Tax yen at work

I don't really get it, anyway. In this Ministry if Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries clip, they acknowledge that it is impossible for Japan to grow the food it requires. It then suggests that folks eat more domestically grown food to address the problem.

It also recommends that farmers become more efficient, but they did not suggest doing it by consolidating small part-timer farms into large, efficient farms. Maybe they should have recommended that farmers use magic seeds too.

Kinda tough to tell folks to eat more purely domestic foods in a severe recession unless the price of those foods come down. Doesn't this mean that the domestic rice market is protected all for naught since folks apparently ain't eating all that over-priced rice?

Article at Japan Focus.

Pre-owned shabu-shabu for sale

According to the channel 10 news this morning, a restaurant has been caught re-selling uneaten shabu-shabu from customers' plates. I am sure that this sort of thing has only occurred at that restaurant and at the now defunct Senba Kitcho. There could be no other restaurants doing similar things. Besides, it was Japanese shabu-shabu---not imported shabu-shabu---so it was probably safe and sanitary due to the uniquely pure, clean, and healthy properties of Japanese food. The unique and special cleanliness of Japan precludes any possibility of illness from eating food that another may have slobbered all over anyway.

More companies (Uohide and Shinko Gyorui Ltd. a subsidiary of Maruha Nichiro Holdings Inc.) have been caught switching labels on eels. This, although it seems to be a common practice from the frequency one sees news reports about it, is much more dangerous. The eels were not the safe and pure Japanese eels we expect, but were actually from China! Even though they were not from the plates of other people, they could not be safe being from a foreign country.

Thank goodness for the aggressive government action we have seen over the last few years to crack down on these types of problems. We can all relax now and enjoy our shabu-shabu.

Beware of dangerous foreign food

It could be a threat to the health of the public. Inspectors are not doing enough to protect us:

The agriculture ministry and the health ministry have conducted appallingly slipshod safety inspections of imported food, putting consumers' health at risk, officials of the internal affairs ministry said Friday.

In some inspections, quarantine inspectors tested samples chosen by the importers themselves. Other inspections did not cover the required number of samples.

Those inspections, the officials said, cannot be regarded as fair or trustworthy. Asahi Shimbun.

Luckily for us, we can trust domestic food as as there is absolutely no evidence of any company falsifying expiration dates, mislabeling it, reselling used food as new, or anything else, and it must be because of the strict domestic inspection system as well as the natural purity of all things Japanese.

Them thar damned sneaky foreigners need to be carefully watched by someone.

(Could there be hope? Could this be real or would a new Consumer Affairs agency end up　like other agencies---putting government and industry interests above that of consumers? Let me guess.....)

Another of Blinky's Follies?

Ishihara's Shinginko bank has been sinking under the weight of bad loans, so recently he and the Tokyo Assembly decided that taxpayers should bail him out.

Another one of his brilliant ideas is to move the Tsukiji fish market to a new, highly toxic site. Why worry about contaminated food from China when we can provide our own. Of course that may be a little exaggerated because the site will be cleaned up before the market is moved and everything will be OK in the end. Ishihara is no blithering idiot, after all.

The Japan Times reports:

In studies conducted from February to April, the metropolitan government detected benzene, which can be a cancer-causing agent, at up to 43,000 times the legally acceptable level.

It also found that the groundwater of part of the site contained benzene at 10,000 times and cyanogen at 130 times the acceptable level.

Osaka's Senba Kitcho serving leftovers

This has not been in the news much. I saw a story on the news Friday evening (posted below) but not much else.

This company got caught in a food mislabeling scandal late last year. Apparently, the re-serving of food occurred prior to that. This is not some kind of mystery of the Orient puzzle. Everyone whom I have talked to about this thinks it is disgusting. Except, apparently, the government. Were it a restaurant run by non-Japanese or one using imported "untouched" food from a foreign table, would the media and the government be so complacent? Or would there be endless reports on TV and in magazines? Would the government and bureaucrats be lecturing foreign companies and governments and be warning the public about the dangers of foreign food?

The Asahi Shimbun had a brief report in English here.

