Alternative vegetables? Japan

Taking fresh vegetables every day to keep a healthy life, many people would agree with this idea, I suppose. Sometimes, I run out fresh vegetable stocks and have no time or energy to go shopping. What would you do if you were in my shoes? In my case, I give up preparing the fresh vegetables. You might have noticed it already because my photos on this blog sometimes indicate no vegetables on the dishes.

For a while, I had vegetable juices every day and enjoyed these fruity and sweet tastes in order to take necessary nutrition. After realizing the fact that those vegetable juices contain lots of sugar, I stopped buying them. It seems that it was a famous story. I guess there are no vegetables that are as sweet and delicious as fruit juice. I should have thought about it a little bit deeper.

When I looked for an alternative measure to take vegetables every day, I found dehydrated vegetables on the net shopping mall. When I search on internet, I see many different brands and products in other countries, but I only see few domestically. Obviously, the dried vegetables aren't popular in Japan, I guess it's because fresh vegetables easily available with mild climate. That's why I didn't know these products at all, and I was surprised at the abundant variety of vegetables such as carrot, cabbage, spinach, and others. These products have a long storage time at room temperature and we can cook them very easily.

For example, when you cook an instant noodle which comes with no ingredients, what you have to do is simply to add dried vegetables to it. In a second, the ramen becomes a nutritious noodle dish with vegetables by the very simple process. Would you care to know how it tastes? Well, I have to say the taste does not compete with fresh vegetables. But it's better than nothing, I think.

Before dried vegetables became famous, the popular preserved food was very limited such as dried shredded daikon radish especially for middle-aged or older Japanese residents, I think. For me, it's a symbolic food that reminds me of my childhood. But now they are establishing a luxury healthy food status. It's a strange feeling.