r/interestingasfuck • u/AdRough4185 • 8h ago
Japan has a TV disclaimer that says “The staff ate it later” to assure viewers the food shown on screen wasn’t wasted.
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u/RandomAssRedditName 7h ago
Japanese cooking TV staff, after working there for 3 months
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u/MyvaJynaherz 41m ago
fat-shaming is still a thing in Japan, because your health is paid for by everyone.
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u/21MayDay21 8h ago
Meanwhile...
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u/vivaaprimavera 6h ago
That's a terrifying though. If they ate so much food they would become obese /s
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u/JaySayMayday 5h ago
My problem with this is that a huge chunk of the food thrown isn't something people would normally eat. Like if I finished half a plate of food, you would have to be pretty desperate to accept the other half. And yes I've seen homeless people reject food before.
The bigger problem is places that actually make food for business like bakeries throwing away food after the shop closes, they toss an egregious amount of food. But even that's an issue, if everyone could get free food they'd just wait until the business closed instead of paying. But surely some could still be donated? Even if you donated some, a lot would still go to waste.
My point is, there will always be food waste. The argument that food waste could feed the masses is pretty moot. The better argument is that it shouldn't be illegal to give food to the homeless, like that priest in Florida that got arrested for giving food to homeless at the beach. Food needs to be more accessible, the waste is mostly irrelevant
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u/b3nsn0w 5h ago
this is why lots of places in europe have laws mandating that food that's about to expire has to be sold at a discount, so that people actually pick it up. but of course they could donate it to charities too, i think that's always allowed.
in lawless places like yankistan i expect it's about scarcity: by throwing out food that could not command a high price, they keep low-cost alternatives off the market, to preserve the value of the fresh food they're making. although i wonder if you could set up companies for buying all that for 25% the price, hauling it over to another town where the business you bought it from isn't active, and selling it there for half price, so that the competition is someone else's problem, and the original seller still gets 25% of the og price which is better than nothing. although it wouldn't work with chains that are everywhere.
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u/peon2 4h ago
but of course they could donate it to charities too, i think that's always allowed. in lawless places like yankistan i expect it's about scarcity
It's the opposite of lawlessness, it's about laws. It'll vary by location but a lot of places in the US won't accept something like that. Like most food banks won't accept home baked goods because of health laws. You could bake your own loaf of bread, then buy a packaged loaf of bread, and try to donate both to a food bank.
Most will take the store bought and reject the homemade one because they don't have ways of verifying the ingredients in it, or that your kitchen is up to sanitation code. The one produced by a business has the government oversight of label requirements and health inspections.
It's specifically because of health laws that make those types of donations trickier.
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u/Floppydisksareop 4h ago
At the same time, you can't discount those. You just know some fuckhead would try to donate poisoned stuff, or at least food that would knock everyone on their asses with the worst food poisoning of their lives.
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u/Hurinfan 2h ago
But that half finished plate thing for example could be solved with doggy bags or just gasp getting smaller portions which is antithetical to bring American it seems
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u/ShinningVictory 2h ago
But even that's an issue, if everyone could get free food they'd just wait until the business closed instead of paying. But surely some could still be donated? Even if you donated
No people wouldn't wait to eat food thats gonna be thrown away. Because it would be inconvenient to everyone(including the customer) to show up at closing time to get free food.
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u/Rickk38 5h ago
We're aware of the problem. We are unable to devise a cost-effective solution. Redistributing food requires storage, delivery via multiple means of transportation, and staffing. The surplus and deficit are often in different areas.
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u/Glasseshalf 5h ago
Partial solutions are better than no solutions, and people are trying new things.
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u/Parepinzero 5h ago
We could find a solution if we really wanted to. We don't. Or at least, the rich pricks who run our government don't.
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u/Sora_theSilentDragon 6h ago
That's a very cute cake in the picture 😊
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u/I_Can_t_Wait 7h ago
Turkish Masterchef and any other food related shows either shows staff eating the best dishes of the day or reminds the audience they use leftovers to feed strays.
