We eat with our eyes first. -Marcus Gavius Apicius

The flowers, fruits, leaves, stems and roots —
all exist, in essence, to help vegetables create new seeds.

The sardine, the most consumed fish on Earth, sustains the most lives on Earth. The Japanese characters for "sardine"(鰯) is written as ʻWeak Fish’, but in truth, it might embody the strongest life force of them all.

Lives nurtured for our sustenance. In other words, they are lives born so we may continue to live.

The average Japanese person consumes around 28,000 eggs in a lifetime.

This is not a scale to measure the weight of food.
It is a scale to measure the significance of life.

The primary foods consumed by people around the world and their annual consumption (number of lives per year)

We often overlook what people around the world eat.
Understanding this may be the key to unravelling the threads that connect humanity and life itself.
Photography by Peter Menzel

We've represented the volume of food that one Japanese person consumes over the corse of 10 years.
This amount varies depending on the country or region.

We are made of the lives we have received.

A week’s worth of household food from around the world.
A glimpse into the true lives of people, beyond just data and numbers.

Sushi Craftsman × Food Technology
When Tradition meets Innovation,
the Future of Cuisine unveils.

All kinds of ingredients are frozen and finely milled
into powder form leading to new culinary opportunities.

A future where cooking techniques and methods are stored for global reach,
pushing the boundaries of culinary exploration.

A collection of sweets imagined by children for the future.
These creations may hold a secret to spreading happiness.

“EARTH FOODS” is a project that selects 25 distinctive Japanese foods, aiming to share their value and wisdom with the world to illuminate the future of global cuisine — Unraveling the possibilities of the future within tradition. What are the “EARTH FOODS” of your country or region?

The Umeboshi(pickled plums)we make here, "Expo Pickkes",
will not be opened until 2050.
It is, in a sense, a "culinary time capsule."
Who will you share the memories of 2025 with?

By coming together around the same table,
somehow, we all become one.
That is the power of food.