Allergies in Japan

Although this is not applicable to me, for many people coming to another country can cause anxiety because they have allergies. Sometimes allergy some minor things like hay fever for example however some people can have major anaphylactic reactions to certain products.

This post is to fold the first post this post will be a guide on how to navigate Japanese food labels and restaurants. The second part of this post will be an awareness post on allergies in Japan.

Food labels

Under Japanese law there are 7 foods or ingredients that must be labelled on food packaging and these are: shrimp (えび), crab (かに), wheat (小麦), buckwheat (そば or 蕎麦), eggs(卵), milk (乳), and peanuts (落花生).

There are more foods that may cause a deathly reaction and an epipen to be used and that is the first problem: what are you allergic to? Because there are so many other allergens, you must look up in Japanese, ideally before you travel, what you are allergic to. A handy phrase would be:

______アレルギーがあります。I’m allergic to_____.

A person I know who moved to Japan is allergic to bananas and must be careful with any confectionery product because it’s an ingredient that is used everywhere.

In restaurants, the 7 allergens will be listed in Japanese on the menu if not apparent e.g. “egg salad” contains egg. If you are allergic to anything else, research before you arrive. Most menus are available online and even if you only have the ingredient that you are allergic to, you can usually see if they have it.

Additionally you can ask! If you don’t speak Japanese, use the phrase above and the waiter/waitress will help you out.

Voluntary ingredients

In addition to the 7, there are an additional 20 ingredients that can voluntary be put on packaging. These 20 can roughly be separated into 4 groups: nuts (walnuts, cashews etc), fruits (oranges, bananas etc.), meat (pork, fish roe etc.), and other (gelatine). This is down to the manufacturer of each product and you need to be aware of this fact when buying food.

Furthermore, there is always a risk of cross-contamination because even though there are extremely high standards of food manufacturing in Japan, allergies seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

The reaction to allegies

Japan is becoming more aware of allergens and allergies as the number of sufferers increases globally. One brilliant example of this is Mos Burger. This fast food chain has released a range of low allergen products in an effort to allow people with severe allergies to still enjoy their food.

According to the ministry for health, it is estimated that around half of the Japanese population have some sort of reaction to some foods.

Medication

Japan is known for having a hey fever problem and there are many medications for this and others. There are 5 types of medicines for allergies in Japan:

• General allergy medicines (the best I would say is Claritin EX [loratadine 10mg] which is a pharmacy only product, or contac Z [cetirizine HCl 10mg]- if you can take these. There are many other ones but the list of contras(contra indications e.g. Don’t take if you have X or not for people who are Y) does get quite long.
• Eye drops. Many people use medicated eye drops to stop an inflammatory reaction occurring.
• Eye washes. None medicated option to clean the eye of irritants
• Nadal sprays. To stop the airways reacting to allergens or to prevent this reaction
• Epi pen.

I hope this guide is helpful if your travelling to Japan.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

Christmas: special drinks, for children

Japan and Christmas are a wonderful match, especially when Japanese culture is added to the mix. Partying, even having a dinner party, is an expected part of any festive celebration but why should the adults get the special drinks- won’t anyone think of the children?

Okay this sounds weird but don’t worry children, the soda industry has your back. Firstly, these drinks are not cheap but they are covered in colorful plastic packaging with Doraimon and other characters. There is also Appletiser, which I do like but is still full of sugar.

People usually buy these drinks for either the Christmas party of for New Year’s eve/day celebrations at an extremely cheep 1000 JPY a drink (or 10 USD).

This section is also brilliant for the non-drinkers (me) wanting a social life- just a little one though.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

Christmas: Pepsi?

December the month of xmas

Have a grape Christmas

Eve though it’s now December I still protest Christmas due mostly to the fact I’m in Japan. That does not mean I’m going to stop trying strange things.

Enter stage left: grape flavoured Pepsi. I know what your thinking, like OMG I can’t believe you bought that. But believe it or not it was really nice.

Imagine a mix of Pepsi and grape, it’s the ronseal of combinations. It’s refreshing and goes brilliant with ice. I don’t quite know how it’s a Christmas product but it gets my thumb up.

If you can do try it but if you can’t, you already know what it is like.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

Christmas: coke with a gift

Even the coke is festive…

Sugar free, it’s slightly better. Right?

At this point I have accepted the inevitably of Christmas in Japan and I decided to accept it. So let’s start with the reason for red being a Christmas colour: coca cola.

Coke is extremely well known (slight understatement) and is available everywhere including in North Korea, for the elite only of course.

Nevertheless the junk food giants coke and McDonald’s have decided to team up. For the small price of ¥85 you get a coke and either a free hamburger or a small fries.

Quick note as a former McDonald’s worker, a hamburger is a cheeseburger without the cheese, there is no difference in the meat–its still a 10:1 patty.

But the bottle comes with a delightful party trick:

A beautiful ribbon

That’s right, the label turns into a ribbon.

On the bright side, everything is recyclable and the coke zero was coke zero- exactly the same as the UK.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring

Review: Blanchul chocolate mint bites

It’s time for another strange mint chocolate flavored review that I found while shopping.

These mint chocolate biscuit bites are made by Bourbon and are just that- a bite. However, when you first try them, you do get a great taste of Coco and mint accompanied with a plastic after-taste; which is not normal. After reading the ingredients, I can only assume that such an after-taste comes from the use of butter and shortening.

If this product was made within the EU, there would be a list of E-numbers a mile long. In Japan, however, you just get the full ingredient list. A tip for those who are health conscientious: if the ingredient is in katakana, it is probably something you should avoid. For example, マガリーン (margarine), and ショートニング (shortening) are heavily featured on the packaging along with ホエイポウダー which is whey powder. This product is fine and thus has a kanji (which was not used on this occasion) which is 乳清 which literally means pure milk.

