Safe Food Scarcity

Safe food is getting scarcer in Japan, even out of the no man’s land, in what I call the monitored land. Surviving in Japan supposes boycotting any food from areas northeastern of Nagoya included and of course any sea product from the North Pacific Ocean. This strict rule makes shopping complicated but nowhere as eating out. The end of the year brings a new threat in traditional food gifts that Japanese offer, i.e. “oseibo” (in Japanese 「お歳暮」. It is hard to be always on one’s guard and make rational choices as to what to eat and it is socially a burden when one constantly has to ask for the source of ingredients of any food in shops and restaurants. Furthermore, when the temptation is from one’s relatives and friends, it is almost impossible for anyone to resist and discard the gift, like Snow White could not decline the shiny red apple for the gentle old, poor woman who actually was intent on killing her.

Butter In Japan

Butter in Japan mainly comes from its northern island Hokkaido, along with many dairy products such as milk, which is at the center of the latest radioactive food scandal.

The east coast of Hokkaido was visited by radioactive fallout from Fukushima most Spring and Summer days. Fishermen bring in their catch from radioactive Pacific Ocean close to Fukushima so that fish can be sold nationwide as products “from Hokkaido”. It is rumored to arrive at night in Nagoya for distribution throughout Japan. Domestic fish has become a major public health hazard in Japan and is exported worldwide.

There might be some safe areas left in Hokkaido but the prefecture lost all my trust for allowing various food scams to support contaminated regions. Besides it’s impossible to tell where in Hokkaido butter comes from, much less which milk and cream were used as ingredients.

A popular butter in Japan is the Snow Brand Hokkaido Butter, from the company that poisoned 15000 Japanese in 2000 and secretly recycled old milk to make other products – not to be trusted in these trying times.

Tourists Beware On Your Return Flight

Tourists are well advised to avoid altogether Tokyo and the whole north-east of Japan, although visiting Osaka – Kyoto – Nara area, i.e. Kansai, and south-east remain safe as of today, provided extreme caution is paid to food origin. This can prove tricky as tourists usually eat out and Japanese cuisine, one of the best in the world, takes a large place in the tourist experience. However, the authorities’ mismanagement of the Fukushima crisis brought down a culinary disaster with half of the country’s fresh produce turned into nuclear waste distributed nationwide, and TEPCO managed to pollute the Pacific Ocean to such an extent that anything from it, including of course sushi, should be out of anyone’s diet whose life expectancy is higher than the next five years. I highly recommend renting a place with a kitchen and making your own food with utmost care to labelling. Most of all, leave your children at home. If visiting Japan still makes sense to you and you are taking all necessary precautions, keep in mind that your return flight will serve food from Japan with “unknown” origin on board, even if you are flying with a foreign airline. I strongly advise that you take your own food on-board whenever possible and complain to your airline about putting their flying staff and passengers at risk. If you think this is an exaggeration, picture yourself leaving Minsk just seven months after Chernobyl disaster contaminated the whole Belarus and being served local food on board.

On a recent trip to Europe flying with Lufthansa, I was amazed that not only Japanese but also the German crew was totally oblivious of this severe threat. After my explanation, a crew member was nice enough to serve me some remnants from their incoming flight, i.e. two frankfurters, four bananas and two oranges and some cheese and black bread which was all I ate during the 12 hour or so flight. Luckily for me, I was the only one to raise the issue this time – or I would have had nothing but orange or tomato juice to sustain me. Back to Japan, I was  concerned while eating spinach, a radio-friendly vegetable, especially as some onigiri rice balls labelled in Japanese were available during the flight and some sushi rolls and cold soba noodles were served with some wasabi / horse-radish paste as entrees – but a crew member reassured me that everything came from Germany notwithstanding. I took his word and try to sleep on it with the help of a Warsteiner beer, which amazed me by the simplicity of its content compared to the incredible brew which is served in Japan under the name “beer” (not even mentioning the various substitutes): malt, hops, yeast and water. Here is a picture of my frugal plate below. If you believe that their high potassium-40 content makes eating 4 bananas as dangerous as Fukushima rice and Ibaraki spinach, you are mistaken and should continue to learn about radioactivity.

