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military surgeons who played a pioneering role in Japanese nutritional
research. From the 1920s the army also became increasingly involved in
disseminating nutritional knowledge among the general public.
A direct participation of the Japanese civilian government in the
matter of public nutrition was stimulated not only by the developments
in Europe, but was also propelled by the consequences of World War One
experienced in Japan itself. The economic recession and restricted rice
imports from South-East Asia confronted the government with the socalled
Rice Riots. Because urban dwellers relied heavily on rice for their
daily sustenance, in 1918 hundreds of thousands of them went out to the
streets protesting against the soaring price of rice. In an immediate
response to the riots, in 1919 the Home Ministry Sanitary Bureau issued
two pamphlets, one entitled ‘Recipes for Rice Surrogates’ and the other
‘Nutrition and Economizing on Food’. 19 The long-term response included
the Campaign to Increase Rice Production in the colony of Korea (see
chapter Six) and the establishment of the Imperial Government Institute
for Nutrition (also known under the name State Institute for the Study of
Nutrition). These steps set the stage for the increasing involvement of the
Japanese state in the diet of its citizens.
The institute was set up by an Imperial Ordinance on 16 September
1920, and the formal opening took place in December the following year.
It was one of the first institutions in the world devoted entirely to the issue
of human nutrition. 20 Its activities ranged from fundamental research and
its practical application (for example in industrial food processing) to the
propagation of knowledge about a healthy and economical diet among
the general public. 21 A generative power behind its establishment was
Saiki Tadasu (1876–1959), a true ‘founding father’ of Japanese dietetics, a
holder of a PhD from Yale University. In 1914 Saiki established his private
Nutritional Laboratory – the first research institute in Japan to deal exclusively
with human nutrition. In 1917 he organized the very first lecture
programme on nutrition, and two years later successfully lobbied for state
financial backing for grounding nutritional science in Japan. 22 It is beyond
doubt that Saiki’s personal commitment was largely responsible for the
establishment of the Imperial Government Institute for Nutrition. However,
it cannot be denied that the spirit of the times was very propitious for the
realization of his ambitions.
Saiki’s aim was twofold: to ground dietetics as an independent scientific
discipline in Japan and to disseminate practical advice on nutrition
among the public. Both goals could be achieved only with state support,
which Saiki was granted after 1920. Exemplary menus were prepared and
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