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

When you put a food sample on this scale, an animated story will be displayed showing the story of the nature and people behind that food. There are six food items: cartons of milk, rice balls, chocolate, coffee beans, honey, and water (in plastic bottles). Try putting them on the scale.

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The story of food is displayed on the “scale of life.”

Honey

The Lifespan of a honeybee is about 1 month, and it spends roughly 2 weeks collecting nectar from flowers. During this time, it flies approximately 10,000 km, and the nectar it collects from flowers amounts to only about 5 grams of honey. That’s only enough for one teaspoon. It’s this very behaviour of bees collecting nectar that helps protect human crops.

Milk

A baby calf drinks 360 liters of milk during the first 2 months of its life. In comparison, humans (in the case of Japanese people) consume about 2,600 liters of milk in their lifetime. Throughout our lives, we are continuously blessed with the precious gift of life from cows.

Water

Out of the 196 countries in the world, only 12 have access to tap water that is safe to drink directly. No matter how much technology advances, access to safe drinking water is far from guaranteed for people living in hot climates or less affluent regions.

Coffee

To grow the 15g of coffee beans needed for one cup of coffee, about 140 liters of water are used. A significant amount of water is needed to grow the crops and process the beans.  Additionally, it takes 3 to 5 years for a coffee tree to grow, yet it yields only about 40 cups of coffee.

Rice

A single seed grain grows into a rice plant that yields around 400 to 500 grains of rice. In other words, just 6 seeds can yield enough for one bowl of rice (about 3,000 grains). It is the remarkable vitality of each and every grain that allows us Japanese to continue eating rice.

Chocolate

A cacao tree produces around 3,000 flowers each year, but only about 1% of them develop into cacao pods. Additionally, cacao flowers are extremely small and can only be pollinated by specific insects. From that precious single pod, only enough cacao beans can be harvested to make 1 bar of chocolate.

Audio guide narrator：SHOJI Mai