SUITA, Osaka Pref. -- Both as an explorer and an anthropologist, Naomichi Ishige has visited more than 100 countries since his days as a Kyoto University student.

Although he could not understand many of the local languages, he discovered a foolproof way of communicating -- eat whatever was offered.

"By doing so, I was accepted by the local people. I sometimes had to eat everything, even if it was hard to do from a hygiene point of view, such as the blood of a live pig," said Ishige, 64, who is now director general of the National Museum of Ethnology.

As a member of the university's adventure club, Ishige traveled through developing regions, starting in Tonga in 1960. Staying in places such as remote villages in New Guinea and Africa gave him the skills to cook delicious dishes using whatever ingredients were available.

His first book, published in 1969, describes his research on local eating habits, as well as his cooking experiences, in the countries he visited.

While writing the book, Ishige realized that studying meals and cooking in various cultures from an anthropological perspective gave him a deeper understanding of those cultures.

Since then, he has conducted extensive research on meals, cooking tools, ingredients and eating styles in different societies and has written many books on the topic.

In Ishige's view, traditional Japanese meals are unique among the world's cuisines, as they contain no meat or dairy products.

But rapid industrialization in the 1960s brought about tremendous changes in the Japanese diet. Ishige said the changes in eating habits experienced by the Japanese during the Showa era (1926-1988) were the greatest since the Yayoi period (around 300 B.C. to 300 A.D.), when rice cultivation began.

These changes became possible with increased personal income, improved distribution systems and the growth of the food industry.

While an ordinary Japanese diet used to consist mainly of rice and vegetables, with fish on occasion, many people now have bread with tea or coffee in the morning, for example, and a wide variety of foreign dishes are readily available in restaurants and stores.

Although some say that the Japanese diet has become Westernized, Ishige disagrees, saying the Japanese have imported other countries' dishes not as they are, but with changes to suit Japanese taste and style.

"For instance, Japanese 'tonkatsu' is different in the way it is fried and served from the original fried pork cutlet. We also eat it with chopsticks and not knives and forks," he said. "So, it is not that the Japanese diet has been Westernized but that we have 'Japanized' various dishes."

But the increased consumption of such rich meals has helped increase the risk of adult diseases, with some people are urging a return to the traditional Japanese diet or simple meals of rice and vegetables.

But Ishige said people should not just go back to eating traditional Japanese meals, which he says do not provide sufficient nutrients.

"It is natural for a diet to change," he said. "The important thing is to seek an appropriate diet that is satisfying in both taste and nutrition."

Given his experiences abroad, Ishige emphasizes that the act of eating serves as a medium for communication, and that this concept also applies to our everyday lives.

With individual lifestyles becoming diversified in recent years, family members often eat their meals separately. Ishige points out that this leads to a lack of communication within the family.

"Now that children have their own rooms, having meals together may be the only time when family members see each other," he said. "If no meals are taken together, it can be said that communication does not exist in that family."

The concept of family came into being through certain rules involving sex and food. In the case of food, the family was formed as a unit to receive distribution of game hunted by males, according to Ishige.

"But, at a time when a family faces the danger of falling apart, (having) meals (together) plays an important role in binding a family together."