Development of Emergency & Disaster Foods in Japan

by Julia Ai Fukuba

Japan is a country that has experienced (and is still experiencing) a history of natural disasters. Due to this, Japan has food products that are specifically made to be consumed during these emergency situations: ‘emergency foods’ and ‘disaster foods’. Within this report, I want to introduce how and why these foods have been made throughout the history of Japan’s natural hazards, as well as some information based on my personal experience. I have also included a tasting session of one of the disaster food products and comments based on my preference.

History and Geography of Japan -From ‘Emergency Foods’ to ‘Disaster Foods’-

Japan has experienced numerous natural disaster hazards due to its unique

geographical structure. Japan is an ‘island country’ consisting of 6,852

islands in total. Therefore most of Japan’s land is

surrounded by the ocean. Japan trench lies on three

tectonic plates, and another plate pushing inwards

alongside the island of Japan. Due to this kind of tectonic

plate structure, Japan lies completely on the “Ring of Fire”

- a major area that circles around the Pacific Ocean where

many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

Due to this kind of geographic structure of Japan,

as well as the effect of climate change in recent years,

Japan has a history of various different types of natural

hazards such as earthquakes, tsunami wave attacks,

floodings, volcanic eruptions, landslides, heavy rain,

typhoons, and storms.

Since Japan has had these kinds of disaster attacks, methods of evacuating/evacuation

lifestyle have developed. This has also led to inventing products that are explicitly made for evacuation. It has lead to organizing an evacuation pack (kept in a can or backpack), consisting of an emergency blanket (made out of aluminum, useful for keeping in heat and water-resistant), lightsticks that can be charged by kinetic energy, portable radio, bag for water storage, helmet and gloves, etc. However, food products that were made specifically for emergencies, i.e. ‘Emergency Foods’ (非常食), had limited development.

To list out some examples of ‘Emergency Foods’:

➢ 乾パン Kanpan ‘Dried bread’ → a dried hard biscuit (no moisture) which is very

hard to bite in, usually takes up your saliva and therefore hard to eat

➢ サクマドロップス Sakuma-Drops ‘sugar candy’ → sugar candy stored in a can,

mainly for energy/calorie intake

➢ Canned foods and Dried food products → usually kept because they have a long

shelf life

The main purpose of these ‘emergency foods’ was to have a source of gaining

energy/calorie intake to survive through an emergency condition, and most of the products only focused on how to preserve the foods, how to prolong the shelf/storage life. In most cases, taste and texture were not a factor to be considered at this time, and therefore most people did not like eating emergency foods. However, a big turning point would cause these food products to be developed.

March 11th, 2011 (3.11) - East Japan Earthquake has caused a huge and traumatic disaster. The eastern half of Japan was damaged by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, along with tsunami attacks, fire, liquefaction, and groundsubsidence/sinkage. This caused drastic damage to transportation infrastructure, electricity/water/gas supply were limited entirely in Japan. This big earthquake has also caused big damage to the food supply in Japan. One of the biggest impacts was on rice; most of the rice is grown in northern Japan, but when the earthquake happened, most rice fields were wiped out by the tsunami or being damaged due to a lack of resources to take care of them. This led to a shortage of rice supply throughout the year 2011 in Japan. Another factor that leads to a big confusion was that thousands of victims have lost their homes from tsunami and fire, therefore were forced to live in the evacuation center or temporary housing for a very long time period (over months, and in fact there are still some people who cannot go back to their home yet till this day). A lot of people were affected and had very limited living resources (electricity/water/gas) available needed to prepare food, and just eating

emergency foods for a long time period was not healthy for them. In fact, there are cases in which people were getting sick (both mentally and physically) due to the stress that they cannot eat the usual food they usually eat, and malnutrition due to eating the same kind of food every day. From this kind of experience, the way of thinking of eating emergency foods has changed, and since then, there has been a shift from producing emergency foods to an invention of food products called ‘Disaster Foods’.

Disaster Foods -What is important to maintain the quality of life during an emergency-

As mentioned previously, ‘emergency foods’ were made focusing on the ability of storage and energy/calorie intake to survive through emergency conditions. However, after experiencing the East Japan Earthquake 3.11, food companies have started to notice that it is more important to focus on ways of maintaining the ‘quality of life’ even under these kinds of emergency situations, and started to figure out ways to:

★ Improve taste and texture easier to eat

★ Better nutritional value

★ Reduce food waste as much as possible

★ More variation of food choices/cuisine/flavors

★ Available for everyone to eat (for babies, elder people, people with allergies, etc.)

