The Japanese as a Wheat-Eating Nation

Sorry, folks.  I hit the publish on this before I meant to.  In any case an interesting story in Slate.  I’d actually put the beginnings of the Japanese move to wheat at the beginning of the twentieth century.  That established the idea that wheat was good and strengthening, laying the foundations for the  big increase in wheat eating following World War II.

 

How did Japan come to be a wheat-obsessed nation that needs gimmicks like the Gopan to eat rice disguised as wheat flour? The story of Japan’s conversion from rice to wheat involves a long, relentless campaign by the best propagandists in the business—the U.S. government, of course.

via Wheat in Japan: How the nation learned to love the American grain instead of rice. – Slate Magazine.

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