Two Weeks In Japan Changed How I Eat: What The MAHA Movement Can Learn From Washoku

I miss Japan. Truly, I could name reason after reason as to why my two-week summer vacation to the Land of the Rising Sun marked the best international travel of my life so far, but among the nation’s natural beauty, polite and tidy culture, next-level technology and transportation, and fun offerings for an active traveler, Japan’s food culture left me absolutely dazzled.

As a girl who travels frequently for work and leisure, I’m used to tempering my expectations. Sometimes I’d rather just grab a few familiar items from a local grocery store than leave myself overindulged and nauseated by expensive tourist-trap slop. Japan, however, energized me with its offerings—whether from a small konbini (convenience store), a chain restaurant, a hole in the wall, a quick-service joint, or a fine dining experience. And it wasn't just a fluke; Japan is known for its life-giving cuisine, and that can be found at any price point.

Years of loving Japanese cuisine before my travels to the nation still didn’t prepare me for how deeply it would hook me, and how much I’d crave it after. The Japanese diet feeds more than your appetite; it supports mental health, longevity, and all-around wellness. So as someone deeply concerned by the state of American nutrition, I’m saying it loud and proud: if we want to make America healthier, we need to take a page from the Japanese nutrition playbook. Here’s why.

The Proven Benefits of Washoku

The first thing you need to know about real Japanese food is the word “washoku.” This is what they proudly call their traditional cuisine, and it may look a bit different from the “Japanese food” you can pick up at your local sushi restaurant here in the States. You’d be hard pressed to find a Philadelphia roll on any menu in Japan (thank goodness) because the key tenets that characterize the diet are fish, soy, seaweed, rice, and vegetables––fresh, cooked, or fermented. This traditional view on nutrition places an emphasis on seasonal ingredients, minimal processing, nutritious side dishes, and a variety of colors, textures, flavors, and cooking methods, and gratitude.

Let me give you an example. Many Japanese meals follow a similar format to “ichi-ju san-sai,” meaning one soup, three sides, and rice. When we went to Nakau, a nationwide chain specializing in set meals, for breakfast a couple of times, I could order a set of an impressively sized piece of grilled salmon, a small bowl of rice, a raw egg, a small bowl of miso soup, and a few types of pickled vegetables for about $3.00 USD. Every table had a cold, crisp pitcher of green tea, and I felt restored from the meal alone, thanks to the perfect balance of macro- and micronutrients.

My vibrant mood, ready to crush 15,000 to 25,000 steps of walking each day, can be directly linked to the real, scientific benefits of this style of eating, which many Japanese people follow at home, and residents and tourists alike can benefit from while out and about, especially at an incredibly reduced cost compared to what we’re used to here for the same caliber.

A large-scale Japanese study of 12,500 workers found that those who adhered most closely to the washoku diet (again, rich in fish, miso soup, soy, veggies, mushrooms, seaweed, and green tea) were as much as 20% less likely to exhibit symptoms of depression. How can this be? Well, those foods contain high amounts of omega-3s, antioxidants, and probiotics, plus the “umami” flavor profile is considered psychologically calming. The study participants who ate higher quantities of Western food reported increased symptoms of depression. Another study with a smaller sample size showed similar results. 

Though soy products get a bad rep here in America, they contain natural folate, which can help support your body’s production of dopamine and serotonin. Green tea, fermented foods, and colorful vegetables are also known to help ease your stressed brain. You really do need higher omega-3s to support the development and maintenance of brain cells, improve your focus and memory, and regulate your mood.

That’s not all, though. One study following over 80,000 Japanese adults revealed that women who consume small fish (think anchovies, sardines, or mackerel—all common “mains” for set meals) at least one to three times per month had a 32% lower risk of death from cancer. Again, you can thank those amazing omega-3s, but in addition, eating small fish (which often includes tiny, edible bones) gives you a solid, natural boost of calcium, protein, selenium, and iodine. Furthermore, they have lower levels of environmental toxins than a more common fish in the United States, tuna.

The washoku diet is also scientifically shown to improve gut health, lower cardiovascular risk, and improve your length of life because of the fermented foods and diverse nutrient portfolio. In fact, miso soup, seaweed, seafood, green veggies, green tea, and a reduced consumption of red meat have been shown to slow biological aging and enhance life expectancy.

One of my favorite aspects of East Asian cuisine is their love for little side dishes. Your body gets such a variety of micronutrients that the American diet can’t match up to. In Japan, your protein and rice may be paired with blanched spinach in dashi (provides iron, vitamin A, folate, and magnesium), simmered hijiki seaweed (provides dietary fiber, iron, calcium, iodine), tsukemono, which are pickled vegetables (provides vitamin c, potassium, and probiotics), natto, which are fermented soybeans (provides vitamin k12, protein, probiotics, and magnesium), or a raw egg or rolled omelet (provides choline, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and high-quality protein).