Mmmm...Used Food Served in Osaka

Just heard on the news that a restaurant in Osaka got caught re-serving food that had been previously served to another customer. Seems they would take such items as "untouched" tempura, refry it and serve it to another. According the the Osaka Health Department, this violated no laws as long as nobody got sick. Great!!! Let's go out to eat in Osaka! What's that? Someone has gnawed half the meat off of your chicken leg? Don't worry about it. If you get sick, the Health Department will maybe have a meeting and debate having the restaurant owner make a very sincere apology if it isn't too much trouble.

Doesn't this make you wanna barf? Would it be alarmist to say that one cannot trust any food anymore? The Japanese media has warned us off of all Chinese food. They have not warned us off Japanese food, but the repeated scandals over the last year (and remember, these are only the ones that come to light) are enough to make one hesitate to eat Japanese food. Well, not really as we'd starve, but it is enough to cause more than a little concern.

Is there a functioning government in Japan? What does it do except build roads and bridges to nowhere and debate trivia? There have been no investigations, no new regulations or laws pertaining to Japanese grown/produced/served food have there? Why not? It can't be because they are too busy trying to resolve the pension scandal as that has dropped off the radar. WTF do those old, bald-headed, gummers actually do for their salary?

I believe the name of the restaurant is *Kicho, supposedly another old and respected establishment. Sachiko Yuki was the one apologizing and a Mr. Yuki (her husband?) was also involved. I will have to confirm that later.

*6 May 2008: It is Senba Kitcho in English.

Free trade for our products, not yours

Free trade agreements are usually anything but free trade, but the one that Australia is trying to negotiate with Japan is an example of how the Japanese government views free trade: We get to send you our products freely and put your less efficient companies and employees out of work, but in any area in which your country has a competitive edge, we will fight to the death for the right to restrict it as much as possible.

Agriculture is a sensitive areas with most countries and I wonder if there will ever truly be what passes for free trade there. The USA certainly does not have free trade of agricultural products. (Can you buy low-priced imported sugar in the US? If so, it must be a recent change.)

[Australian] Agicultural Minister Tony Burke has warned the Japanese they cannot have a free trade agreement under the conditions being sought by their negotiators.

"We absolutely cannot agree to the exclusions (of food commodities) Japan is putting forward," Mr Burke said yesterday, responding to the Japanese refusal to make liberalisation offers on wheat, beef, dairy products, sugar and rice - Australia's main agricultural exports.

...insist any agreement Australia signs must be fully consistent with World Trade Organisation principals, including comprehensive farm trade reform....(Gonna fail here.)

The last round of FTA talks in late February broke up badly after Japan laid out its demands for widespread agricultural exclusions.

Australia has not yet embarked on a free trade negotiation that has failed to produce and agreement and Mr Burke yesterday declined to rule out the possibility the Australia-Japan process would break down irreparably. By Peter Alford at theaustraliannews.com

Will the Australians, like the US, ultimately bow to the Japanese position and claim victory? (Remember Bill Clinton's humorous auto and auto parts deal in the mid-nineties?)

My fantasy of a simple trade agreement with Japan:

Of course we understand that you have your own uniquely unique culture and tradition and therefore you should be exempt from the rules. Naturally, this prevents you from allowing your citizens to make the choice of whether or not to buy our products. That's fine. It's your country. However, you will not be able to sell one single made-in-Japan component, product or service in our country. None. Period. Neither will you be sending your government bureaucrats to our universities to learn our technologies, laws, sciences, or anything else either.

Should you ever decide that you want to be both in and of the world and are willing to allow the same type of access to your markets as you get in ours, please come back and see us with serious, concrete proposals. Otherwise, don't waste our time again. And take your Toyotas back home with you.

That is a fantasy, of course. It'll never happen. Especially the university part, for if a US university gets a whiff of Japanese money, they seem to lose control pursuing it. (I have been personally involved it this and it was an eye-opening experience.)

10 days and counting

Still awaiting a response, even a "f**k you" from the Denenchofu, Tokyo McFilthys---oops, I meant McDonalds. I suspect I will get none unless I can find some way to embarrass them.

In the mean time, more food fraud from another Japanese company. I am waiting for the Japanese government to take action to clean up Japanese food companies, but I suspect that they are about as concerned about taking action to clean up domestic food as McDonalds Japan is about cleaning up the Denenchofu McDs.

A catering subsidiary of Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) said it recently sold about 15,900 expired "bento" (boxed lunches), sandwiches and other food items at train stations and on bullet trains after deliberately extending their expiry times by several hours. From the Japan Times via Kyodo News.

