The Best Thing You Can Do After You Eat Too Much
Japanese empathy towards boredom snacking
I was recently asked by a reader,
“I once read this Japanese word, “Kuchisabishii” — would you mind sharing the meaning of it?”
Ah, yes. Kuchisabishii.
I’ve been hearing it a lot more these days in Japan, sometimes over Zoom calls and sometimes thrown around the house. When I catch someone eating their third snack of the day, with a guilty smile they’ll laugh, “I know, but I can’t help it. I’ve got a bad case of kuchisabishii.”
Like opening our phone to social media after we’ve promised ourselves to cut down on our screen time, it’s characterized by an incessant nagging feeling that needs attending to, even when we don’t really want to engage. You might try to tell the voice to go away, that you’re trying to concentrate, but you know that you have it when not ten minutes later you’re in the kitchen looking for something to eat.
But there is something so forgiving, and perhaps slightly endearing, about the term kuchisabishii.
‘Kuchisabishii’ is a Japanese term which directly translates to ‘lonely mouth’, but it’s a…
