世論 What Japan Thinks

A while back I took a look at bad chopsticks habits, but this time goo Ranking expanded the field to cover bad table manners people just can’t break. However, this time we didn’t get a breakdown by sex.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 26th of September 2008 1,044 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 5.8% in their teens, 12.7% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 12.3% in their fifties, and 9.3% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

I occasionally do 3, I must admit, and at home I always lick the yoghurt lid, and my wife gets annoyed at me sometimes when I don’t do triangle eating. Other than that I claim to be free of all the other habits!

Research results

Q: What bad eating habits can you just not break? (Sample size=1,044)

Rank		Score
1	Reading the newspaper over a meal	100
2	Saving all the good bits to eat last	96.6
3	Licking the cellophane wrapped on cakes	81.7
4	Talking with my mouth full	79.1
5	Pouring miso soup over rice	72.4
6	Cracking raw egg directly over rice instead of using an intermediate bowl	61.6
7	Eating with my elbows on the table	61.2
8	Hovering chopsticks over the plate whilst deciding what to eat	60.1
9	Leaving behind food I dislike	44.4
10	Sniffing food before eating	44.0
11	Nibbling the sweet topping crust off Castella cake	41.0
12	Not eating triangle style (middle is main dish, to the above left and right are rice and side dish; one should take one chopsticks-full from each in turn)	40.7
13	Licking the plate clean	38.8
14	Using bread to scrape the remaining jam, butter out of the container	38.1
15	Licking chopsticks	34.7
16	Putting far too much pepper, spice onto food	34.3
17	Eating instant ramen straight out of the saucepan	33.2
18	Going to the toilet in the middle of a meal	31.0
19=	Stuffing my mouth full of food	28.7
19=	Bringing my mouth to the food instead of the other way around	28.7
21	Putting the chopsticks down directly on the table	28.0
22	Noisy chewing	26.1
23	Slurping spaghetti	25.7
24	Puting on condiments before tasting	23.5
25	Leaving the pizza, bread crust behind	19.0
26	Chewing with my mouth open	14.9
27	Pouring mayonnaise on everything	14.6
28	Scraping my knife on the plate	14.2
29	Eating with the serving chopsticks	12.3
30	Using a toothpick during the meal	11.9