It's supposedly only a few hours, but the responsible company is still trying to deceptively pawn off old food on customers. Good service. The customer is god.

Full story in the Japan Times Online here.

Tainted food scandals

continue. As expected, the latest case of food-related fraud by Honey Co. of Japan has been pushed completely off radar by the sensational gyoza/ pesticide case. According to today's Japan Times, Japanese officials investigating the plant which packaged the gyoza in China found no problems. Chinese investigators believe the pesticides were added after the gyoza left the plant. (Most coverage of the gyoza mess that I have seen has been relatively even-handed.)

This continues to be the biggest story in Japan. Bad food has been in the news for over a year now at about the same time that tourism has increased in Japan by people who are interested in Japanese food. Wonder how long that trend will last?

Another food scandal

Just after the problems with pesticides being found on Chinese-made gyoza (possibly intentionally added in China) another Japanese company has been caught selling old/recycled food products as new. This was intentional too, of course. The difference is that we don't know if anyone got sick because of it. One might note that according to a news article that I read a few days ago, at present the only time that a local government is required to report food poisonings is if 50 people or more are sickened, so it does raise questions about whether or not anyone has been sickened. (I don't recall where I read the article.)

A Miyazaki-based syrup maker (Honey Co.) has for decades been repackaging and reshipping snow cone syrup that had been returned due to defective cartons after reheating it and attaching new use-by dates, according to the company's president. More here.

I still have not heard of the Japanese government taking any action to increase inspections/insure the safety of Japanese food products. I doubt they ever will unless disaster hits and it cannot be blamed on foreign companies/countries/people. Bet Aso is happy that the latest Japanese food scandal is being underplayed because of the gyoza scandal.

Likely future PM Aso again displays his

deep thinking and superior intellect. From the right-of-Abe fellow who plans to increase outside acceptance and understanding of Japanese "foreign policy" through comic books, a new comment on the latest food scandal in Japan.

No, this is not another Japanese company being caught using old, out-of-date or semi-spoiled ingredients. It is not a Japanese company selling pork intentionally mislabeled as beef. It is not a Japanese company selling ordinary chicken at very high prices while claiming it is a more expensive type of special chicken nor is it a Japanese company involved in any other type of food-related fraud as has been commonplace recently. This time it is another problem with Chinese imports:

Former Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Saturday that Japan's agricultural cooperatives should be grateful to China for enhancing the value Japanese-made food with its allegedly dangerous dumplings.

I am a bit confused as I cannot trust Japanese food unless it is obviously fresh food. I cannot trust frozen products, cakes, processed foods, dairy products and the like because of the huge number of scandals involving those. As far as I know, the Japanese government has put no increased safety measures in place to insure the quality of Japanese food. So I am a bit confused as to what Aso means. Does he mean that even though you cannot trust the quality and safety of many Japanese food products, at least they are no worse than Chinese products?

Japanese Cuisine, 2007

Japanese cuisine is some of the most delicious food in the world. I need not prove that, I just follow the neo-Bushidoist Fujiwara's brilliant theory of logic (or Japanese non-logic according to ol' Barcode head): It is because it is.

However, in 2007 there were numerous scandals related to food in Japan. The Japan Times in Tokyo Confidential has an interesting article by Michael Hoffman on that:

From "a certain chicken farmer," Asahi Geino hears this: "Of all the chicken on the Japanese market" — we're talking roughly 1.69 million tons of poultry per year — "at most 1 or 2 percent are genuine jidori. The rest that go by that name are fake." Read more.

Let's hope it isn't really true, but Japan is also the country in which more Blue Mountain coffee is sold than is imported. So, would it really be a surprise if the story is true?

Japan is owed yet another apology

by the US (naturally, as it is the root of all evil) and, somewhat surprisingly, by Europe. Let's just say by the West in general.

Over the last few weeks I have had several folks---Japanese, but I am sure there are plenty of non-Japanese who will agree---have told me about reading that until several years ago, Japan used a processed-on dating system on food as opposed to the use-by system now in place. Why the change? Why, according to the stories, the US and Europe pressured poor little Japan to change to make it easier to sell imported goods. The imported foods were at a disadvantage under the old system due to the shipping time required for products to reach Japan.

