There’s a philosophy that says you can eat pretty much whatever you want between Christmas and New Year’s just so long as you’re careful about what you eat between New Year’s and Christmas. Having made no attempts to suppress our calorific cravings over the holiday/vacation season, we’re now buckling down for the second part of that plan, but it’s a tough task in Japan, where seemingly every corner has a convenience store stocked with tempting treats of both the sweet and savory varieties, not to mention cases filled with fried foods.
But it turns out that Japanese convenience stores really do have everything, including options to help you stick to a low-calorie diet as you settle into your New Year’s-to-Christmas eating habits. Following a survey of 37,951 people in Japan in which 65 percent said they’d gained weight over their New Year’s break from work or school, convenience store FamilyMart has put together three meals made up of its store-brand Famimaru food items, all of which come in at less than 500 calories total, so let’s take a look at the trio.
1. The Quick Meal Set (286 calories/416 yen)
● Toripaitan Ramen-Flavored Vermicelli Noodles (129 calories/203 yen)
● Salt Musubi rice ball (188 calories/108 yen)
● Famimaru Kitchen Salter Soft-Boiled Egg (69 calories/105 yen)

You might not have expected to see instant noodles as part of a low calorie meal, but these vermicelli-style noodles in chicken stock broth fit the bill. Called harusame noodles in Japanese, they’re also known as glass noodles and are made from potato starch. Family Mart’s chicken paitan version uses a lot of garlic and onion in the broth, so even if the calorie count is low, you’re not getting shortchanged on flavor, which helps contribute to a feeling of satisfied fullness.
2. The Solid, Satisfying Meal Set (485 calories/478 yen)
● Vermicelli Soup Wonton (95 calories/180 yen)
● Famimaru Kitchen Toribosobo Bento (390 calories/298 yen)

Harusame/vermicelli is here again, this time as part of a wonton soup that weighs in with less than a hundred calories. That gives us space to add a torisoboro bento with rice, ground chicken seasoned with a teriyaki-like sauce, egg, and nozawana turnip greens. The bento itself might be on the compact side, but the amount of variety gives you the fulfillment of a full meal, especially with the warming wonton soup accompanying it on a chilly winter’s day.
3. The Get Your Meat and Veggies Set (311 calories/641 yen)
● Taiwan Ramen-Flavored Vermicelli Noodles (120 calories/203 yen)
● Famimaru Kitchen Dashi Grated Pork (191 calories/438 yen)

In our last set, we’ve once again got our diet-friendly ally, harusame noodles, this time swimming in a spicy Taiwanese ramen-style broth. Also on the menu here is FamilyMart’s microwavable pork shabu shabu pack, with strips of pork and sliced vegetables simmered in bonito and kombu broth, giving this meal a full third of your recommended daily amount of vegetables.
…honestly, that last one sounds so good that we’d want to give it a try even if we weren’t watching our weight these days. Since we are, though, it’s good to know that, as long as we’ve got the willpower, it actually is possible to come back from a convenience store run with tasty stuff to eat while we’re in New Year’s-to-Christmas mode.
Source, images: Press release
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© SoraNews24
10 Comments
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NCIS Reruns
Low calories aside, this appears to be a review of what is mostly high-sodium junk food.
Zaphod
Being careful about what you eat is good advice. But calorie-counting is stupid. A calorie of overprocessed junk is not the same as a calorie from natural food.
The much-invoked "respected institutions" might be fixated on counting calories, but we are seeing where this misguided advice is leading.
virusrex
There is zero requirement for people to only count calories if they want to be careful, that is like saying it is foolish to wear a seat belt while driving because it means you refuse to use an airbag.
You mean people living the longest and healthiest lives than ever before? Because that is a very good consequence of actually following the science instead of systematically thinking anything you personally believe must be true and the experts of the world wrong.
Not to mention, the consensus of the experts do not recommends to only count calories in order to have a healthy diet, that is just a baseless claim. Taking care of the caloric contento of the food is just one part of what is recommended, same as taking care of the sodium intake or to avoid excessive consumption of some processed foods.
Raw Beer
The only thing above I would eat is the boiled egg. But only if I was stuck, since I'd normally just make it myself.
Not if you're a bomb calorimeter. But yeah, for humans it's pretty meaningless.
Yes, very true.
virusrex
As the previous response clearly explains this is very false, no institution ever recommends only to count calories as the text you quoted tries to misrepresent. It is not meaningless to care about caloric intake in the context of the full recommendations of the experts in nutrition.
Zaphod
Raw Beer
I would eat it. I don´t think they can do much damage by cooking it.
"Pretty meaningless" is an understatement. For entertainment, you might watch an Amberlynn Reid video. She has been on "weightloss" journey for what, 10 years now? By eating junk and counting its its calories. And ballooned to double size in the process. Our "respected institutions" must be scratching their heads :-)
virusrex
This in no way defends your claim. As explained previously the experts in human health and nutrition do NOT recommend to focus exclusively on counting calories as you misrepresented. On the contrary they recommend a full set of measures that you are trying to ignore because it clearly debunks your claims.
Which institutions are you talking about? can you bring any example of a respected institution of health that says people can eat as much "junk" as they want, but as long as they are counting the calories it would constitute a healthy diet?
Because if you can't, that means this claim you made is false.
Zaphod
virusrex
The nebulous ones you constantly invoke to support whatever you are claiming.
Wick's pencil
You do realize that you're the one that introduced the word "only" in the discussion.
They are fixated on counting calories. It doesn't mean that is the only thing they recommend. You misrepresented Zaphod's comment.
virusrex
Seeing that you can't present even one it is clear that your original claim was false, zero institutions make the flawed recommendation you tried to misrepresent as theirs, this claim came 100% from you, not any institution.
Because that is what is required to make the criticism applicable, there is nothing wrong with counting calories at the same time as following the rest of the recommendations that actual experts give for a healthy diet.
Without the "only" there is nothing to criticize, because there would be (there is) no problem with following a healthy diet while also counting calories.
No they are not, the experts are fixated in giving full recommendations that include many different things. And that definitely work very nicely to follow a good diet. The problem is that some people (specially in countries like the US) don't follow the recommencdations (that include between many other things) taking also care of caloric intake. In countries like Japan where the recommendations are much more closely followed by people in general the diet is considered healthy.