Food and Cooking

I liked the article a lot and it made many great points. Especially about school lunch and public transportation allowing for a more active, therefore healthy, society. However, when I visited I noticed vegetables are not incredibly common, and those you find are not diverse. Dishes are rice heavy, and the vegetables are mostly varieties of cucumbers and seaweed. A friend of mine, who lived in Tokyo for a few years, confirmed my observation and mentioned it's thought to be a cause of persistent dental issues in Japan. Don't have a source or anything for that, but thought it might be interesting to mention. I think it greatly depends on where you live. In California, I have access to a huge variety of vegetables and many farmer's markets throughout the week I can attend. I imagine that i am an outlier though, and many areas have access to very few vegetable varieties. Food deserts are a very real thing and a very real problem. I'm mostly just musing, but I think I'm mentioning this because there is a trend in spaces like this to idolize Japan, and reality is much more nuanced than "Japan is perfect."