Obviously, had the foreigners not interfered, there would have been no food scandal in Japan, and Japan would have still been producing pure food. No manufacturer would have altered the produced-on date for their benefit. None of them would have mislabeled food or committed other frauds.

Just another bad thing going on in Japan that can be attributed to foreigners. Curiously, I remember that one of the companies involved in a recent scandal said they had been doing it for over a decade. If so, you have to assume that the evil foreigners were involved even earlier.

But anyway, so far nobody has been proved to have gotten sick from any of these products. So I hear from explainers.

False food labeling case 1 trillion

Or thereabouts it seems:

Police on Saturday raided meat packer Hinai-Dori in Odate, Akita Prefecture, on suspicion of processing and selling chickens and eggs falsely branded as the "Hinai" variety in violation of the unfair competition prevention law.

"It is too costly if we really use Hinai chicken," he (the company president) told reporters.
Full article here.

More mislabled food fraud

Just on the news this evening Senbakicho (?) has been caught selling mislabeled chicken, beef, and more. Earlier, they had been caught falsifying dates. It never ends.

More semi-rotted food and shoddy, fraudulent products.

The scandals involving Japanese food producers continue and are now so frequent that one who is concerned about food safety might have to turn to foreign food (eeeeewwww!) of even worse Chinese food in order to have any level of confidence. At least that evil foreign food has passed some type of inspection. The same cannot be said for Japan produced "food" products.

Japan's Mister Donut chain recently got caught using old, out-of-date juice in some of its drinks. I suppose this could be understood as Mister Donut was originally an evil foreign company, so since all foreign companies do that sort of thing---unlike the pure Japanese companies---this is no surprise. Except that it only seems to have happened in Japan in shops under control of Japanese management. Well, what's a little out-of-date juice? So far, nobody is known to have died.

As to corporate fraud and greed, (NOVA has been pretty well covered recently) Toyo Tire was the second company found to have cheated on fire tests for some of their flame resistant building materials. Turns out they only used the real fire resistant materials to pass government tests, but then sold substitute material---much of which is used in schools---which were not at all fire resistant. So what's wrong if a few kids get roasted? At least Toyo Tire is not an evil foreign company, although any sort of fraud or wrongdoing that they were/are involved in is likely the result of Western (especially US) influence. Anyway, the executives apologized, so everything should turn out fine.

What about the poor kids who have to eat old, out-of-date, falsely labeled food in a school with fake fire proofing. This seems like what happens all the time in foreign countries. How could it happen in pure Japan? Damned foreigners!

Yet again, another food fraud???

This time chicken. A chicken/chicken product company in, I believe, Akita in northern Japan has been caught mislabeling ordinary chicken as a special breed of chicken which they could charge more for. This special type became famous because it supposedly had a consistently excellent flavor. Nobody seemed to be able to tell the difference however, once the company began to lie, cheat, and steal by fraud.

In addition, the use-by date was faked as is apparently very common, maybe even standard, practice among food companies here. Eggs were also affected.

They also bought old, tough birds which had passed egg-laying age and smoked them and sold the smoked meat as that of the special yardbird. They explained the unusually tough meat as a unique characteristic of the special breed.

We may have to start eating leaves as any other source of food is apparently untrustworthy. Those damned foreigners! Oh, wait...these are Japanese companies! Well, it has to be a result of foreign, especially Western, and MOST especially American influence. A Japanese company would never do such a thing otherwise. (Hint: sarcasm.)

Recycled garbage sold as food again

Akafuku, which got caught last week faking use-by dates, has now admitted that they recycled old, unsold food and sold it as new. (This was on Tokyo channel 6 this evening.) Again, and again, and again. There seems to be no end to it. I wonder if any Japanese food products company produces food that is safe to eat. The Japanese government has very strict checks on Chinese imports---which is effective enough that the US is interested in Japanese inspection methods for Chinese food---but seemingly does little to ensure any safety in Japanese food. (Interestingly, although the US FDA is interested in Japan’s inspection process of Chinese food of which the Japanese government is boasting to the US is very good, the Japanese media reporting leads one to believe all Chinese food is suspect of dangerous. How can the inspection be so good if it lets such dangerous food into Japan?)

