In contrast, studies of actual food intakes show that the Japanese daily mean is now below 1,900 kilocalories, commensurate with age distribution and physical activity of the aging Japanese population. This means that perhaps the single most important explanation of Japan’s longevity primacy is quite simple: moderate overall food consumption, the habit expressed in just four kanji characters, 腹八分目 (hara hachi bun me, “belly eight parts [in ten] full”)—an ancient Confucian precept, and hence yet another import from China. But the Japanese, unlike the banqueting and food-wasting Chinese,
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