Would I recommend the product- considering the fact that I did eat all of it, consuming a pointless 225 kcals- I’ll use the German word Jein (yes and no). It tastes okay but doesn’t leave an impressions and passes without comment.

For this product, try it if you want, but don’t expect to love it.

Thanks for reading and happy exploring.

Review: Taiyaki Warashibe たい焼きわらしべ伊賀上野店

Got to have a treat or 2

When exploring Iga, I came across this little slice of heaven located opposite city hall. Warashibe Taiyaki is an extremely small store but its’ merchandice is fantastic.

Taiyaki are small pancake like treats in the shape of a fish often with runny center. Some of the flavors they offer at this store are red bean paste (あん), Chocolate cream (チョコクリーム), and green tea (抹茶). For those that are looking for an additional treat, they also have たい焼きアイス takiyaki ice-cream as well.

Taiyaki- green tea flavored

Each taiyaki is sold separately, with the taiyaki being 170 JPY (other flavors are about 20 yen either way) and the Taiyaki ice-cream is 360 JPY- all prices include tax.

I definitely recommend this shop and if you visit Iga, please do check it out.

For telephone orders (you will have to pick it up yourself), please call 0595-24-8818.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

Product: Koala Machi cookie

A sweat treat with an unexpected flavor

Ignoring snow packaging (which is extremely festive in appearance now that Halloween is over) and the name which translates to Koala city, this item was extremely eye catching and I had to try it.

Additionally, this company has donated money to help support koala foundations and has raised millions to support them.

Back to the product, they are koala shaped crunchy snacks with a soft, creamy filling and completely nourish. The usual flavor is a deep, rich chocolate filling encapsulated within a thin, crispy shell.

This is what I was expecting- I didn’t read the packaging nor look at the picture of a cheese cake like an intelligent human. When I initially tasted them, it did surprise me and the initial reaction was more of “what have I done”? The cheese cake flavoring is artificial, quite insipid and extremely strong- but somehow nice.

Japan has a thing for fake cheesecake flavored items- the worst of which was cheesecake Pokey- there were completely rancid (please don’t try) and somehow the koala crispy treats are not completely unexpected.

The ingredients are just what you would expected- all highly processed and nothing completely natural. But strangely they are called chocolate sweets but only contain coco butter as the chocolate component but they do contain cream cheese so that makes up for it I suppose.

If you get the chance, please do try them but be aware of the slightly strange flavoring.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

Product: soy”meat” jerky

A strange product in concept but quite good

If you happen to go shopping in Japan, either for food or to see the strange items on offer- there are quite a few, you will notice a few things:

• Meat is expensive
• alcohol is everywhere
• anything which has not been assimilated into the Japanese Zeitgeist is ridiculously expensive

Case and point: beef jerky. Most jerky products in Japan is made from squid or seafood. It is sometimes flavored and has helped create some rather humorous YouTube videos, with more than one you-tuber freaking out at the taste/ texture.

However, beef jerky is hideously expensive for what it is. A 25 g serving will set you back 500 JPY (4.62 USD/3.57 GBP/ 4.13 EUR) which no matter how you look at it is expensive- there’s note even a “it’s cheap for Japan” because it quite clearly is not.

Enter stage left: soy-meat jerky. This product was 150 JPY and is actually a reasonable tasty (and vegetarian alternative if you were looking for one) and cheaper alternative. Opening the packet, there are flakes of soy- quite a few of them all coated in teriyaki flavoring.

Now the important question: does it resemble actual jerky? Yes it does with one exception: it’s a bit softer and therefore, in my correct opinion, much nicer. It’s a slightly chewy, teriyaki flavored flake of joy and it has little fat, a good amount of protein and little added salt.

If you are curious, they are available at Aeon stores in the health food section.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

Product: a sweet treat

An introduction to the world of Japanese treats for only ¥69

A small treat cheap treat

When looking for a sweet treat most people look at chocolate, or ice cream, or something else that is usually at least ¥100, but here’s a tip- look at the cheap treats occasionally you come accross a gem.

We’ll start with the gaburi-chew. Thing of a 10 cm high chew andcyou have the taste and the texture of it. It’s a chewy berry flavoured bar and was ¥32, not a bad start.

This product immediately caught my attention with Felix the cat on it and they were ¥9 each so I bought them blindly. They were as packet does say bubble gum, cheap artificial strawberry flavoured straight from my childhood. They are identical to the cheap hubba bubble, the cheap 20p (0.20 GBP) bubble gum and I enjoyed every one.

The game inside is a Japanese classic called あみだくじ(amidakuji). The rules are simple, start at either 1,2,3,4 or 5 and follow the line at each intersection to see if you end up at the strawberry. Be careful, you could end up releasing a snake or a bear etc. Its a bit boring but a bit of fun for kids.

Finally, we have the corn snack which is teriyaki flavoured. With these you must be careful because some of them are just horrible. My favourite so far is the teriyaki one and at just ¥10, I recommend trying multiple to find which ones you prefer.

I have dipped my toe into the world of Japanese snacks, and will do so again soon.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.

The small thanks

Convenience store raffle

A win is a win

Occasionally while buying extreamly unhealthy food and coffee, it was treat day (come one next Tuesday), you’ll be told by the attendant to take a ticket.

At first you are likely to be confused. But as the attendant holds this card box, you see that there are ticket inside. You take one, after struggling to open it while holding your lovely bento, and see a Barcode, you have won.

What a Nice dramatic story for winning a pack of sugar free chewing-gum but the spend X to get a free Y is extreamly common in Japan. The change of winning has enticed me in the past, even with winning being highly unlikely.

With this post, today’s Japanese phrase is はずれ which is simply better luck next time.

Thank you for reading and happy exploring.