> anything served cold besides ice cream is disgusting,
In the west there are salads. They're cold. In Japan salads are rare and usually nothing but iceberg lettuce and cherry tomatoes.
> who thinks that anything pickled is gross,
The pickled isle of a western super market has more pickled things than the corresponding Japanese super market. They're just different kinds of pickled things.
> normal Japanese meal generally has a pretty good mix of stuff
And similar in the west isn't it? The normal family dinner is 1 meat dish (beef/chicken/pork/fish), 1 starch dish (bread/potatoes/rice), 1-2 veggie dishes (salad, green beens, peas, carrots, etc...)
Japanese "in general" find many western things disgusting. Most Japanese find savory beans gross. As popular as cheese as become in Japan there's still a large percentage of Japanese that have never eaten any or eat it rarely. This is especially true outside big cities where the culture is less influenced by the west.
Japanese often can't eat anything other than Japanese food. There are plenty of tours of other countries where you can sign up to have all your meals prepared for you while abroad and all of it will be Japanese food.
Many Asian cultures (including Japan), for many people if you haven't eating a bowl of rice you haven't eaten.
Agreed that it goes both ways - just making the point that tourists tend to have a pretty warped idea of what the food traditions in the countries they go to are. My point of reference is how annoying it is when you try to go to an oden spot or something and your friend complains that they’re not eating wagyu steaks (which you’ve eaten every week for the last month for each friend visiting Japan pre-corona times), and therefore this meal is unhealthy because it lacks a huge amount of protein. I think a lot of people’s impressions of foreign food are a result of their own pickiness.
Specific to the American culinary tradition though I find it pretty wild that for most people I know back home, healthy = salad, there seems to be very little mainstream options besides that. Like you said, it is possible to be healthy; but the default American family meal these days is a far cry from that, even compared to a typical convenience store food eating lazy Japanese person.
In the west there are salads. They're cold. In Japan salads are rare and usually nothing but iceberg lettuce and cherry tomatoes.
> who thinks that anything pickled is gross,
The pickled isle of a western super market has more pickled things than the corresponding Japanese super market. They're just different kinds of pickled things.
> normal Japanese meal generally has a pretty good mix of stuff
And similar in the west isn't it? The normal family dinner is 1 meat dish (beef/chicken/pork/fish), 1 starch dish (bread/potatoes/rice), 1-2 veggie dishes (salad, green beens, peas, carrots, etc...)
Japanese "in general" find many western things disgusting. Most Japanese find savory beans gross. As popular as cheese as become in Japan there's still a large percentage of Japanese that have never eaten any or eat it rarely. This is especially true outside big cities where the culture is less influenced by the west.
Japanese often can't eat anything other than Japanese food. There are plenty of tours of other countries where you can sign up to have all your meals prepared for you while abroad and all of it will be Japanese food.
Many Asian cultures (including Japan), for many people if you haven't eating a bowl of rice you haven't eaten.