Mid-October Status & Editorial

My risk analysis for Japan remains unchanged for October, please refer to Japan Livability Map September 2011 in SurvivalJapan for my definitions of  “no man’s land”, “monitored land” and “nuclear-free land”. I only report on events which affect the latter two – and there has been no news lately. After a summary of the current status to the best of our knowledge, I take the opportunity of the news black hole to offer a more editorial piece with further recommendations for those who choose to stay in Japan, out of the no man’s land.

Status

The reason for the dysfunctional steam condenser which prompted the emergency shutdown of a reactor at the Genkai nuclear plant in Kyushu island ten days ago has still not been disclosed. Genkai encountered issues in the past as most Japanese nuclear plants and is the object of much political controversy and scandal so the reason may never be known by the general public. Officially no radiation was leaked and citizen seem to not make any measurements anymore in Kyushu. The monitored land on the whole is not properly monitored.

The government announced that they will handle the spread and disposal of nuclear waste themselves without disclosing any detail, which is open to any interpretation.

The free circulation of contaminated food is now in full gear, with for instance Fukushima rice declared safe and available in supermarkets all over the country.

Mainstream media now occasionally publish information that used to be available only on blogs and alternative media, the latter focus on the no man’s land.

Editorial and Further Recommendations

1. Improved environment radiation monitoring

The general lack of information and action is a temporary psychological relief but it is also dangerous. Besides previous recommendations about food made in SurvivalJapan (cf. tag “food”), we should monitor radiation on following sites in every prefecture of the monitored land and nuclear-free land:

• near each incineration plants
• on sites in the mountains where citizens and businesses alike illegally dump their garbage (old TV sets, stolen bikes, etc. – where all the great Japanese electronics companies products usually end up their life)
• near sites where construction-related companies and so-called “gumi” (associations) park their trucks in the mountains, usually hidden behind corrugated sheet metal walls like entrenched forts, with or without dogs (careful with these people)
• at each garbage disposal sites
• near cement companies (careful again with construction-related workers…)
• near companies that specialize in construction material recycling (same remark as construction sector)

Lakes and ponds were also always favored to dispose of hazardous material (Lake Geneva in Switzerland is filled with all kinds of weapons, nerve agents, etc., the Baltic Sea is littered with Russian nuclear waste and Biwako lake in Japan is heavily polluted too as a few examples). Streams should also be monitored. As it is difficult to measure radiation in liquids, fresh water fish, shells and algae like aonori should be monitored as to give an indication.

2. Example of unsuspected and widespread food contamination : irradiated seaweed extracts

Besides this constant environmental monitoring which is completely lacking in these regions, radioactivity ingestion risks exists in forms that are not well-known to the general public and which are difficult to avoid (in order to grasp the extent of the issue, read for instance Exa-Becquerel Now In Pacific Ocean ? on SurvivalJapan and related posts). For example, seaweed yields :

• alginic acid (slimming aids, appetite suppressants, etc.),
• agar (many Western and Asian desserts alike including delicious Japanese yokan – but also used in dentistry, modelling clay for kids, etc.),
• carrageenan (desserts, ice cream, cream, milkshakes, sweetened condensed milks, sauces, beer, pâtés and processed meats like ham, etc. fatty foods without fat, toothpaste, fruit gushers, as a excipient in pills / tablets, in soy milk, diet sodas, but also fire fighting foam, shampoo and cosmetic creams, air freshener gels, fabric marbling, shoe polish, pet food, personal lubricants and sexual lubricants, etc.).

Ocean radiation spill has further increased the risk of eating processed food, but also of using cosmetics, etc.

