I ask Terry Huang, a health policy professor at the City University of New York, about the apparent contradiction in Japan's relationship with food.

Huang calls this "default design" and he says it literally comes built in: The fact that Japanese cities are densely populated, but safe, allows for heavy reliance on public transport, for example.

He ladled the soup onto noodles and a thin slice of roast pork, green onions, bamboo shoots, topped off with nori, or seaweed.

Japanese convenience stories, called conbini, feature refrigerated walls of noodle salads, rice balls, bento boxes, all perfectly portioned and delicious, if you ask me.

It means driving, regularly, to half a dozen different grocery or specialty stores to stock fresh ingredients, like shrimp, dried seaweed (nori), or produce like Japanese yams and chives, then setting aside time throughout the day to wash, chop, cook and clean.