For Charcoal-Fresh Breath…

…get thee to the closest Tokyu Hands and get your paws on some Natamame toothpaste! It claims to smite your bad breath in four different flavors: Rose, Aloe (does aloe have a flavor?), Persimmon and Bamboo Charcoal. Yes, the black kind. Even stranger, guess what this toothpaste is made from? Sword beans!

Bad breath, I strike thee down in the name of sword bean!

Believe it or not, these jumbo legumes are known throughout Asia for banishing bad breath (although one wonders exactly how that works, in the absence of these big boys being processed down into nice little toothbrush-friendly tubes.)

Jonelle Patrick is the author of the Only In Tokyo mystery series, published by Penguin/Intermix.