TFT (Japan) Monday Update!

Good Monday!

Today's post is from the TFT Japan Food Team: 

TFT founder, Masa, and dietician, Namiko, at the TFT event at Takashimaya Department store

“No leftovers allowed” Buffet for TABLE FOR TWO held in Tokyo
Author & Editor: Shoko Iijima, TFT Food Team
Reference (in Japanese: http://www.kodamajozo.co.jp/webkura/essei/essay_44.html  

Some of you may already have heard of food critic Masuhiro Yamamoto; he’s become one of the most famous dining and wining tastemakers in Japan. One of our key staff members, Tomoko Kobayashi, recently brought his very interesting blog post to our attention. In his post, Yamamoto reveals that he rarely joins buffet style partes. The reason is simple. Every time he participates in such events, his conscience aches over the vast amount of leftover food and drinks. These edibles are prepared with care and made to look beautiful and delicious, but go to waste when the party is over. 

In the same blog post, Yamamoto reveals that he himself hosted a very special kind of buffet party, titled “No leftovers allowed.” Of course, the title wasn't meant to imply that he forced his guests overeat to clean up the excess on the table. Instead, at his party (filled with like-minded peers), Yamamoto presented reasonable, modest amounts of seasonal delicacies. He also used his shindig as a platform, through which to introduce TABLE FOR TWO to his celebrity guests and highlight the world’s food imbalance problem and obesity in Japan. 

Keen gourmets, restaurant producers, and food writers in Tokyo have started to think more  carefully about healthy eating behaviors. And this awareness and desire to end the global food imbalance has, very luckily, trickled down into public consciousness. In June, Takashimaya Department Store in Nihonbashi (Takashimaya’s flagship store) held TABLE FOR TWO events in their in-store food court restaurants and food boutique shops. On one Sunday, they held an event for children, during which Masa spoke to Tokyo children about the kids TFT supports in Africa, and how they could help them through TABLE FOR TWO. Also at this event, our volunteer Certified Dietitian, Namiko, taught the kids to eat a balanced diet. We are happy to see that public awareness of these issues is on the rise, and we will continue to host events to spread this very important knowledge. We want to say thank you to those people and companies, like Masuhiro Yamamoto and Takashimaya Department store, who put their popularity and influence to good use, and help educate the public about world issues like the global food imbalance.