You might also get simmered pumpkin (provides beta-carotene, soluble and insoluble fiber, vitamin C, and potassium), grated daikon radish (provides digestive enzymes, vitamin C, and potassium), edamame (provides plant-based protein, folate, magnesium, and vitamin K), or lotus root (provides vitamin C, copper, and fiber). The list of Japanese side dishes could go on forever, as could the micronutrients they deliver.

Easy Swaps to Make The Balance Attainable

I know what you may be thinking at this point. Isn’t this near impossible to accomplish if I’m not in Japan, where those ingredients are abundant and inexpensive? I hear you. I genuinely felt glum buying a piece of salmon at an American grocery store for $14, knowing I could have eaten, like, four days' worth of life-giving, nutritious set meals at Nakau for the same price, for example. But you don’t need to go all-out to reap the countless benefits of a more Japanese-inspired diet.

Let's use some logic here. Remember that study I cited about how just one to three servings of small fish a month was impactful enough on reducing women’s risk of cancer death? What you can do is incorporate Japanese concepts more intentionally and regularly into your weekly life.

Do you often find yourself adding the same items to your shopping cart each week? Instead of picking up a package of chicken breasts or ground beef to make with pasta, consider a cut of pollock, cod, or salmon you can grill or oven-roast and then serve with a variety of vegetables. 

Do you often find yourself pooh-poohing soy products like tofu or edamame? Soy gets bashed by many Americans for oversimplified, outdated reasons or outright misinformation. The phytoestrogen myth is, frankly, overblown. People claim that isoflavones in soy disrupt hormones, but large reviews and meta-analyses show soy has no significant impact on men's hormonal health. Soy protein is also shown to reduce LDL cholesterol and protect against heart disease, osteoporosis, and some cancers. Edamame is a complete protein (meaning it contains all essential amino acids), and it’s relatively inexpensive. 

When you think “washoku,” you think balance and moderation. I’m not encouraging you to swap out all your beef for tofu or edamame, but I am encouraging you to draw inspo from Japan’s balance mindset and find your favorite ways to cook and enjoy it.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy soy is by eating edamame. When my husband and I go out for a meal at our favorite restaurant, an Okinawan hole-in-the-wall local to us, I often order edamame as a side with a couple of other small dishes. You can also buy frozen edamame to keep on hand at home as an easy, microwavable green side (with an added protein boost) for a Japanese-inspired meal. Another favorite of mine is miso soup. 

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with an instant miso alternative that marries my love for bone broth and my love for seaweed. It’s called Oma, and it’s a seaweed bone broth that’s high in good fiber and feels so nourishing to your soul. 

Seaweed soup is incredible for women’s health and is beloved by Korean moms during the postpartum period especially due to its richness in iodine for thyroid function, iron for blood restoration and combatting anemia and fatigue, and other vitamins and minerals known to support recovery like vitamin K, folate, and magnesium.  

I completely sympathize with those who struggle to find the right ingredients to eat more Japanese-inspired meals. I’ve traveled to some very niche spots in the United States, finding myself in a food desert unless I’m willing to make a 40-minute trek to the nearest major grocery store. Growing up in Southern California, I’ve been blessed with an abundance of grocery store options, including several Asian markets. 

But, many elements of washoku (having balance, seasonality, simplicity, and variety) can still be accomplished with affordable and more widely available foods in food deserts. 

Whereas the Japanese would eat seasonal, fresh veggies, if you struggle to find these, you can purchase frozen, mixed vegetables or canned produce. Plus, frozen often lasts longer and retains more micronutrients. While the Japanese may eat more fresh salmon and small fish, it’s fairly common to find inexpensive, shelf-stable and omega-3 rich cans of sardines, tuna, or salmon. Eggs are very accessible in food deserts, too. When you want to find seaweed sources, many Walmarts and even dollar stores sell inexpensive snack packs of nori, which can be used for wraps, sliced as a garnish, or just eaten instead of chips.

And with our increasingly global infrastructure, grocery delivery for pantry goods, green tea leaves, or even fresher items is getting increasingly popular. It may not be as “authentic” but it’s a step in the right direction and away from ultra-processed, carb-heavy, micronutrient-deficient offerings typically consumed in food deserts. 

Here’s Where U.S. Nutrition Policy Must Grow Up

After Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took over as United States Secretary of Health and Human Services earlier this year, his Make America Healthy Again movement transitioned from being a hopeful goal to an actionable crusade against Big Food and Pharma. And while a health and wellness-obsessed girlie like myself has been delighted by the wins in the books—like eliminating deceptive dyes and additives—I don’t feel like enough has been done to address American’s relationship with nutrition more broadly.

