SoraNews24 —Japan News—

If you work in an urban hub like Tokyo, you can pretty much forget about seeing everyday countryside sights like rice paddies and plump red tomatoes. That is, unless you work here…

Japan
(food • Pasona Group • self sufficiency • Tokyo • urban farms • vegetables • video)

The Japanese town where cucumbers are forbidden

Scott Wilson
Sep 18, 2015

The cucumber is a magnificent vegetable. Apart from simply being eaten as part of a healthy diet, they can also be cute, made into art, brought to life, and even given as treats to helpful Shiba Inu. With so many uses, is there anyone out there who could possible hate cucumbers?

Apparently, yes. There’s one town in Japan where it is strictly forbidden to grow or eat cucumbers. Why do they hate the vegetable? And is their rule actually valid or are they all in a pickle over nothing?

Japan
(cucumber • Fukui • funny • old people • Susanoo • vegetables)

Can you guess the most-consumed vegetable in Japan? This survey reveals the results

Meg Murphy
Sep 3, 2015

Japanese cuisine has a reputation for being super healthy, with its incorporation of nutrition-packed fish and seasonal vegetables. True, the diet of many Japanese today is not at all ideal, but your more traditional Japanese meal still has bragging rights for its healthfulness, and vegetables are still eaten in abundance.

The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare recently released the results of a survey revealing a ranking of the most eaten vegetables in Japan, but what claimed the number one spot? A vegetable you might not even be able to find in your own country!

Japan
(food • Rankings • Surveys • vegetables)

Japanese farming simulator rewards players with actual crops delivered to their door

Mike
May 12, 2015

Remember back in the day when all of your older relatives and the kids you knew from school but never speak to any more would send you invites to play Farmville? Remember how seeing a new notification on your Facebook toolbar that just turned out to be yet another invitation to play f’$%ng Farmville would fill you with impotent rage?

Well think about how different your reaction might have been if your “friends” hadn’t been backhandedly asking you to help them raise their not-actually-existent virtual ducks and cabbages, but were in fact asking you to help them put real, actual food in their mouths.

One Japanese startup, Telefarm, is hoping that the future is online games that reward players for good performance with actual products delivered to their door. And they’ve been running a farming simulator prototype for a little over a year now to test that model’s feasibility.

Japan
(culture • farming • games • online games • Simulators • technology • vegetables)

Tokyo Metro has a new request, “Eat our vegetables!”

KK Miller
Apr 9, 2015

“Buying local” is about to have a whole new meaning in the Tokyo area soon since the Tokyo Metro is going to start selling vegetables that have been grown really locally. Called Tokyo Salad, these special veggies are being marketed as some of the freshest vegetables that are grown close to home.

But if you look around Tokyo, you’ll be really hard pressed to find much farming land. So where exactly are they growing these local foods?

Japan
(agricuture • food • hydroponics • locally grown • subways • Tokyo Metro • vegetables)

Host of bizarre video series tries to increase the size of her bust by massaging it with vegetables

Krista Rogers
Aug 14, 2014

No, this is not a joke. This is an actual video–number 28, actually–in a whole series of videos made for the sole purpose of trying to find the best ‘method’ to increase a small-chested woman’s bust size.

In this particular excerpt, our unfaltering host Ryoko tries out one of her ideas for natural enlargement by massaging her chest…with summer vegetables?! All of you interested ladies (and men; we know that y’all secretly want to increase your chest size so you can wear one of these little gems), join us after the jump to learn more about this “Method to increase your breast size when harvesting summer vegetables”!

Japan
(bust size • increase • massage • strange • summer • vegetables)

Vegetables are smarter than fruits: Three high IQ Japanese veggies

Amy Chavez
May 31, 2014

I’ve lived among Japanese fruits and vegetables for 17 years and one thing I can say for sure is that vegetables are waaay smarter than fruits.

Japan
(food • fruit • IQ • vegetables)

Broccoli bonsai and sweet sushi: Japanese culture’s evolution abroad【Photos】

Scott R Dixon
May 19, 2014

Bonsai and sushi are two of Japan’s most well-known cultural exports with fans all over the world. But while Japan may cling to the traditional presentation of these two icons, globalization has taken these Japanese icons and turned them into something new. Not just happy with tiny trees and raw fish on top of vinegar rice, these cultural hybrids have evolved into something far beyond their origins in the Japanese archipelago. Click below to see some very creative bonsai as well as some food that really stretches the definition of “sushi.”

Global, Japan
(bonsai • cultural differences • food • Japanese tradition • sushi • vegetables)

Freaky veggies trending in Japanese groceries, possible precursor to real-life “The Last of Us”

Mike
Apr 29, 2014

So, apparently numerous ’50s and ’60s B-Movies (and one glorious ’80s cartoon) and a popular, genre-defining video game weren’t enough to deter scientists from playing God with plant-life if the growing number of hybrid vegetables available on Japanese store shelves is any proof.

These days, most hybrid vegetables are created over a roughly 10-year period of crossbreeding certain seeds in what we presume is some kind of laboratory setting, although the practice has been alive for centuries – yielding some hybrids that the general public isn’t even aware are hybrids. The Romanesco, for example, is a cross between broccoli and cauliflower, and was created in the 16th century. Side note: It’s also probably mind blowing to look at while high.

But the things we’re seeing increasingly often in Japan these days are just plain weird.

Japan
(cooking • food • shopping • vegetables • weird)

LED plant factories offer efficient 3D alternative to traditional gardening

Master Blaster
Mar 22, 2014

The concept of plant factories is not a new one. Especially in space-strapped Japan, the idea of a compact garden that can simulate a natural environment in a tight urban area is highly desirable.

Keystone Technologies is one Japanese company that has been constantly refining their LED garden technology. Currently they boast a system that can fit about a quarter acre’s worth of crops into a space of a hotel’s single-room, and that’s just the beginning.