Breakfast in Japan

POSTED BY DANNY CHOO On Sat 2009/09/19 11:50 JST in Japanese Culture
And why is not eating brekkie bad?
Well the ministry of agriculture had a load of other data from over a million samples showing that children who eat brekkie every morning do better at tests in school.
This page of survey results also show that kids who eat brekkie daily do better in physical education tests too.
Results further down the page show that folks who skip brekkie get agitated easily and don't have motivation to do stuff.
The reasons are listed on this page which explain how the brain needs sugar to function properly and without it one will find it difficult to concentrate and remember things.
As you can imagine, this is a bit of a bother to Japan as their statistics show that 90% of the population are "unable to concentrate or remember things effectively."
Another reason why I can imagine its bad is because there could be more people spending money on food and the economy needs as much cash flow as possible.
To help remedy the situation, the ministry of agriculture has been heavily promoting a campaign called Mezamashi Gohan or "Wake up Breakfast" which encourages people to start eating brekkie.
The ad below shows a young business man always saying how its bothersome to eat breakfast - younger daughter being played by Kie Kitano-chan convinces him that he must have his morning does of food.
The previous campaign girl was Aya-chan.
The ministry of agriculture want folks to know how easy it is to prep brekkie - take the following example - tomatoes on rice.
One thing about Tokyo is that there is hardly anything to eat outside for brekkie apart from fast food places like Mc Dees, Yoshinoya and Sukiya.
Living in the UK and US, I enjoyed a plate of bangers n mash, scrambled eggs n toast n baked beans - meals that one could easily get at a cafe in the morning. If one wanted to eat breakfast like this (without having to cook it) in Japan, one needs to go to a hotel - the Cerulean in Shibuya does a good brekkie but costly.
I do enjoy brekkie in Singapore - just enter a food court and one is spoilt for choice as to what to choose. Wonton noodles with some milk tea please.
Back to Japan, at home we have a mix of fruit, bread, yogurt, cereal, rice n pickles, congee and the occasional bacon n eggs. I find it extremely difficult to get by without breakfast and would only skip it when having a health check because they require you to go on an empty stomach. I get the runs and skiddy pants if I ever do miss brekkie.
Do you regularly eat breakfast? if so what is your morning diet like?