What the U.S. could learn from Japan about making healthy living easier

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/06/ [login to see] /japanese-food-diet-healthy-eating
"I was born and raised in the American Midwest, but love visiting my parents' homeland in Japan. Central to every trip there is always the food: Oh my goodness, the food.

Eating is a raging national obsession here, with good reason. Staggering varieties of food are available everywhere; it's all delicious and — most impressively, to me — always fresh.

Soba noodles come made to order, with flash-fried seasonal tempura vegetables. Mouthwatering sushi and curry rice lunches are sold on train platforms. You can wander past cases of specialty foods, from marbled meats to miso-pickled vegetables to handmade gyoza dumplings, in the depa chicka, or department store basements.

There's a slavish devotion to the gourmet that might seem crazy anywhere else. In summer months, domestic peaches come boxed in cushions to protect flesh as delicate as a baby's cheek"