In mature markets, where packaged food makes up a significant share of people’s overall diet, the research agency’s exercise has been particularly insightful.
Japan lowest on the calories
Out of Germany, France, the UK, Italy, the US, Canada, Russia and Japan, Germany consumes the most calories from packaged food, with a total of 1,733 Kcal per person per day, while Japan, ranks at the bottom: the average Japanese consumers purchase “only” 1,086 Kcal per day from the category.
The countries with the lowest obesity levels—Japan and Italy—are also the ones whose consumers have the least sugar in their diets.
“Italians purchase three times less sugar from soft drinks than the average US consumers, who buy on average 50 grams of sugar per person per day from the category,” said Filippo Battaini, research analyst at Euromonitor.
Japan fares better than any other G8 country with just 5 grams of sugar per capita per day purchased from soft drinks, about three times less than Italian consumers and 10 times less than US consumers.
Asian vs. washoku diets
According to Euromonitor International’s Countries and Consumers data, with just 3% of the total population, Japan has the lowest percentage of obese population among G8 countries, way below the second lowest, Italy, where 11% of the population is obese.
The Asian and the Mediterranean countries fares much better than the US and the UK, which with 42% and 27% respectively rank first and second in terms of percentage of obese population among the G8 countries.
“Perhaps, after all the consideration that the Mediterranean diet enjoyed in the past from nutritionists, it is time now to investigate the potentials and the benefits of Japanese diet,” said Battaini.
“The healthiness of Japanese diet played an important role in making washoku, the traditional Japanese cuisine, gaining the Unesco’s Intangible Cultural Heritage status in 2013.”