Here is a link to hydrocolloids producers worldwide, among which a few Japanese companies of course, for example :

• Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma subsidiary named DSP Gokyo Food & Chemicals,
• Fuji Chemical Industry Co Ltd
• Kimica Corporation
• Kirin Kyowa Foods Inc. (the Japanese products page is much more detailed… – and yes, a sister company of Kirin Breweries – cheers to a “healthy” beer!)
• Shimizu Chemical Corporation
• Etc. etc. (food processing is an endless topic and a worldwide industry, Cf. the movie The Informant! for a fun introduction and bon appétit! if you like prawns)

A positive side of the Japanese nuclear crisis in Japan is that it may have raised the awareness of the multiple dangers of the nuclear industry of course, but also of industrial food, etc.

Conclusion

Although it is of course impossible to avoid every risk, we should remain on our guard and probably purchase and use a Geiger counter anywhere in the world now, as some industrial countries soils are as irradiated as in Japan “monitored land” from wild dumps of uranium extraction waste, nuclear bomb testings, nuclear plant spills and wild waste dumps – including from medical and research facilities, etc. Leaving Japan is not necessarily the solution as it might be worse in your home country without you never having realized it for lack of any large-scale disaster happening yet. Education, positive action and life choices, citizen monitoring are part of the solution to a multi-dimensional problem which is bigger than just a nuclear issue.

TEPCO & Nuclear Cars

Under the lead of an organization affiliated with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Tokyo Electric Power Company is working out next-gen car battery norms. It has developed a specification for high-voltage DC automotive fast charging using a JARI Level 3 DC connector, and formed the CHΛdeMO (stands for Charge and Move) association with Japanese automakers Mitsubishi, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota to promote it. Although you may be convinced that driving an electric car is eco-friendlier than a conventional one because of the low-level of CO2 expelled, I suggest that you think twice.

Battery industry is a large source of pollution in itself and recycling will pose serious environmental threats with lithium as a new source of cancers and permanent neurological damage in case of severe poisoning. Lithium ion batteries used in watches and gadgets are not always recycled properly but we are taking it to a next level with car batteries. A lot of so-called “green technologies” are based on using highly toxic elements like arsenic in semiconductors and the recycling is never really considered in the PLM (think of what becomes of outdated solar panels for instance). Electric powered cars are in fact nuclear cars, but so are electric appliances in our homes, so where is the problem? In countries like Japan, fossil fuels and renewable energies are sufficient to power the country, even without saving much in this wasteful nation of ever-running empty bullet trains and all night long lit up cities. If Japan was to use only nuclear cars, the demand for more energy would be so great that new nuclear plants would have to be built and old ones put back in operation. The amount of electric power for a car is much higher than to lit up your typical living room neon light: how many domestic appliances require 62,500 W of high-voltage DC current to charge? This is what CHΛdeMO delivers to nuclear cars made by Mitsubishi (i MiEV and Citroën C-ZERO in France, which is quite ironic since Mitsubishi also made ZERO fighter planes for kamikaze pilots during WWII – a practical joke by Mitsubishi marketing department to their French colleagues?), Nissan (several models including Leaf with Renault partnership) and Subaru (Stella).

As a summary, Lithium battery production is environmentally harmful, using them when you drive your car is the worse part because of significant increased nuclear power consumption and their recycling is a new kind of massive pollution ahead. The whole product life cycle is ecologically damaging.

TEPCO participation in the CHΛdeMO association makes perfect business sense. Ironically, CHΛdeMO, also spelled CHAdeMO (an abbreviation of “CHArge de MOve”, equivalent to “charge for moving”), is a pun for O cha demo ikaga desuka in Japanese, meaning “How about some tea” (while charging) in English – knowing that Japanese green tea was tested radio-positive in Shizuoka prefecture, we could politely answer Kekko desu, meaning “Thank you but no thank you”.

Faced to international competition, especially from South Korea, to a yen exchange rate that damage exports, to a dwindling domestic consumption combined with a oversaturated domestic market, Japanese automobile makers’ main hope is to regain leadership through innovative products such as these nuclear cars – so there is no backing up from this strategic policy, which means that they are bound to TEPCO for at least the next decade. Japanese media are subjected to this consortium: for instance Yomiuri Shimbun mainstream newspaper founder has been an active nuclear power supporter, is in some way partly responsible of the fate of Fukushima victims, and will never disavow TEPCO. Toyota represents a third of advertising budget in media so there is little chance that any negative press be published against nuclear cars.

