As Japan’s population ages and more people live alone, many seniors feel cooking is too much trouble. They also struggle to use all ingredients before they spoil.
Murakami has long helped others cook quick and tasty meals. While supporting her late husband and raising three children, she shared recipes through newspapers and magazines. Since her husband passed away in 2014, Murakami has lived alone and experienced these challenges herself.
She often hears from her peers in cooking classes that they eat less than before or find cooking bothersome. Because of these changes in society, Murakami promotes the idea of “lowering barriers to cooking.” She advises prioritizing eating over spending too much time preparing food.
At her kitchen studio in Fukuoka City, Murakami showed how simple her meals are. The kitchen has only a small stove, a mini refrigerator, a microwave, and a round table. She often cooks and eats in this compact space.
Murakami demonstrated her typical quick breakfast. She keeps single-serving frozen packs in the freezer. Each pack contains about 100 grams of vegetables and 50 grams of protein like fish or meat, all cut into small pieces.
She explained, “The daily recommended vegetable intake is 350 grams. By eating one pack each meal, you can almost meet that goal and get enough protein.”
To prepare breakfast, she microwaves a frozen pack for about 1.5 minutes. Then, she adds water and a tablespoon of dashi-flavored liquid miso. She microwaves it again for three minutes to make a vegetable-rich miso soup.
While heating 150 grams of frozen rice for three minutes, she takes items like natto, tofu, eggs, pickles, or cheese from the fridge. These complete a “sumptuous breakfast” ready in about 10 minutes.
Murakami stresses the importance of protein in the morning. Eggs, natto, and cheese all provide good protein needed for the body.
The frozen vegetable packs can also be added to ramen, soups, or stir-fries for variety.
She prepares these packs and rice in advance when she has time, making daily meals easier.
Murakami also encourages using convenient foods like supermarket deli items or ready-made dishes. One favorite is individually portioned oden, a protein-rich dish with fish cakes and eggs. Because oden lacks vegetables, she adds spinach by microwaving it briefly, rinsing, and squeezing out water before mixing.
However, she warns about the salt content in ready-made foods. Many are high in salt to taste good from the first bite. To reduce salt, she microwaves dishes like cooked hijiki seaweed or chicken with vegetables with added water and then discards the water after heating.
For ready-made Chinese-style dishes such as happosai (shrimp and vegetable stir-fry) or sweet and sour pork, Murakami adds chopped cabbage or onions and microwaves them to make the dishes less salty and more vegetable-rich.
Murakami said, “Cooking complex dishes can take time. Using deli foods smartly helps save time and still eat well.”
She added, “People today can live nearly 100 years. Eating three balanced meals a day is key to staying healthy and active.”
For those who cannot cook due to health or other reasons, Murakami recommends choosing ready-made meals that provide a balanced diet with necessary nutrients.
She also refers to a “three food groups” chart as a helpful guide for balanced eating.
Cooking Skills Linked to Mortality Risk Among Elderly
Research by Yukako Tani, an assistant professor at the Institute of Science Tokyo, shows that elderly people living alone with poor cooking skills face a higher risk of death.
Tani studied 10,647 seniors over three years, focusing on those who were not receiving nursing care. Participants answered questions about their cooking skills, such as peeling vegetables and cooking simmered dishes. During the study, 520 participants passed away.
The study compared people with similar living conditions, ages, sexes, incomes, and grocery store access, but different cooking abilities.
Results showed that seniors living alone with poor cooking skills were 2.5 times more likely to die than those living alone with good cooking skills.
For seniors living with others, cooking skills did not significantly affect death rates.
Those with poor cooking skills cooked less often, ate fewer vegetables, and walked less.
Tani said, “Cooking skills likely lead to more fruit and vegetable intake and more physical activity like shopping. These habits can lower the risk of death. It’s important to learn cooking skills from a young age.”
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