The “clean plate club” has returned in one restaurant in Japan, and if you don’t want to be a part of it your wallet will suffer. Hachikyo, a seafood restaurant in Sapporo has started a program where they will charge you a fine if you say, “I’m done,” before finishing everything in front of you, according to Yahoo! News. This means if even one grain of rice is left sitting on your plate, you will be forced to pay up.
According to the International Business Times, this only applies to a dish called tsukko meshi, a rice and salmon roe, and they prefer the term “forced donation.” The menu explains,“The working conditions for fishermen are harsh and so dangerous that it’s not unknown for lives to be lost,” Gold Rush blogger Midori Yokoyama wrote. It seems the managers believe it is disrespectful and unappreciative for customers to leave any food on their plates.
In the United States I’ve never personally witnessed a charge for not finishing all of one’s food, but when hearing about this happening at Hachikyo, I thought it sounded like a great idea. MSN says, “Chinese buffets, Korean barbecues and all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants [in the United States] will often add a few extra bucks onto the bill for diners who loaded up on more than they can chew.” Foreigners from Asia opening up restaurants in the United States seem to be the ones commonly implementing these guidelines and values for customers eating their food, and I think it would do us all good to follow suit.
I think it can be all too easy for Americans, including myself, to walk into a restaurant and forget the effort someone had to go through to get that food, or how lucky we are to have the opportunity to have easy access to food at all. National Center for Law and Economic Justice says that there was a record setting level of poverty in the United States in 2011 coming in around 46.2 million people, and Feeding America says that results in approximately one in six Americans including adults, children and seniors alike, suffering from hunger. The CIA World Factbook provides a chart showing percentages of citizens living below the poverty line, an approximate 15 percent in the United States compared to about 16 percent in Japan. This isn’t a big difference, so why does it seem Americans come off as ungrateful in comparison?
An argument can be made that the customer paid for the meal in full, so what does it matter if they finish it all or not? The fishermen got paid, the restaurant got paid and the customer ate their fill, so what’s the big deal? At Hachikyo, it is all about the principle. I think he wants people to realize where the food comes from, and I don’t just mean the kitchen. I think it’s easy to say “thanks” before a meal but to really be thankful for it is another matter.
Japan sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, and often endures natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and manmade troubles as well, including World War II and the nuclear power plant disaster of 2011. Being a relatively small country, having few natural resources and constantly being shaken by disasters, it comes as no surprise that they waste as little as possible. But the United States is located in North America and sees a relatively small amount of the troubles that Japan does, so why should it be expected to have the same appreciation for what we have? The Huffington Post states that as a country, we throw away about half of our food and that adds up to $165 billion wasted annually. In what sense could throwing away that much perfectly good food be a positive thing for anyone? Let the people above the poverty line trade places with the 46.2 million citizens below the poverty line for a day, and I believe their actions might change. Once they know what it is to be hungry I would expect they would be less likely to throw food away at will. Walking a mile in a fisherman’s shoes would likely change the minds of many as well when they see their lives are at risk to catch that delicious fish others throw away so easily.
When customers go to Hachikyo, they receive more than a meal; they also receive a life lesson. The Huffington Post says it’s rare for someone to leave a plate of tsukko meshi unfinished anyway, so it seems the purpose is to highlight the principle, more than acquire donations. If every time someone in the U.S. left food on their plate and they had to donate money to help people suffering from hunger, there would either be less hunger or less waste. This policy is present in some foreign restaurants in the Unites States but I think it needs to spread and implemented throughout the country. Slowly but surely we could see the values of Americans being improved, and the amount of waste diminishing.
Avery Twible can be reached at avery.twible@spartans.ut.edu