Let’s take a moment to compare health outcomes in the United States and in Japan, remembering that the Japanese also have had a worse relationship with smoking and work-life balance burnout. Life expectancy at birth as of 2023 is 78.4 years in the United States, versus 84 years in Japan (87.1 for women and 81.1 for men, interestingly enough). Healthy life expectancy—and that’s an important distinction, as many Americans rack up chronic illness but manage ailments with lifelong prescriptions—was 66.1 years in the United States versus 73.4 years in Japan. In the United States, data from 2021-2023 showed our adult obesity prevalence sits at about 40%, but in Japan that’s as low as 4%. The average American spends $13,432 per year on health care, while the average Japanese spends $5,251. 

From here, things are looking pretty bleak in the States. We’ve got much higher premature mortality risk from cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. MAHA aims to target ultra-processed foods and harmful additives, and industry leaders are responding. Major food manufacturers like Kraft Heinz, Mars, and Nestlé vowed to remove artificial dyes by 2027, after all. I love seeing people push ingredient transparency, but if we’re going to have the government involved with making the nation healthier, we need serious state and federal policies reformed. 

Nearly a quarter of SNAP dollars currently go to junk food and sugary drinks—taxpayer subsidies for the very products fueling our nation’s obesity and diabetes crisis. It makes no sense. SNAP and EBT must be modernized so that benefits can’t be used for soda, candy, or heavily processed snacks.

But the solution isn’t only restriction. Policymakers can pair limits with positive incentives. Pilot programs could reward families who spend a larger share of their benefits on healthy staples like produce, fish, and eggs by giving them a boost in the following month’s assistance. Some already are, and stand as examples for how even the most modest shifts in food policy could deliver tangible improvements.

This is where MAHA has some room to mature. So far, much of MAHA’s energy has been spent on flashy fights. That’s a fine starting point. But real reform means modernizing SNAP, correcting misleading food labeling, and ensuring that families—especially low-income ones—have access to healthy staples and incentives to choose them.

Real reform could look like modernizing SNAP to link benefits more closely to nutritious staples, for one. We could also incentivize that balanced lifestyle. The washoku concept of “ichi-ju san-sai,” or eating a variety of beautiful, nutritious light bites as a full meal is aesthetically pleasing, and I could easily see it as the next viral trend to hopefully then get normalized. Real reform cannot focus on only banning villains, but also empowering families with affordable, realistic paths toward healthier meals.

Choice matters, believe me. But true choice means access. Parents in food deserts aren’t necessarily choosing a diet of soda and chips; they get stuck defaulting to it because our policies make real food expensive and junk food cheap. MAHA could be a very powerful movement if it redirected energy toward reforming the programs that shape a low-income family’s diet.

Conservative politicians have long understood that markets, rather than mandates, drive abundance. If we want healthier, fresher food to be more affordable, we should be looking at policies that unleash farmers, food innovators, and local grocers rather than strangling them with proverbial red tape. We could also cut regulations that make it harder to transport and sell fresh produce, therefore lowering costs. How about we end sweetheart subsidies that tilt the playing field toward sludgy corn syrup and processed grains so that fruits, vegetables, fish, and quality lean protein could compete fairly?

What if we incentivized entrepreneurship in food deserts, perhaps with a boom in local co-ops, mobile markets, or small health-focused businesses that do accept EBT? Japan’s markets thrive because small businesses coexist with large ones, and because their system is built to prefer freshness and seasonality. Real reform should reward farmers, grocers, and food innovators for getting affordable, real food into families’ hands. Grocers aren’t villains, they’re essential partners, and when policymakers threaten them with government-run schemes, families are the ones who lose. Enough piling on of bureaucratic “solutions” that keep fresh fruit and vegetables at egregious prices while a liter of sugary soda stays at a dollar.

Final Thoughts

When I think back to my two weeks of travel in Japan, whether I was enjoying a steaming bowl of miso with seaweed and tofu, grilled skewers of organ meats, or a humble bento box with salmon, rice, and vegetables, I don’t just miss the flavors. I really miss how effortless it felt for me to eat well. I never experienced that mental tug-of-war over ingredient lists, never had sticker shock at checkout, and never felt a creeping suspicion that I was being set up to fail by a system that makes junk food the default. And believe me, Japan loves their little treats, but their relationship with processed food is much healthier than what we’ve got going on here.

If MAHA is serious about its mission, it must move beyond symbolic wins and shift narratives and build policy that empowers American families to eat like their health actually matters. As the next generation of Americans, we deserve a future where parents can fill a grocery basket with nourishing staples without panicking at the checkstand, and where our children’s default diet isn’t a promise of depression and diabetes. Japan has proven its possible. The only question is whether we’ll demand the courage from our leaders to make it real here at home.