Eating in Japan with Crohns

I recently visited Japan on holiday, which while being a dream place for me to visit - was also slightly terrifying with my diet and not being able to communicate it well (or at all really), so I thought it might be a good idea to drop my notes on here as an article for anyone else in the same boat in the future.

Firstly, Google Translate is a life saver… you can use the camera mode to scan dishes to know what they are, but also write specific requests for the staff when you’re ordering.

Tip: When ordering using Google translate, use specific easy to understand English like “Large plain rice bowl” and show them the Japanese text. Then try and speak as much Japanese as you can around that to be polite.

Anyway, here was my safe list:

• Nigiri, Sashimi and Maki rolls are mostly safe (raw fish, rice and seaweed - sometimes wasabi which I also find was safe)
• Ordering sashimi and a rice bowl to make my own safe rice bowl with soy sauce
• Cooked crab, prawn and shrimp are also safe and always seemed to be cooked plain, can also be used to make a rice bowl.

And, when I got desperate and wasn’t sure what to do… I’ll admit I did resort to Subway sandwiches a few times. While not quite the Japanese cuisine I was after… did provide something safe to get me through. Subway is a lot better in Japan though to be honest.

Now for the not so safe…

I tried really hard to find a safe ramen and failed. The broth is super complex with mushroom and pork fats etc that didn’t agree with me at all.

A good alternative I found is to order Japanese dipping noodles, which is Udon noodles with a simple soy sauce. You can also sometimes add prawns to this as well.

Milk is (surprisingly) in nearly all bread. What I did early was to try and find an artisan bakery that did more of a French style baguette or baton, then tried to translate and ask about milk (miruk in Japanese).

I really enjoy the Japanese alcohol drink Sake but I think this upset my stomach half way after visiting a Sake bar. This needs to be experimented with in moderation!

Lastly, I tended to go for the leaner fish when ordering (which is cheaper!). I found that the “fatty” and “belly” options for Tuna and Salmon gave me some issues.

Hopefully this helps someone else one day! Id love to hear other people’s experiences and compare notes.