世論 What Japan Thinks

To follow up on the recent look at confectionery consumption, here’s a related silly survey from goo Ranking into strange ways of eating sweets.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of March 2009 1,043 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample were male, 7.8% in their teens, 17.1% in their twenties, 28.2% in their thirties, 24.8% in their forties, 11.4% in their fifties, and 10.7% 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.

My strange way is that I used to peel all the chocolate off Kit-Kats back in the UK and suck the chocolate off Penguin Biscuits, but I cannot lay claim to any odd sweets-eating habits in Japan. I’ve never seen Jelly Babies (or Peeps for the Americans) in Japan outside of import stores, so there are no reports in the list below of people starting with a decapitation.

Here’s a bunch of pretty boys doing number 1, eating their Tongari Corn from their fingers:

Ranking result

Q: In what strange ways do you eat sweets? (Sample size=1,043)

Rank	Sweet	Method	Score
1	Tongari Corn (Cone-shaped corn snack)	Put on my finger and bite off	100
2	Kinoko no Yama (Chocolate mushroom with biscuit stalk)	Eat the chocolate first	96.2
3	Apollo (Cone with top half strawberry, bottom half ordinary chocolate)	Bite off the ordinary chocolate and strawberry chocolate separately	78.1
4	Oreos	Separate the biscuits and eat them	77.6
5	Baumkuchen	Peel off strips and eat	77.2
6	Pocky (Chocolate-covered biscuit stick)	Lick the chocolate off first	62.9
7	Almond Choco (Chocolate-covered almond)	Lick the chocolate off first	54.0
8	Poteco (Ring-shaped Hula Hoop-like snack)	Put on my finger and bite off	52.7
9	Collon (Cream-filled wafer cylinder)	Bite off the outside layer to leave just the cream	40.5
10	Chipstar (Like Pringles)	Stuff them whole into my mouth	38.4
11	Home Pie (Sugary biscuit)	Break into strips and eat each	34.2
12=	Kappa Ebisen (Puffed rice snack)	Let them melt in my mouth	24.1
12=	High Lemon (Boiled sweet)	Suck them right down to their thinnest	24.1
14=	Crinkle-cut crisps	Eat each crinkle individually	23.6
14=	Pocky (Chocolate-covered biscuit stick)	Eat the chocolate-free end first	23.6
16	Marble Choco (Smarties (Plain M&Ms))	Skillfully remove the outside only	23.2
17	Karl (Puffed corn snack)	Let them melt in my mouth	21.5
18	Baby Star Ramen (Dried ramen with nuts, etc)	Soak them in warm water then eat	20.3
19	Alfort (Chocolate-topped rectangular digestive)	Eat the chocolate first	16.9
20	Toppo (Inside-out Pocky)	Eat everything except the chocolate	15.6