The Japanese government seems to take a much more laid-back, hands-off approach to crooks in the Japanese food industry who fraudulently sell old garbage as food fit for humans. Ironically, just after the channel 6 news, the next program on that station focused on the dangers of foreign food. Many Japanese interviewed said that they don't buy foreign food products, only Japanese. These folks must enjoy the taste of rotted food. But, as Fujiwara Masahiko-chan says, logic doesn't work here.

***According to the 9pm news, the local (Mie prefecture) government did order Akafuka to cease business until it passes inspection. The company had been retrieving unsold products, removed bean paste from the mochi (rice cake) center and reusing some of the bean paste in "new" products; also reusing the mochi and selling the rest of the old bean paste to the president's son's company. The president apologized last week for the first incident---which had been a 30 year long activity---and lied about any further problems. Tonight he "apologized" for his incorrect information (lies) last week.

How many companies have been caught in this type of behavior this year? I can think of 3-4. And those are only the ones which have been caught. Obviously, it has put no fear into companies trying to sell shit for food. This company was over 300 years old. Their reputation is, for now at least, as filthy as their food.

20 October: Japan Times article on the garbage recycler, Akafukyu,---misspelled, I meant Akafuku---is here.

At a news conference Thursday night, Akafuku chief Hamada apologized, saying, "I am sorry for our consumers and related people that this has happened."

Hamada acknowledged that there was systemic falsification, saying, "Reusing of withdrawn products has been habitually conducted."...(Does he mean that he personally is a flat-out liar?)

...Tourists visiting Ise Shrine expressed anger.

"We absolutely can't count on the company just because it's a major, long-established firm," said Noboru Oda, 65, from Chiba Prefecture.

Well Oda-san, at least it isn't evil foreign food!

More rotten fraud in the Japanese food industry

Sweets maker Akafuku Co. has been lying to its customers for 30 plus years by selling them sweet jams with misleading dates. Nothing new as this sort of thing seems to come out every week. Moral? Do NOT trust use-by dates on Japanese food. You may be eating products way beyond their safe life span. You may be eating something which is not even the type of food claimed on the label.

It is a repeated, recurring problem which the government appears to be doing little to nothing about. Too worried about that thar evil foreign food when the biggest problem is food companies in Japan.

Akafuku President Noriyasu Hamada apologized before reporters in Ise for the production and expiry date falsifications.

Akafuku is said to have begun selling the bean-jam cake in front of Ise Shrine in 1707.

In August, Hokkaido confectioner Ishiya Trading Co. was found to have falsified expiry dates for its chocolate cookies, while meat processor Meat Hope Co. was found in June to have falsely labeled its meat products....The Hokkaido meat processor is suspected of mixing pork and beef and selling it as ground beef, and falsifying the expiration dates on labels for meat products. Japan Times story here.

Stop China!

As in many countries, the media have focused on recent safety issues with some Chinese-made products and food. Some have gone into hypocritical hysterics over it. It's about normal for the media I guess since it is primarily interested in scandal and entertainment (unless the scandal is from within the media.)

A week or so ago I noticed a new magazine in the cooking magazine area of the book store near Denenchofu station. The title is Prohibit China (中国禁止）. On the cover it warns "don't eat", "don't buy," and "dangerous China." Inside it covers about every kind of real or imagined danger in China. Filthy, dangerous food, dangerous products, fake brand name products, bird flu, AIDS, etc.

It is published by Oak Mook (#169) which appears to publish a lot of similar stuff and looks to be part of the revisionist right wing nutjob fringe. (There is no evidence that the suddenly-resigned PM Abe is on the staff. ) More of their mags here.

Meanwhile, the repeated food safety scandals in Japan have faded from view. Nobody seems concerned about how the government addresses the Meat Hope scandal. (Meat Hope is yet another Japanese company caught using old food and relabeling it as new, labeling pork as beef, and much more. More recently, a famous candy maker in Hokkaido was caught using out-of-date ingredients.)

This happens enough that I am very concerned about buying frozen foods or foods such as milk which seem to be close to the printed use by date. Whereas the press and most consumers seem to have forgotten about Japan's own food safety issues to go nuts over China's, I cannot. I can avoid imported Chinese food (provided that I can trust the Japanese importer to properly label it---which may or may not happen), but I cannot avoid Japanese food. What do the nutjobs do, I wonder?