Considering from Food Safety

Maybe it's my age, but in recent years the idea of eating has become a concern.

Calorie count, vitamins, minerals, food combinations, drinks, and dessert…. I'm not talking about food quantity or quality or direct matters like that. I'm talking about things like, how are we going to increase Japan's rate of food self-sufficiency which has fallen below 40%? Even though there are so many people suffering from famine in the world today, one day's leftovers in Tokyo alone is enough to provide 500,000 meals. What a waste! The situation seems absurd.

Since none other than the Michelin Guide considers Tokyo to be the culinary capital of the world, it seems there'll be no end to the overeating and gluttony. Food and diet impact not only the physical energy and health of our children but also their spiritual health. Educating them about proper diet is essential. If I start worrying about food I can't stop.

What worries me the most is food safety. There has been a string of incidents of contaminated rice and vegetables, falsification of expiration dates, concealment of origin and ingredients. I would hope that these people who think only about making money would never again be engaged in work that had anything to do with human lives. They should probably be severely punished. They have never been remotely concerned with serving people or society.

Regarding these issues, we consumers must defend ourselves, and not leave it up to others to do so.

That said, though we are able to act calmly and preemptively when we can foresee the nature and location of the danger, as with obesity, accidents, overwork, etc., when we don't know what is dangerous, or are uncertain as to when and where the danger could occur, we easily slip into panic mode.

Food is the same way, and disappearing pensions and bad financial products like securitized subprime loans are the same as well. In a practical sense, there is no way to defend ourselves but to eat only foods that are made by someone whose face we know, and to stay away from "virtual" goods.

In a way, these are all man-made problems. If manufacturers and businesspeople would just do their job honestly, in service of people and society, most of this would not have occurred.

If you don't work in a way that makes other people happy, there is no point in working at all. There is no job in this world that needs to make people unhappy, or dead.

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