Diet – Wellness: Asian Opportunities

Please follow the link, here, for an introduction to the most popular mushrooms in Japan.

Mushrooms are an integral ingredient in the Japanese diet. Japan’s humid climate has resulted in approximately 5,000 varieties of mushrooms. Of these, about 100 are edible, and around 20 are eaten in large, commercial quantities.

Japanese farmers have been introducing techniques to break the link with nature. Mushrooms are normally harvested from nature in the autumn. 300 years ago, farmers introduced small logs with pre-prepared fungus spores. Today’s factory-controlled environments have enabled, with the one exception of matsutake mushrooms, fresh, cheap mushrooms available throughout the year.

The body’s gut microbiome is healthier with a diverse diet, and in Japan people consume a diverse range of vegetables, including a variety of mushrooms. In addition, different types of mushrooms have different potential health effects. For a discussion of the latter, with references, please follow the link in the first paragraph above.

Fermented foods are plentiful in the Japanese diet.

Researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine have found that a 10-week diet high in fermented foods boosts microbiome diversity, lowers inflammation, and improves immune responses. ⁽¹⁾

Justin Sonnenburg, one of the authors, said: This is a stunning finding, it provides one of the first examples of how a simple change in diet can reproducibly remodel the microbiota across a cohort of healthy adults. ⁽²⁾

Diet shapes the gut microbiome which in turn affects the immune system and overall health. Low gut-microbiome diversity has been linked to obesity and diabetes.

Fermentation is an ancient technique of preserving food, which adds nutritive value in the process, as well as allowing new flavors, textures, tastes and appearances. Implied by its roots, no chemical additives are involved.

Natto arrived in Japan during the Nara period (710-794 AD) with Buddhist priests from China. Shoyu and Miso date back to 1000 BC in China, with production knowledge arriving in Japan in around 600 AD. ⁽³⁾

In addition to Natto, Shoyu and Miso, there are many other common fermented foods in Japan.

Please see the background paper linked here for more details.

References

Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status, by Hannah C. Wastyk Gabriela K. Fragiadakis Dalia Perelman, Erica D. Sonnenburg, Christopher D. Gardner, and Justin L. Sonnenburg, July 2021
Stanford School of Medicine News Center:https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/07/fermented-food-diet-increases-microbiome-diversity-lowers-inflammation
Health Benefits of Fermented Foods and Beverages, Edited by Jyoti Prakash Tamang, 2015