JapanForum.com - How long could you go without food from home?

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I've never really tried, but I say I could go for a few months, to a few years.

I don't know much about Japanese cusine, but I know one thing: Japanese food = seafood, and seafood is my comfort food. So I could live at least two months on a good sized bag of raw shrimp, and not be out of my comfort zone. After that, I would probably find some kind of other seafood-type meal to eat for the next few months. The only problems I would think I'd come across would be not being able to find or fix the food.

I could live for quite some time on Japanese food...

To be honest, that would be extremely difficult.
I live in the south, in Louisiana, and the food here is a big thing.
Food is usually one of the tourist attractions anyway, so that
should give you an idea. Lots of spicy, hot foods. It should be
no surprise that we have a high obesity rate.
Sooooo, I really have no idea how long I could go. I've never had
Japanese food before, so I'd have to get an idea of how similair
and different they are first.

Im actually really glad you asked this. This is something i have wondered after I went to Japan and had Japanese exchange students at my school. When we were in Japan a large majority of my schools Americans barely went a week before they wanted a cheeseburger. I didn't find it that difficult to do, but I usually dont eat "American" food, however you want to classify it. When we had our Japanese exchange students come to our school, they almost instantly were in need of Japanese food. They went maybe two weeks and then had to order stuff from home. I think the Japanese students have a harder time because they have less access to other ethnic foods, and if they do it usually another Asian cuisine like Korean.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MMM (Post 796645)

I didn't necessarily mean fast food, but the food you normally eat.

Oh, well in that case...stuff I normally eat can be found there ingredient wise...as far as I know anyway. Usually baked chicken with veggies, like steamed broccoli...sometimes with some rice. Sometimes I might have the baked chicken and a salad. Breakfast sometimes consists of my preparing an omlette with onion and minced garlic and mushrooms and red, yellow, and green peppers. Sometimes I use cheese if we have any. Sometimes I eat Miso soup, a small bowl of steamed rice, and some type of a protein for lunch or dinner at times.

I guess the main difference I might have to deal with is the salad thing. I use some of the same ingredients above for the salad, but I'm sure veggies are easy to get there. =P Now salad dressing might be a prob, especially if I get a craving for a pasta salad. I'm not sure I'll find all the ingredients for that, like salad-seasoning and the dressing of my choice.

So yeah...that's typical for me. If choosing though, I'd say maybe months to years, since I do eat Asian foods here too and like them and have prepared some Japanese dishes as well, like onigiri (snack) and okonomiyaki.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PockyMePink (Post 796674)

I looooooooove shirmp. Up to a point, I would put shrimp in almost anything. At the UKrop's grocery store we have here, they have people make sushi and other foods and they also have fresh shrimp. They have spiced shrimp too, and that was a nice comfort food. Every weekend I would pick up some. It cost close to $8.00, but I didn't care. I just budgeted it in. lol

Good question, MMM.

I think that I could go without the food I usually eat for however long I wanted.
Of course I would miss my food quite a bit, but it'd be a sacrifice I'd happily make.

I'm more worried about other things I'd have to give up.

Forever. The food here is gross and fattening. Besides, I love Japanese food :3

So yummy!

its called i try a lot of food and c what i like and stick with that

Forever

There were tons of decent Italian places in Shinkjuku, best garlic bread I've ever had :)

There's enough variety

I really think that you would have to be forcing yourself in order to not eat any non-Japanese foods while in Japan. I have no idea how long I could go, because at no point in Japan have I ever felt deprived of any food I liked. There are a very small number of things that I liked (or that were "comfort" foods) while in the US that are not available in Japan... But I have gone around 10 years without eating most of them. And if I REALLY wanted them, I could pay for them to be imported.

I think that if you believe you can never eat something again, you will feel much much more deprived than if it`s just a pain to get or expensive. Or if you realize that 95% of things other than ultra-processed-pre-packaged stuff can be easily made at home as Japan has no shortage of ingredients available.

These days the only strange thing I occasionally miss that CANNOT be acquired (in my experience) in Japan is cheapy macaroni and cheese with Lawry`s seasoning salt. It was never a favorite food, never ranked on a list of foods I enjoyed... But for a period of time it was probably the main food I ate. My mother spent all her money on "partying" and didn`t buy food for me and my siblings...Basically leaving us with nothing to eat. Church food pantries would hand out packs of cheapy generic macaroni and cheese boxes to kids who came begging for food.
We had an old deluxe sized package of seasoning salt and a working electric stove...

I crave Japanese food while I am at home a lot more then i craved western food while I was in Japan. Come to think of it i think i might start making rice balls for morning tea.