In what order should I plan my meals (献立)?

This answer is a draft. It stays unpublished until legal review and source verification are complete.

Planning a kondate (献立, the day's menu) looks like a matter of cooking skill. But Japan has had a national guide to "what, and how much" for twenty years. This article puts that guide beside a practical order for deciding what to cook.

The Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top (食事バランスガイド)

Drawn up in 2005 (Heisei 17) jointly by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. It sorts daily meals into five groups — staple foods (主食: rice, bread, noodles), side dishes (副菜: vegetable dishes), main dishes (主菜: meat, fish, eggs, soy), milk and dairy, and fruit — and gives a daily guide for each group in a unit called "tsu (SV, serving)".

It is drawn as a spinning top (koma), carrying the message that the top stays steady while it spins — that is, while you exercise. The basic model assumes 2,200 ± 200 kcal, a day's guide for adult men with low physical activity and adult women with ordinary or higher activity.

[Verify] Check against the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' Food Guide pages.

The basic sequence

1. Check the fridge and the store cupboard (things you want to use up come first) 2. Decide the main dish (meat, fish, eggs, soy products) 3. Decide the staple and the soup 4. Top up the vegetables with side dishes 5. Batch any prep you can reuse across dishes

Misunderstanding 1｜Decide the menu first, then shop

Decide first, and what is already at home gets left over. Starting from your stock wastes less. Household food waste in Japan runs at about 2.33 million tonnes a year (see #88).

Misunderstanding 2｜Every meal should be a different dish

Reusing the same prep is a common piece of household know-how. It is not cutting corners.

Misunderstanding 3｜The more dishes, the better

It is not the number of dishes but whether the five groups are covered.

Misunderstanding 4｜Bulk buying works out cheaper

Not if you cannot use it all up. Buying only what you can finish is the surer route.

Misunderstanding 5｜You cannot plan a menu without counting nutrients

Putting together a staple, a main and a side is enough as a starting shape. No calculation needed.

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Sources

• Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, "Appropriate amounts and dish groups in the Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top" [『食事バランスガイド』の適量と料理区分]

https://www.maff.go.jp/j/syokuiku/kenzensyokuseikatsu/about_b_guide.html

• Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, "Food Guide Spinning Top SV quick-reference chart" [食事バランスガイド SV早見表]

https://www.maff.go.jp/j/syokuiku/minna_navi/about/chart.html

• Ministry of the Environment, press release "Estimated volume of food loss in Japan (FY2023)" [我が国の食品ロスの発生量の推計値（令和５年度）]

https://www.env.go.jp/press/press_00002.html

⚠️ Editorial note: the source URLs above were identified by search. Our working environment cannot reach go.jp domains, so the contents have not been checked against the text. Verify every source before publication and record who checked it and when.

About this article

What we share here are ideas and everyday practices passed down among people living in Japan, together with general information drawn from public sources. They are not official recommendations, and they are not professional instruction. Practices vary between households and regions.

This is general information. Results vary from person to person and depend on your own conditions and surroundings.

Please decide for yourself, using your own judgement, whether any of this suits your situation. We cannot accept responsibility for any damage, loss or injury arising from following this article.

Some ingredients need thorough cooking. Eat raw only foods that are sold for raw consumption. If you have allergies, check the ingredients.

Sources

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