“Green technologies” are often a marketing term to promote innovative and not so environmental friendly technologies, which has eventually a negative impact on the end-user. In another post, we showed that these companies are not concerned with their customers’ health (see further reading on SurvivalJapan below). On a personal level, I recommend boycotting any product affiliated, owned or developed in partnership with TEPCO.

Tokyo Electric Power Company has developed patented technology and a specification for high-voltage (up to 500 V DC) high-current (125 A) automotive fast charging via a JARI DC fast charge connector. It appears this is the basis for the CHAdeMO protocol.The connector is specified by the JEVS (Japan Electric Vehicle Standard) G105-1993 from the Japan Automobile Research Institute.

Japanese Cars

The first post by SurvivalJapan was “A New Threat“: Manufactured goods from the no-man’s land are the latest addition in the spread of contamination. Japanese cars are among their best manufactured goods and those that are built in Japan for the domestic market pose a serious threat. Conversely, Japanese cars built abroad for the international markets should not be a concern (but exports are). The Japanese car industry is scattered around the country and car parts can come from any factory in the world so it is impossible to trace which car brands are safest, radiation-wise, with certainty. However, some car manufacturers headquarters, factories and public policies give us some hints.

When you seat down in your car, seats expel some air charged with dust. Likewise, when you turn on your air-conditioning system, air inflow follows ducts, pass through some filters against pollens, etc. which should be changed regularly in order to do their job (otherwise the air just passes through a condensate of pollens, dust, fungi, etc.). Another source of dust is the car headliner which is rarely vacuumed. Even if car parts are imported, final assembly will not take place in a white room, so depending on your choice, your car could be filled with contaminated dust. Even if you purchase a second-hand car, be aware that many cars were retrieved from the no man’s land and that the decontamination process was basically taking them to a car wash.

Another source of danger comes from the onboard electronics. In the aftermath of 3/11, supply chain was interrupted and car manufacturers worldwide were waiting for parts from Japan, and particularly onboard computer system called microcontrollers for which Japanese company Renesas enjoy an enormous market share. Renesas was directly hit by the disaster and is therefore in the no man’s land. Electronics and computers are fragile in the face of radiation. Space industry reinforces their satellite onboard computer systems against the radiation in which they will bask up there. If a “heavy” radioactive particle hits a supremely miniaturized transistor cell inside their computers, satellites can get out of control. Usually hardened integrated chips, extra shielding and redundancy (multiple back-up systems) avoid space disasters. Cars are not designed to safely operate in radioactive environments. Renesas microcontrollers are made from silicium that could be contaminated by radioactive dust if white rooms are not clean enough, or if the cleaning of the IC chips is done in a poorly controlled environment (for example at a subcontractor, cf. TEPCO) and the final product could still be damaged when stocked in the no man’s land. Next time you wonder why the automatic brake did not work, you may inquire where the microcontroller came from (this of course applies to any country since a majority of foreign brands use these Japanese chips). As if this was not enough, the Japanese government chose Tohoku as a hub to recycle rare metals which are used in electronic devices, thus ensuring internal contamination, dysfunctions and eventually new lethal car accidents.

The car manufacturer which is in the center of the no man’s land is Honda. Today, Toyota announced that they would produce their smaller cars in Miyagi and progressively shift production towards Tohoku. Toyota currently has factories in Shizuoka prefecture, i.e. where green tea leaves are radio-positive. Several other car manufacturers are based around Tokyo, which is also highly contaminated. The only company outside the no man’s land is Mazda, in Hiroshima. It is not absolutely certain that their cars are radiation-free, but it is quite sure that with other makers, you’ll breath some amount of contaminated dust.