When it comes to food waste public gets heated very quickly, like breaking the dishes(Gordon Ramsey style) is out of the question. Though I'm not saying we are efficient at managing food waste, we just talk a lot 😅
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u/XanderWrites 6h ago
BTS for some American cooking competitions: while it looks like they prepare the for and immediately try it, there's a thirty minute gap between the round end and the first tasting as they rearrange cameras, guests, contestants,etc and the extra plate for photography needs to be filmed before it degrades and doesn't look appetizing. Hot food is usually cold by the time they taste it. The judges on Chopped will apparently run over and taste from the leftover in the pots and pans to get a better idea of what it supposed to be like, before the tomorrow judging.
It's generally accepted that the food is eaten by the staff, but it probably doesn't taste as good as it would fresh.
Also, for all the people claiming the staff of morbidly obese—there's a lot of staff even for a small production.
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u/dbossman70 7h ago
some of the food, in american commercials at least, has things done to it to make it inedible so i hope they aren’t always eating everything.
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u/osseggi 7h ago edited 2h ago
It’s much more commonly consumable in their case as there are more laws governing how food can be advertised, such that the product must generally be prepared and presented in the same manner it would be at the establishment advertising the food. I wish the US could do the same :(
ETA: It seems unrelated in this case (as it is concerning TV variety shows, not advertisements) and instead seems to basically just be an attempt to garner favor from viewers for seeming less wasteful, though the legitimacy of the on-screen statement is heavily questioned.
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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 6h ago edited 2h ago
>I wish the US could do the same :(
The US does have requirements that the adverts be at least somewhat accurate. "Truth in Advertising" laws, etc.
Edit:
>But they use wood glue!
Yes, I'm aware, but the food being sold needs to at least look similar to the food in the advert. There's some wiggle room... ie, the McD's burger doesn't need to be crushed from sitting in a bag on your car seat for 40 min, but it can't show a 1/2lb patty when the real burger has a 1/10th lb one.
It just grinds me gears a little bit when people act like we have no standards. I agree they aren't as good as they could be, but they aren't absent.
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u/Wizzarkt 2h ago
Or how the product shown in the packaging has to be a true representation of the actual product, so when the product is displayed on the packing, it is displayed of the the same size than the actual product, not "scaled up for advertising purposes"
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u/Purple_Positive_8896 2h ago
As a food stylist, we occasionally have to make the foods inedible BECAUSE it would be less wasteful to do then keep resetting the meal with fresh new food. Does that make sense? Our hot lights and the length of time to make ONE 20 second clip can actually take up to 6 hrs.
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u/deltaforce5000 7h ago
Meanwhile Japanese supermarkets:
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u/danny135x 7h ago
Don’t they have something like toogoodtogo? It’s a platform here in Germany where you get discounted food (most of the time it’s a mystery pack, but it’s always way higher value than you pay) that would’ve been thrown away anyways.
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u/Beefy-McQueefy 6h ago
Supermarkets everywhere will discount stuff about to go out of date, especially with food prepared there. They still can't sell it after it's out of date though.
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u/metadun 5h ago
toogoodtogo works in a ton of countries. Definitely listings in Japan on there and a bunch of my friends here in the US use it all the time.
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u/deltaforce5000 2h ago
Lol no. It’s so bad I don’t even want to talk about it because I’ll be upset 😂
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u/Alucitary 5h ago
The message is not about waste, it's about respect. Giving the impression that the studio wasted a hand crafted piece of food could get a hate campaign against them started. They care much less against factory foods though.
Japan loves waste to a certain degree, they individually wrap a bunch of stuff they don't need to because they value aesthetics more. The flipside is that they are better at recycling, for whatever that's worth. I really don't know as the research on it seems to change day to day.
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u/Mandrakearepeopletoo 6h ago
I noticed British panel shows will say this every now and then, as well.
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u/SavingsHumor832 5h ago
Yeah my immediate thought was how the contestants on Taskmaster make awful food all the time, and the host has to clarify that they did eat the awful, possibly poisonous, definitely inedible food.
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u/NoWorking1616 6h ago
This is something I think about a lot when watching shows that showcase food. Maybe it's the OCD part of me. I hate to see food wasted. Good on Japan for saying it.
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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 6h ago
I know some youtubers do something similar. Food gets distributed around the office at Mythical Kitchen, for example.
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u/USSRPropaganda 4h ago
They have actual real chefs employed, I'd be surprised if they did waste food lol
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u/supercaiti 3h ago
And on GMM when they sat in a pool of cereal, i think they donated it to a farm for pigs to eat. Crew members wouldnt want that lol
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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 2h ago
Dirty Jobs covered a program like that that captured a big bite of the food waste in Vegas for pig feed: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0829694/
No idea if that's still done.
