Japanese TV, natto, and the power of open minds

**Update Below**

On January 10th, a popular Japanese program on Fuji TV called Aru Aru Daijiten (The Encyclopedia of Living) had an episode on the ultimate diet for losing weight and slowing down ageing. The special ingredient? Fermented soybeans, otherwise known as “natto”. For the uninitiated, natto is basically rotting soybeans in a styrofoam package. They smell pretty rank, but are actually quite delicious on top of rice with a raw egg and some seaweed. Of course, many despise the stuff, but all agree that it’s healthy food. Judge for yourselves…looks delicious, eh?

According to the people we talked to, Aru Aru said that if you eat two packages a day, one in the morning and one at night, you’ll be able to lose weight. No diet, no exercise, just natto. They said that natto has a special hormone called DHEA (dehyrdoepiandrosterone) that aids in weight loss. This all seems pretty banal, as we’re used to “miracle diets” in the Western world, but something very Japanese happened for the next week.

Natto, in nearly every supermarket in the entire country, was sold out. Gone. We noticed it immeditaely at the market ourselves, and made inquiries to people we know. In fact, the mothers or wives of nearly everyone we talked to went out and bought more natto than usual because of the show!

This passes as a silly story about fads in Japan and the power of media, but we think it runs deeper. Japanese people certainly trust the media more than most other people, but they’re also more open to new ideas and are willing to try them. After all, we’re not talking about a special food that costs a lot of money. You can get a 3-pack of natto for less than a dollar, and many people eat it on a regular basis anyway. Why not give it a try? Lots of other people are in the midst of their two-week natto extravaganza, and they’ll certainly tell their friends and co-workers if it works or not.

This has much more to do with an open-minded attitude on the part of Japanese (despite it being faddish) which translates into new and constantly evolving product lines. Look for natto to come in “Super DHEA” packs in the near future.

**UPDATE 01/20/07** One of our favorite foreign bloggers in Japan, Marxy, has clued us in on a possible deception in this whole natto thing. While that doesn’t take away from our premise (that Japanese are very open-minded to try new things) it does reveal a shady side of Japanese TV. Is there a natto lobby out there handing out envelopes of cash?

Screenshots from Aru Aru Daijiten