The key point with Toyota is that they put the focus on supporting Tohoku (maybe getting some financial incentives by local government) instead of making absolutely sure their cars are radiation-free. This kind of policy is decided at high management level and will apply to their other subsidiaries, like Lexus, Daihatsu, etc. in the long term. If you live in Japan and decide to purchase a Prius because of its ecological appeal: think twice. Likewise, all so-called “green” cars who plug in electricity stations actually support nuclear power.

Toyota is one of the main taxi manufacturers (and army transportation vehicles but in all likeliness it does not concern you unless the Japanese Self-Defense Force sends their contaminated trucks to your country). Old taxis do not have this kind of problem – but think about it next time you ride a brand new Toyota taxi.

Honda declared that they would halve exports of domestically built cars and it is good news for their customers abroad in terms of radiation exposure.

Asahi Shimbun article about Honda :

Honda to halve car exports

BY YUKIO HASHIMOTO STAFF WRITER

2011/10/06

Honda Motor President Takanobu Ito shows off the Fit electric vehicle in Shanghai. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The soaring value of the yen will force Honda Motor Co. to slash exports of domestically manufactured vehicles, according to the company’s president.

Takanobu Ito told The Asahi Shimbun that the firm plans to cut the proportion of Japan-built cars sent overseas from 34 percent to between 10 and 20 percent over about 10 years.

In fiscal 2010, Honda manufactured 910,000 vehicles in Japanese plants and exported 310,000 of them. That was considerably lower than the 53 percent export ratio of the whole Japanese automobile sector, but Ito said further cuts are necessary to maintain profitability.

In fiscal 2010, Honda manufactured a total of 3.57 million vehicles worldwide. The new strategy means that cars sold in foreign markets will increasingly also be manufactured overseas.

Honda plans to maintain its domestic production capacity of about 1 million vehicles a year by increasing sales of cheaper minicars. It hopes to double minicar sales in Japan from 150,000 cars in fiscal 2010 to about 300,000 but will face stiff competition from rivals including Suzuki Motor Corp. and Daihatsu Motor Co.

Honda will introduce a new minicar model in December and has several other new models in the pipeline.

Overall domestic automobile production is currently about 5 million vehicles, nearly 20-percent less than 10 years ago.

Asahi Shimbun article about Toyota :

Toyota to shift output of small cars to U.S. and Tohoku from Shizuoka

2011/10/05

Toyota Motor Corp. will cut back production of small cars at its aging plant in Shizuoka Prefecture by shifting output to the United States and the Tohoku region.

It will reduce annual capacity to 180,000 units from 210,000 units at its Higashi-Fuji plant in Susono, operated by subsidiary Kanto Auto Works Ltd.

The cutback is the first for the automaker since the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.

The Higashi-Fuji plant, built in 1968, has two production lines, rolling out the Corolla, the Corolla Fielder, high-end cars and taxis.

Toyota will shut down one of the lines, shifting the production of small cars, which have lower profit margins, to other factories.

The Corolla, which is designed for the North American market, will be manufactured at Toyota’s factory in Mississippi. The Corolla Fielder, which is sold in Japan and overseas, will be manufactured at a new plant in Miyagi Prefecture operated by Central Motor Co., a group company.

The space to be vacated by the shutdown will be used to upgrade the paint line.

The Higashi-Fuji plant will continue to produce luxury cars and other vehicles.

Despite the cutback, Toyota will maintain overall domestic annual output at 3 million units or more.

Toyota’s current annual capacity in Japan is around 3.6 million units, which the automaker considers to be excessive.

Toyota has maintained domestic annual output of at least 3 million units for many years, except for 2009, when the auto giant was battered by the financial crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers in autumn 2008.

Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, is committed to maintaining the 3 million level. He has expressed concern about the possible impact on employment as well as research and development in Japan if Toyota’s production level falls.

The fate of the Higashi-Fuji plant had been a matter of considerable speculation since July when Toyota announced its plan to make facilities of its group companies in the Tohoku region the key production base for small cars as part of streamlining efforts.

