In Japan, carbohydrate contents in the three meals, especially in breakfast, are considerably higher than in western countries. Rice has long been used as the main carbohydrate source so that it has come to be called the main dish. Dishes composed of other than carbohydrates, such as, fish, meat, yellow and green vegetables, are all called side dishes.
A recent tendency, however, is that people taking bread as the main dish instead of rice have increased in number especially among urban populations. This report makes an attempt to find out any difference in the composition of side dishes between those who choose rice and those who choose bread as the main dish. Data have been extracted from 378 cases randomly chosen from the November 1975 Nutrition Survey of Yamaguchi Prefecture.
The results showed that preference of rice or bread caused some different patterns of intake for each group of side dishes, and this led to different levels of nutrient intake between the rice and bread groups. Cereals accounted for a larger portion of total energy intake in menus containing rice than in those containing bread. Conversely, the proportion of animal protein in total protein intake was lower in the former than in the latter.