Udon Eaters Watch Out!
To follow up the last episode on a battle Udon vs. Soba, I have a piece of sour data for Udon fans - rather, a convincing warning to cut down on your Udon consumption to guard against diabetes. What a heck, my previous episode has turned out an anti-social expose!
Kagawa, the undisputed home of Udon, is now the third in the list of diabetes-induced deaths and second in the number of diabetic patients. If you look at the Kanagawans' vital statistics, however, they are not so terribly extraordinary - 8th in BMI, 34th in salt intake and 27th in the number of steps walked per day (male) not enough to earn them such awful scores in national diabetes data.
Why then? The experts blame certain traditional manners of eating Udon inherited over years in Kagawa: the habit of chain-eating and rapid-eating - rapidly sucking a bowl at one house and another at another house at a rapid tempo.
No doubt, Udon is the Kagawans' soul food. Try any average udon house and see how the local people queue up for bowls of udon with toppings like tempura and side dishes like rice balsl and Inari-Sushi.A waitress, 53 in age, in an udon house in Takamatsu testifies more than a half of its customers pay for their bowls of udon together with rice balls.
That explains the high percentages of Kagawans suffering from diabetes: a bowl of Udon side-dished with a rice ball amounts to a heavily carbohydrate-rich meal. Put in exact figures, a bowl of Udon accounts for 800 calories - or roughly two-thirds of an average male's daily intake.
The authorities are mobilizing medicare experts to introduce various measures to rectify the grave situation - one of which being a Diabetes Class to offer courses for cooking, how to combat diabetes and basic medical expertise to prevent diabetes. No more chain-eating, nor rapid-eating. (Nathan Shiga)
