity kung-fu actor Jackie Chan opened a Jackie’s Kitchen at the Ala Moana Center complete with flair bartenders (popularized by the Tom Cruise movie, Cocktail) and though it closed just 3 & ½ years later, there’s one dish that I still try to recreate in my kitchen (“try” being the operative word since I was never given the actual recipe), the fried rice which used brown rice, lots of chopped green onions and cremini mushrooms. It wasn’t heavily flavored with the usual oyster sauce and shoyu but rather had a dashi-type of flavor. I originally posted my recipe way back in 2006 but since I’ve changed some of the ingredients, he we go again.
Ryan’s Whole Grain Fried Rice
4 cups cooked brown rice
1 lb. cremini mushrooms quartered
10 or so fresh shiitake mushrooms (stems removed/roughly diced)
3 cloves garlic, minced
2/3 cup fresh green onions chopped to half inch length
2 tsp Hon Dashi
2 tsp reduced sodium shoyu
Fresh cracked black pepper to taste
1-2 tbsp canola or macadamia nut oil
Roast quartered cremini mushrooms at 350-375 degrees until almost all of the moisture leaves the pan – about 10 minutes (you must pay attention - you don’t want mushrooms to dry out - will stick to pan). Heat oil on medium to medium high add minced garlic and sauté just until garlic starts browning. Add shiitake mushrooms. When shiitake looks just cooked add the roasted cremini and toss. Add about half of the Hon Dashi and mix. Add rice breaking up clumps and toss with mushrooms. Add rest of Hon Dashi and shoyu and continue to stir for 1 to 2 minutes to incorporate the Hon Dashi. Then add green onions and cook for another 2 minutes.
Be a Teetotaler
Because I’ve been discussing my cocktail prowess on the monthly Nichi Bei Café videos on YouTube, this probably applies to me more than the rest of the Nichi Bei audience. But as you know, there are many consequences of chronic alcohol consumption. Never mind the possible DUI or binge Amazon purchasing, regular alcohol consumption increases the possibility of oropharyngeal and breast cancers, liver damage and possibly accelerated dementia as well as increased blood pressure and heart failure. So while Ms. S and I attended a lunch benefiting Slow Foods at the annual Negroni Week held on the third week in September, Brick Fire Tavern in Honolulu offered three standard negroni variants plus a 4th non-alcoholic version, the Party Mom Negroni. It contained three beverages that mimicked the usual alcoholic versions of aperitif and bitters: Seedlip Grove 42 Citrus, Giffards Aperitif and Crodino Aperitivo all without any alcohol. And it tasted surprisingly good. So much so that I immediately did a web search and purchased several of these alcohol-free beverages.
Because the Giffards Aperitif isn’t available in the 50th, I substituted the Free Spirits Spirit of Milano (produced in Marin County) which mimics the bitter red liqueur, Campari. Since a negroni also contains gin, I purchased the Fleure alcohol-free “gin” but it didn’t add much flavor so my teetotaler negroni ended up with equal parts of the Seedlip Spice 94 Aromatic and Spirit of Milano. I also use these as mixers when creating cocktails for Ms. S as they provide flavors found in bitters or vermouth but keep the alcohol level lower than beer and they also make good libation substitutes when you are the designated driver or if you decide to participate in the annual Dry January giving the body a rest from the holidays potential libation excesses…
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