I. Personal Consumption: Nutritional Level

My assignment in the joint research project was to study poverty in Japan's dietary life. (1) In undertaking this work, I was strongly motivated to demonstrate how critically our daily life depends on Japan's self-sufficiency in food and energy, or, more particularly, on the issue of Japan's national economic security. It is my belief that these hot issues of today can be successfully discussed in terms of our own daily living. However, while these problems are very pressing and self-sufficiency and economic security have been discussed extensively, it is still undeniable, I must admit, that these problems are considered to belong to another world, to be alien to daily life. Under these circumstances, it seems useful to reexamine these controversial issues once more in terms of our own everyday life. It is important to reconsider what the oil shock and the soybean shock imply for our day-today living. To do this, it is necessary to get a full grasp of the actual situation with regard to consumption of and demand for food. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, the discussions of the food and energy problems have not fully dealt with the actual state of consumption and changes in consumer behavior on the demand side. My brief review of the literature convinces me of this. I therefore felt that an approach along this line —namely, examining our food consumption — would enable us to demonstrate the seriousness of the supply problem in terms of ordinary living. This is how I have tackled my assignment on poverty in the Japanese diet.