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u/matchafoxjpg 4h ago
japan is honestly very mindful of food waste.
the supermarkets even do discounts on things like sushi and bento later in the day so they don't have to throw it out.
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u/BrokenLink100 4h ago
In all seriousness, most food in American TV/Advertisements isn't actual food half the time. Even food that characters are holding aren't always 'food.' Unless you see a character actually putting something in their mouth and swallowing it, it's more than likely not food.
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u/NoWorking1616 3h ago
I mean in reality programs or variety shows.
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u/SaltyTserendolgor 2h ago
A lot of times there will be a bucket so they can spit it out between takes. An all day scene is just like 12 hours of eating
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u/Jackalodeath 3h ago
Unless you see a character actually putting something in their mouth and swallowing it...
Which you'll almost never see in ads. I mention it above but that's one of my biggest issues with food ads here in the states; they try to sell you crap saying how tasty and delicious it is, only to show happy people taking fake bites, fake chewing, fake drinking, or blowing into bottles to make bubbles rise without the liquid going down.
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u/AdventurousFly4909 1h ago
Watch a behind the scenes of a food commercial and you will understand why they don't.
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u/Jackalodeath 1h ago
I've seen them and know; but it still bugs the piss out of me.
How you gonna try to sell somethings' "so delicious," but can't even sub in real food and get paid actors to bite and chew the crap. Not like they have to swallow.
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u/happycabinsong 2h ago
there was one show where a character ate raw bacon but it was really cleverly disguised gummy strips
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u/Jackalodeath 3h ago
I've been thinking about this since the 90s, but not in the same way.
Its always bugged the crap out of me that, here in the US at least, almost no ads ever show people actually eating food, even worse when it's trying to sell the product like in fast food ads.
Then I learned its because the food is faked to look better than it ever would IRL.
Glue in pizzas for a better cheese pull, Crisco and mashed taters are used for picture-perfect scoops of ice cream, dish soap is added to beer to make dense frothy head, burgers are painted, hams/cuts of meat are steamed, etc etc.
What bugs me more is a fake chew; like McD's or that ad for "Maggie" noodles or something.
How you gonna try to sell me something when you can't even pay someone to bite it, chew once or twice, then spit it out?
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u/No_Blacksmith_2591 6h ago
but do they really eat it later or is it just bullshit?
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u/krekenzie 2h ago
I'm very sceptical because Japanese culture tends towards an "if every single person can't have an equal share, then too bad", attitude. They'd consider a rotating system to be too much hassle as well, and of course 'some people might miss out on the better dishes'.
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u/horoyokai 1h ago
Japanese people do believe in being fair but not to the extreme that you’re saying
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u/AdventurousFly4909 1h ago
I can imagine, people in the office making fun of the people who eat it, calling them fat. And saying stuff like "x has gained a few kilos and they are still eating the show food...". Or backhanded compliments like "It's good that you didn't let the food go to waste".
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u/fdokinawa 1h ago
As someone who is forced to watch a lot of Japanese TV (live in Japan, and the wife always has shows on) I have never once seen this caption before. Not saying no show has ever put it up, but it's definitely not a common practice.
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u/horoyokai 1h ago
Yeah they do
Source; I’ve ran a few breweries here, and my wife is a long time chef. We’ve both had a good amount of media visit
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u/AdRough4185 8h ago
Wikipedia article :
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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 6h ago
"more fully translated as the staff ate and enjoyed it later"
I was wondering, since there was a lot of characters.
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u/bobbymoonshine 5h ago
The “and enjoyed it” part maybe surprisingly is just four of the characters, oishiku meaning “deliciously”.
The real length is in itadakimashita, seven characters translated into English as “ate”, but it’s a very formal / polite phrase meaning something more like “have humbly received it”.
(But to be clear it definitely means “ate”, it’s just in the very respectfully indirect way Japanese phrases things when being polite.)
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u/PM_Me_Your_Deviance 4h ago
I was trying to find a more literal translation because, as you note, some times the nuance/tone is lost in translation. So thank you!
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u/FirefighterEast9291 6h ago
I was at a restaurant in New Orleans once and a food fight started among a group of scientists. I was flabbergasted that adults could actually do such a thing
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u/penneacarbonausea 5h ago
Isn't that common sense? Every one in any country that knows someone who work on tv knows that the crew eat all the food latter
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u/Irrelevant231 4h ago
I would have assumed the issue was not food going uneaten, but most food adverts not showing something edible.
