







●Introduction

Recently, my family has been tight on budget and trying not to spend too much money for foods. Fortunately we have enough money to make a living for now and we never have had a lack of food because of our savings. But, we don’t want to withdraw too much money from our savings account so that currently we try to avoid buying expensive foods, which I think makes us eat more bread, rice, and salad on our daily lives than before.

Then I wondered if eating more bread and rice would be a way to save some money for other people as well when they have financial difficulties. This experience makes me wonder what food poor people eat when they are short on money to purchase their regular foods.

I looked for some statistics to see what food poor people eat when they don’t have enough money to buy their regular foods. I didn’t find such statistics for American people, but luckily the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan had such statistics in the National Health and Nutrition Survey in 2014. I used the data and made two figures below.

Definitions of poor people and non-poor people

The National Health and Nutrition Survey in 2014 was carried out nationwide by Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare in Japan. The survey asked Japanese people whether the respondents have abstained from buying food or could not buy food in the past year due to some financial reasons (Here is the questionnaire if you are interested). The survey participants recorded what and how much they ate on a certain day. Also, there are 4 answer choices for the question on whether the respondents have abstained from buying food or could not buy food in the past year. The 4 answer choices are 1. Experienced quite often, 2. Experienced sometimes, 3. Experienced occasionally, and 4. Never experienced.

When I made the figures below, I defined here that the poor people are the people who chose the answer 1. Experienced quite often in the survey. Also, the definition of non-poor people are the people who selected 4. Never experienced .

Difference of food consumption between poor people and non-poor people.









Figure 1 above represents the difference of food consumption between poor people and non-poor people. Overall they don’t look much different. In my opinion, this means that even poor people can come by a fair amount of food to survive in Japan. The Article 25 of Japanese constitution depicts that “All people shall have the right to maintain the minimum standards of wholesome and cultured living.” As the constitution says, Japanese people seem to be able to get a certain amount of food such as rice even if they are broke.

According to Figure 1, grains are eaten more by poor people than non-poor people. Except grains, non-poor people eat more on all the other kind of food.

What do poor people eat ?









Figure 2 above shows the ratio of the food consumption by poor people to the food consumption by non-poor people. As shown in the figure, the exact formula to calculate the ratio is (Food consumption of the people who QUITE OFTEN had trouble buying food due to financial reasons) ÷ (Food consumption of the people who NEVER had trouble buying food due to financial reasons). When I calculated the ratio for each food for Figure 2, I found out that poor people ate whale meat 20 times more than other groups. I excluded it from Figure 2 because whale meat consumption was relatively small, less than 1 gram per day for both poor and non-poor people.

Interestingly, poor people eat instant noodles and canned seafood about 2 times more than non-poor people do. Instant noodle is basically quick to make and delicious and some instant noodles are very inexpensive. I understand instant noodle can be very popular for poor people. Grains such as instant noodle, pasta, processed rice, rice, udon and ramen are consumed more by poor people than non-poor people.

Summary

・Poor people eat more grains than non-poor people do. In particular, poor people like to eat instant noodles and canned seafood (Figure 2).

・The food consumption of poor people and non-poor people don’t look much different in perspective according to Figure 1. I personally think it indicates that Japanese people can maintain the minimum standards of living as the Article 25 of Japanese constitution describes. I believe it’s a good thing.