★ Portable packaging (easier to bring when evacuating)

★ How and where to store food

By improving the quality of ‘emergency foods’ consumed during the emergency, it can lead to less stress and maintain a healthy mentality and lifestyle to survive through long-term hazardous situations.

The term ‘Disaster Foods’ (災害食) was later on named in 2015 after the food industry

has put more focus on developing better food products to be eaten in emergency conditions.

Some of the examples include:

➔ アルファ米 Alpha-mai ‘Alpha-rice’ → dried rice made into a form that

keeps the chemical structure of steamed rice (Normal rice has a structure of

β-starch, where amylose-amylopectin are strongly bonded together forming

a structure uneasy to digest. By applying heat, the bonds between the

amylose and amylopectin are broken, an α-starch form of rice is made, and

later on rapidly dried up to still maintain the α form structure), therefore only

requires the addition of water to recreate the texture and taste of rice.

➔ フリーズドライ米 Freeze-dried rice → freeze-dried rice so that rice

can be eaten within only 5 minutes adding water/3 minutes adding hot water.

This food product has a variety of flavor choices prepared, mostly try to

combat the issue of its mushy texture. Contains high nutritional value, and has excluded

27 types of allergens for everyone to eat. One thing to specifically note down is that

since this product is a freeze-dried product, it is possible to eat it by itself (even without

adding water); tastes just like a salted crunchy snack, so it is possible to consume even

if there is limited water resource. * NOTE: I tried tasting it, it tastes good! I will add to my

food storage at home.*

➔ 缶入りパン Canned bread → bread that is made and stored in a can, developed to be stored on a shelf for up to 5 years (usually a loaf of bread can only last up to a week). Has various types of flavor choices, soft texture with moisture, easy to eat for children and elderly people.

➔ えいようかん Eiyokan → Yokan is a red bean paste dessert jellied with agar and sugar. ‘Eiyokan’ has been developed in order to be preserved for a long time period (3~5 years) and due to its soft texture and full of moisture, it is easy to eat even without water. The

packaging is designed to be easily opened and can eat with one hand, so it is portable for carrying out when evacuating. Rice is the main meal that most Japanese people like to eat daily. As it is such a big part of the Japanese diet, rice disaster food products were

also one of the products that were first developed post-2011. Steamed rice is hard to make, especially if you have limited life resources of gas/electricity/water, therefore there are some rice products that have been invented in a way that the cooking steps can be simplified in order to be consumed in an emergency. I remember back in 2011, the region that I live in (Kanto region) had multiple blackouts during the days, so it was very hard to manage cooking rice properly. So the invention of rice disaster foods (the examples of Alpha-rice and freeze-dried rice shown above) would be really helpful for future use in an emergency situation.

Recently there are more disaster foods getting invented, especially considering providing

more food choices to consumers. For example, the most recent disaster food product invented was made in order to be classified as Halal food, so that people who have dietary restrictions of a certain type of food will have an option to choose these kinds of disaster foods. A shift from ‘emergency foods’ to ‘disaster foods’ has drastically changed the methods and mindset for creating new food products eaten in emergency conditions. By the creation of disaster foods, the idea of storing foods has come up, and therefore people have started to store disaster foods at their home (even more than they did for emergency foods).

Future of food consumption in emergency

Food products have been adapted recently to be useful for consumption in emergency

conditions. Thinking up and inventing ways of cooking/preparing food with less cooking steps have been a big topic in recent Japan’s food industry. The shift of making emergency foods to disaster foods has made a better ‘quality of life’ for people even in such hazardous situations, which is an important factor from now on to consider in the future of the food industry. The next step that we may have to think about is to consider more on the materials needed for cooking these food products; people have started to increase their food storage at home in case of an emergency, however, there are still some issues to keep storage for gas/heat supply needed for cooking these food products, or water supply is needed to be kept. One idea that can be adapted from here is the creation of package material that heats up by itself (without the need for an electric/heat source) so that people are able to eat warm food. Considering the

cooking/preparation environment of disaster foods may lead to the future of the food industry.

References

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