Under the plan, Toyota is expected to turn Kanto Auto Works into its wholly owned subsidiary in January 2012.

After that, it will integrate Kanto Auto Works with Central Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Tohoku Corp., both of which are based in the Tohoku region, in July 2012.

This article was written by Tomoyuki Izawa and Takeshi Narabe.

Yomiuri Shimbun article about rare metals recycling in no man’s land :

Govt to position Tohoku as hub for rare metal recovery

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The government will launch a project to make the Tohoku region a hub for recovering rare metals from small electric appliances, including cell phones collected from across the country, to support the reconstruction of areas hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake, it was learned Wednesday.

Tohoku once prospered as a mining region, and there are a number of business enterprises that have the technology to recover rare metals.

The Environment Ministry, which will be in charge of the project and will shoulder the cost of delivery of small electric appliances to the region among other expenses, hopes the project will help create local jobs.

The ministry requested 200 million yen to implement the project in the third supplementary budget for fiscal 2011.

With this money, the ministry will support local municipalities and business firms by shouldering the expenses for: delivering electric appliances to the Tohoku region; promoting public awareness of the project; and purchasing “collection boxes” to be installed in local municipalities that take part in the project.

The ministry will invite local municipalities from across the country to take part in the project later this year.

Once the appliances are delivered to Tohoku, intermediate processing businesses will separate the parts and components containing rare metals for refinery firms to extract rare metals.

During the Meiji era (1868-1912), a large number of mines were developed in Tohoku. This helps explain why a number of companies operating businesses to recover nonferrous metals such as copper and zinc exist there today.

In the envisaged project, the ministry will ask the intermediate processing businesses to sort parts containing rare metals manually, rather than mechanically. By doing so, the ministry hopes to increase the recovery rate of rare metals, and also secure more jobs in disaster-affected districts.

Meanwhile, the ministry will make it mandatory for refining businesses to allocate a percentage of profits from the sales of recovered rare metals to help develop related technology. The ministry hopes the firms will become more competitive in the global market and may someday be able to expand overseas.

A national recycling system to recover rare metals from small electric appliances is yet to be established, but the ministry is thinking of introducing such a system in fiscal 2014.

The invitation for local municipalities to take part in helping collect appliances for rare metal recycling in Tohoku is considered a harbinger of the system’s full-fledged national introduction.

(Oct. 6, 2011)

Beer in Japan

Beer is the favorite alcoholic beverage in Japan and this post offers advice on which brand and how to recognize the production area of your local beer in order to avoid drinking contaminated water (95% of the beverage on average) and rice, which is often included. Of the four major beer brewerers (Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo and Suntori), only one is headquartered outside the no man’s land (Suntori, in Osaka). Although Sapporo was historically from Hokkaido, it is not true anymore (and besides, Hokkaido is inside the no man’s land). Premium Yebisu beer belongs to Sapporo.

In you cannot afford imported beers, first advice is to go for Suntori for that reason. Besides, although nobody can prove that it is not just a PR operation, yet Suntori stated that they pay attention to the origin of ingredients and any risk of radiation. This is different from other companies who claim there is no danger, only “fear”. Furthermore, Suntory “The Premium Malt’s”  (cf. picture below taken from web for anonymity purpose), for instance, mentions (in Japanese) that hops is from Europe.

Safer food quest

Now that it clear that eastern and northern Japan, including Hokkaido, should not be trusted for their food, water and any natural or manufactured goods actually, I will not publish any other “proof” on the topic of the national fraud and instead focus on accessing safer food.

If you’re reading SurvivalJapan on a phone, you may bookmark this post and use it to check labels for food origin. Note that it may still be a fraud and in case of processed food (sausage, sake, jam, etc.), it tells you nothing about their ingredients (i.e. pork, rice, water, strawberries, etc.).

First you can check for contaminated prefectures, by looking up the Japanese in the list below:

A New Threat

Manufactured goods from the no-man’s land are the latest addition in the spread of contamination