That's some good value for cost

A friend of mine recently posted this on Facebook. Apparently he was strolling through the produce section of a supermarket and was quite surprised to see these guys hanging out. Only 150 yen, though - not bad!

Just another random thought 11/26/09: Buy American!

There comes a time in (almost) every young man or woman's life when he sets out on his own and assumes responsibility for himself: bills, food, housing - all of that good stuff. It was an interesting experience to jump to this stage of life and simultaneously into a foreign country. Although to be fair, I have had help with things like my apartment lease.

One characteristic of growing up and becoming responsible is learning how to manage your money. You start to notice things you never really gave much thought to in the past, like how much different brands of milk cost and which pack has more cherry tomatoes in it. As such, I've tended to inadvertently buy a lot of American produce. Often imported American (or Australian) meat is cheaper than domestic Japanese stock. The same is true of some fruits and vegetables. Today I bought a head of American broccoli for 68 yen. The Japanese ones were almost 100 yen more! Fine by me - I like buying stuff from home. Suckers...!

Picky about produce

There's an interesting article in the Japan Times about the challenges facing Japanese farmers; namely the pickiness of consumers. Apparently "irregular" vegetables, which are either shaped oddly or are too big or small, are bought for lower prices or not at all. One anecdote tells of a farmer who had to resignedly throw out boxes of his broccoli crop because they were too big.

Excuse me? Japan home grows less than 40% of its food, and buyers are rejecting broccoli because it's too big? According to the article I'm not the only one who sees a problem with that - a fledgling company named Vegetable Equality is on the job. I wish them success.

A little aside - this reminded me of a strange fruit-eating habit that I've noticed in Japanese people. They peel all their fruit. Not just oranges and bananas, but apples, peaches, grapes - you name it. I know that's not exclusive to Japan; some people don't like fruit skin. But everyone seems to do it here. When I asked a friend about it, she answered "because of chemicals." But isn't that why we wash fruit before we eat it? There are a lot of valuable nutrients in fruit skin, including vitamins and anti-oxidants - seems like a waste to me.