Are Japanese People Losing Traditional Eating Habits?

On January 7th, there is a traditional custom called "Nanakusa" and people eat special rice porridge with 7 kinds of vegetables which is shown in the lower right hand side photo. 

"Nana-kusa" directly means "Seven Grass". The seven kinds ingredients for this traditional porridge are exactly decided but most of them are nowadays considered as the weeds rather than vegetables. In ancient times people often took their cooking ingredients from fields, so the custom keeps a vestige of the old eating habits.

During New Year’s holidays, most Japanese people have gatherings with family and friends. Even after the holidays ended people would have New Year's parties until the end of the traditional New Year's celebration period, 7th (or sometimes 15th). Therefore people tend to have lots of food and drinks during the days, and eating rice porridge containing leaf vegetables on January 7th would be a good break for the stomach. So, "Nanakusa" is a custom of an ancestral wisdom.

However, since people just use common vegetables from shops for their daily cooking nowadays, this custom may be becoming a very unfamiliar cooking. Thus, today we can find a detailed instruction in the set of the seven ingredients of "Nanakusa" porridge when we buy it from shops.

As you can see in the instruction paper on the lower left hand side photo, there are illustrations of the seven kind of ingredient plants with the cooking direction. What's more, there is a note to explain about trifling matters of the ingredients. For example, "one of the ingredient leaves might have a black spots on it but it is a natural feature of the grass", or "the other one might contain seeds with it but the seeds are also edible", and so on. 

Perhaps, some people are completely forgetting about old eating habits cooking wild plants and became too picky about unfamiliar food in these days...?