Mr.science show z

Episode- Japan and the sumo diet
Date- 2009-01-06
Time- 20:00
http://podcast.com/show/2333/

Mark west is a journalist who presents the Mr. Science show, a radio channel show which talks about places in the world and its cultures. In this episode, he talks about Japan and the sumo diet.

Most of Japan is highland with beautiful green mountain ranges. In the summer they are visible from the lower city parts. You can barly see them in the winter because of all the mist and humidity. Japan is also seismically active due to the land plates always clashing against each other.

As different as Japan is in its landscape it is also extraordinary in its food.
Unfamiliar to the European cuisine, Japanese chefs cook raw fish such as sushi, sashimi, and especially famous for Korea, the Fatami, or commonly known as the Puffer Fish. Only very experienced chefs are allowed to cook it because it contains a poison stronger than arsenic which could kill over 30 people. This fish meal costs 10,000 yen or 100 dollars.

It’s really interesting how Japanese breed the cows so that when they cook the beef it is tender and fatty. They also cook beef in a different way than the west. The farmers start by giving the cows lots of beer and keeping it on a diet with barley. After that they massage the cow so that, later, when the chefs cook the meat it becomes very soft and tender.


Sumo, a famous sport in Japan, requires a secret to the sumo diet of becoming fat. Sumo wrestlers are very big men who weigh around 200 kilos and while in the rink show off only in their underwear. Sumo is very spiritual. The game is a wrestling match played by two people. They both stay in one rink. There are 80 different ways to win a game. The main way is if one of them is pushed or by mistake falls outside of the rink. The one who stays inside wins a point.

The secret to become ridiculously fat is in the following 4 steps. The first step is, they don’t eat breakfast. After 8 hours of sleep their body needs more energy, and if they don’t give it energy it slows their body’s metabolism down, thus storing fat. The second step is, if you exercise on an empty stomach, so when you do eat it becomes fat. The third step is that the sumo wrestler eats a really big lunch and then they go to sleep thus storing the food as fat. If the wrestlers walk or do something they use up the energy. The fourth step is to eat with others because it is proved that when you eat with others you eat 40% more food.

I learnt a lot about sumo, as the sport, and what it takes to become a sumo wrestler. Overall the podcast was funny and pleasant. I recommend for other people to listen to it because it tells you something more about Japan.