The “Nutrition Song”: Imperial Japan’s Recipe for National Nutrition

Nathan Hopson This is the first in a planned series of posts on nutrition science and government-sanctioned recipes in imperial Japan. In May 1922, Japan’s preeminent nutritionist, Saiki Tadasu, released a recording of his “Nutrition Song,” performed by opera star Hanafusa Shizuko. Saiki, a medical doctor who had received a PhD from Yale in 1907 before returning to Japan to crusade for national nutritional improvement, was the founding director of the Government Institution for Nutrition ..