NHK To Acknowledge Declining Birth Rate On Cooking Show

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: TV cooking show to reduce portions as families getting smaller
As the number of children per family is becoming smaller, a Japanese cooking show had decided to reduce the portion of dishes introduced on television, it's been learned. NHK will reduce the portion of its recipes from four people to two in its long-running TV cooking program "Kyo no Ryori," (Today's cooking), marking the first revision in 44 years. "Apart from the decline in the number of people per household, we wanted to express a stance toward not wasting food," said program producer Hidetoshi Yukawa. "The number of requests from viewers for recipes for two people has also increased." From March 30, basically all dishes will be prepared for two people on the show. According to NHK, the cooking program started in 1957 and introduced recipes for five people before reducing the servings to four people in 1965 due to a trend toward smaller families. Since then, although discussions were made over further reductions to the portions, there were also strong opinions that reducing the size would undermine the image of a close family atmosphere. In the 2005 national census, the average number of people per household was 2.6 in Japan.