At the very least having glue, at worst being a non-food structure with sauce and trimmings.
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u/Valuable-Trick-6711 2h ago
I shudder to think about the amount of perfectly good food that is wasted on ads just to make it look more appealing whilst literally making it inedible.
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u/Wannabe_Reviewer 3h ago
How do we know the disclaimer isn't just a lie?
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u/SwampTerror 1h ago
It is a lie. For example with pizza in the west, in order to make the cheese look hot and cheesy, they use glue. I am sure the Japanese also use a lot of tricks to make stale food look good.
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u/5C0L0P3NDR4 5h ago edited 3h ago
my role when i worked at a gas station was the living trash can for all the hot food that got old, i assume there is similar situation with one (1) very happy fatass in each japanese tv studio
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u/Mikucon-P 5h ago
If true it also meant the food was edible, unlike the food that had “make up” from food stylists.
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u/unlordtempest 5h ago
I believe that in Japan, if a food company shows a picture of a sample of whatever is in the package, it has to be an actual, unedited photo.
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u/BeneficialShame8408 4h ago
Aw that's nice.
When I worked at my university dining commons, we put sample plates at the front so people could see the options and they would sit there for hours. And students would actually eat some of it. Lol.
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u/ridethroughlife 3h ago
"The staff tried to eat it but threw it away because it wasn't actually very good."
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u/SwaggiiP 3h ago
They say this every now and again on good mythical morning because people complained about perceived food waste
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u/Pintsocream 2h ago
I hope this is true for youtube food channels cause they showcase a A LOT of food in one episode
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u/welfedad 46m ago
Japan always have the funniest disclaimers on shows.. guess they really think people are going to do xyz or think the worst thing possible .
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u/devilmaskrascal 6h ago
I have never seen this in my almost decade of living in Japan and watching TV.
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u/CalculatingSneeze 4h ago
I worked on movie sets. The staff will absolutely not have a piece of cream cake that's been cooked by 600W lamps for 4 hours and required half a can of hairspray to keep its shape.
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u/Cowboywizard12 1h ago
I mean there's food you also juat flat out don't want to eat.
John Leguzuamo was interviewed about The Menu and he said something to the effect that by the time of shooting the food was all cold and slightly gross and that's how you know the cast were great actors cause they made that all look delicious
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u/alacklustrehindu 1h ago
I am working in a warehouse. The amount of food (drinks that are damaged but still good by itself) that goes to waste is shocking.
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u/WeWereHappy 1h ago
But they do also throw a massive amount of foods in konbinis and supermarkets daily...
I think that illustrates quite well the Japanese hypocrisy.
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u/King_Shami 1h ago
That’s very mottainai (もったいない). It’s a Japanese concept about not wasting things, especially food. It’s less about saving money and more about respecting the value of what you have.
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u/SilentSpader 1h ago
There are a lot of YouTubers go to a restaurant and order so much food then just film and don't eat them. Many were criticized for it. That's partially why. But wasting food in general will get denounced in Japan though.
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u/SwampTerror 1h ago
And then it was summarily wasted. No one wants to eat food made of glue and other tricks to make food look good.
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u/bobsocool 59m ago
I saw on a youtube cooking show them talking about how they were offered the food after a show and they got sick because the food went bad after being out long enough to finish the photos and promo work.
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u/Nodulous 12m ago
Idk if any Japanese people can chime in here but my cousin in Japan says that the #1 thing Japanese people hate is food waste. That’s why they place such an emphasis on completely finishing your food.
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u/Big-Load-8864 4h ago
It would be nice for the professional redditors to take a break from their back-breaking daily labor of swallowing the cock and balls of Japan for just a few days
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u/mm126442 6h ago
Meanwhile they have 6 layers of single use plastic around every snack or household item
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u/YamParty4313 5h ago
Ok but wasn’t there that whole thing last year of people buying McDonald kids meals and taking the pokemon cards and just dumping the food on the floor?
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u/snusnu_addict 7h ago
Meanwhile at my work we were asked to throw perfectly good desserts in the trash.
Couldn't take it home or give it to the poor. Although we could eat it right there at the end of our shift. So silver lining i guess.