The Monday Read: Natto for Life

Welcome to The Monday Read, RetireJapan’s weekly collection of content, musing, and links related to personal finance and life in Japan.

This week, after 23 years in Japan, I started eating natto. I’m sure this had nothing to do with the fact that I recently kind of decided to naturalize here 😉

I had tried natto two or three times, of course, but never took to it and avoided it as best I could.

Then as part of my health journey I watched a bunch of videos about the gut microbiome, etc. and became interested in foods that might help mine become healthier. My understanding is that a variety of vegetables, fibre, fermented foods, and avoiding processed foods and sugar would be helpful.

After adding yoghurt, kimchee, and a bunch of plants, I arrived at natto.

Natto on its own is pretty grim but bearable. Natto mixed with egg yolk is actually not bad (I love egg yolk). And natto with egg yolk and kimchee is almost decent.

I’ve now voluntarily eaten it every day for a week now and think I deserve my Japanese passport.

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Metrics

Jiu-jitsu classes: two (pass)
YouTube videos: one (pass)

Consequences: None.

I am changing the rules for this from this week. Found out I probably need knee surgery to fix my meniscus, so won’t be able to practice jiu-jitsu for a while. Going to watch class is useful because I can stretch and hang out with everyone, but I’m going to move this metric to twice a week until I can train again. That should be enough to keep in touch but not get burnt out.

The Forum

The Forum is doing well (28,004 posts so far). Here are the latest active threads:

This week’s books

I reread The Four Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss. This book was so far ahead of its time, it’s incredible. Now it is slightly dated, as most of the websites, technologies, and tactics are gone or don’t work well any more.

But the concepts are still gold and I got a lot out of rereading it.

It’s a bit like Your Money or Your Life in that way.

This week’s links

  1. Yikes. Let’s hope they figure out robot deliveries by… next year? Japan’s strained distribution sector is heading for a crash
  2. That is 278,000 yen a month at the current exchange rate. Probably enough to fund our lifestyle for my wife and me! Universal basic income of £1,600 a month to be trialled in two places in England
  3. Nope: Can We Stop Runaway A.I.?
  4. This is one of the best summaries I have seen. Huge potential, not for me at the moment (YouTube): Apple Vision Pro Impressions
  5. And a very convincing counterpoint: Isn’t That Spatial?
  6. I enjoyed this write up: Somethings I like about Germany
  7. This was a nice example: Your Reminder that “AI” Will Just Flat-Out Make Things Up
  8. Interesting. Sounds kind of similar to the Ghosn thing, but flipped: Corporate Turmoil: The Ups and Downs of the Elevator Business
  9. Learned a lot from this Reddit thread: Foreigner been in Japanese jail 4 times AMA
  10. Even as a climate pessimist, things seem to be getting worse much quicker than I expected them to: Surviving the smoke-pocalypse 101: Californians offer advice to New Yorkers
  11. I gave up my car a couple of years ago and it’s been great so far: A moment that changed me: I ditched my car – and improved my fitness, sleep and bank balance
  12. It’s the dream, eh? Healthy long life: My neighbor lived to be 109. This is what I learned from him
  13. Interesting. Is this another version of ‘be thankful for what you have’? Expectations Debt
  14. Makes sense: Stop Telling Kids They’ll Die From Climate Change
  15. Surprising no one: Wage Hikes in April Fail Their First Test
  16. Some Craig Mod prose poetry, if you’ve been missing him: Walking Northern California

What do you think? Anything interesting in there?

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9 Responses

  1. If it’s a healthy gut and probiotics you’re after, I can strongly recommend kefir! Started making it a few months ago, very easy, very tasty, very healthy!

  2. We eat natto with oatmeal for breakfast. Yum. Your can also look into doing some fermenting at home. It’s easy and doesn’t require new equipment, although there are lots of things you can buy.

  3. Before going in for knee surgery, consider ATG / Knees Over Toes Guy (https://youtube.com/@TheKneesovertoesguy). I’m not your doctor, this is isn’t advice, blah blah 🙃
    But as someone who had knee surgery as a youth and it hurts still 20+ years later, this sort of stuff seems to make it feel a lot better and stronger.

    1. Yeah, I slightly regret my hip surgery from two years ago.

      Still need to speak to knee specialist, and from what I’ve read meniscus surgery seems a bit better than what I did to my hip, but I’d prefer a non surgical outcome. No improvement whatsoever since March though 😔

  4. Hi Ben

    Interesting to here that you are thinking about naturalising. Does becoming a Japanese citizen and consequently as an adult thereby giving up British citizenship have any effect on receiving the UK state pension in the future?

    1. I don’t think so but something I need to check (and it wouldn’t surprise me if HMRC screw something up)

  6. I have lived here for 43 years and there are some things I just cannot do. One is to have the doctor use a tongue depressor to check my throat (I gag). The other is to eat natto. That isn’t too bad considering all that we go through on a daily basis.