Thirty foods a day — is this the well‐balanced way?

Summary It is 35 years since the Japanese diet started to show the effects of increased availability of milk and meat products but there are still major differences in the food and nutrient composition of the Japanese and UK diets. The Japanese now live longer than the British with only a third of the UK death rate from heart disease and a little more than half the UK death rate from cancer. Notwithstanding the problems inherent in comparing national statistics and the hazards of interpreting epidemiological correlations, such major differences remain thought provoking.