The glorification of industrial food? Japanese convenience stores sandwhiches are OK but do not deserve that kind of praise.
And just with eggs, America has: free range, pasture raised, vegetarian grain-fed, "organic", omega-3 boosted, and any other thing you can image.
I know it's cool to shit on America as an American, and say everything is "better in Japan", but that's not the case. America simply has more variety -- both vastly better and vastly worse. If you can't find better quality eggs in America compared to what's in a mass produced Japanese convenience store sandwich, thats more a reflection on you, rather than on what's available in one of the richest countries in the world with a craze for healthy living.
Also you're making the assumption these sandwiches in Japan 7-11's aren't highly processed -- they are. You're also implying that Japan doesn't have unhealthy fast food like McD -- it does. You're also making the assumption that every town in Japan has a readily available 7-11 -- they don't.
Been living in Japan a decade and counting.
I live a few blocks away from a very high quality co-op.
If I buy the most expensive eggs there, which I believe are around $9 a dozen or so, I can get something approaching the quality of an average egg in Japan.
Japanese eggs have the richness of custard. A raw Japanese egg over rice is a delicious meal all by itself.
> I know it's cool to shit on America as an American, and say everything is "better in Japan", but that's not the case. America simply has more variety -- both vastly better and vastly worse.
I didn't believe the hype about eggs in Japan myself when I first heard it, I thought no way could it be true. Then when I was in Japan I tried eggs for myself, and they are indeed that much better.
Also, better fruit in Mexico, better milk in Scotland, and many countries have better ice cream than America[1]. Lots of immigrants to America also complain that our pork is tasteless, and I think everyone is in agreement now that American chicken is just horrible and bland.
America is REALLY good at mass producing food, and up until a year or so ago, our food prices were very low compared to the rest of the developed world. But to get good food in America, you pay an insane premium. I bought some delicious oranges last week, likely the best I've ever had, but they were $5 each! Meanwhile the $1.99 a pound oranges taste like orange flavored water.
Back to Japan, their food safety and quality standards are so high that you can eat rare chicken meat. That was probably the single largest bit of culture shock I had when visiting!
Again I am sure if you go to a small family farm in America you can get chicken that clean, but not from any store or restaurant. (OK I know a few restaurants co-located with farms that could maybe pull it off.)
[1] Everyone does better pastries than America. The bog standard American cake mix is terrible. Thankfully you can get plenty of non-American style pastries in America, so that isn't an issue so long as you live in a large enough city. Annoyingly enough, for one of Whole Foods best cakes they use a different recipe if you are buying the slice VS the entire cake, by the slice it tastes awful, the entire cake however is completely different and really good!
I wonder if the sandwiches use the "long" eggs that are engineered to reduce the waste when slicing http://blog.livedoor.jp/fox_hunter/archives/51501365.html