“Hara-katsu”: A concept more important than “Cho-katsu” (gut health)

The term “Cho-katsu” (gut health activities) has become completely integrated into our daily lives.
Yogurt, dietary fiber, lactic acid bacteria. If you go to the supermarket, products touting “gut health” are lined up, and on social media, gut health recipes appear almost every day. This is not a bad thing. In fact, I think it is genuinely gratifying that the importance of the gut has become widely known.

But I have always had a lingering feeling that something just didn't quite fit.
I tried yogurt. I drank lactic acid bacteria supplements. I became conscious of dietary fiber and made sure to eat fermented foods every day. Even if my stomach felt a little better, something was missing. I always had the feeling that something deep inside my body was not responding.
I realize now that I felt the term “gut health” was too light.

In the past, Japanese people referred to the gut as the “Hara” (belly/abdomen).
“Hara o sueru” (to steel oneself), “Hara ga kimaru” (to make up one's mind), “Hara no mushi ga osamaranai” (to be unable to suppress one's anger), “Hara o watte hanasu” (to speak one's mind). As these expressions show, the Hara was not merely a digestive organ. It was the place where a person's will, resolve, and emotions resided. It was the place where one's true feelings lived. That was the Hara.
If you look closely at the kanji for Hara (肚), it is written with the radical for “flesh” and the character for “earth/soil.” Earth, inside the body. To me, this overlaps with the world of countless bacteria living within the gut. When soil is rich in bacteria, what grows there becomes strong and supple. Isn't the Hara the same?
“Hara o sueru” means to make a firm resolve. But this is not just a matter of mental theory; I believe it contains the physical truth that when the Hara in the body is in order, a person can naturally make calm judgments. The expression of anger, “Hara no mushi ga osamaranai,” was also born from the feeling that emotions reside in the gut. Japanese people have known with their bodies since long ago what modern research on the gut-brain axis is now demonstrating.

Below the navel, also called the Dantian. When you place your consciousness there and breathe deeply, your feelings strangely calm down. The practice in martial arts and the tea ceremony of “putting strength into the Dantian” also comes from the Japanese view of the body, which centers on the Hara to align the body and mind.
I believe that traditional Japanese food was a diet for cultivating this Hara.
Miso, soy sauce, pickles, natto, nukazuke (rice bran pickles). Traditional Japanese food was full of fermented products. While this was also wisdom for preservation, it was simultaneously the wisdom of living, cultivated over many years, to keep the intestinal environment rich. Eating seasonal foods, eating local foods, and living with the help of fermentation. I wonder if that lifestyle was what raised people with a “settled Hara.”
Modern dietary habits have greatly changed that foundation. Processed foods, additives, and ingredients available regardless of the season. As things became more convenient, what reached the Hara changed. I think the gut health boom is a reaction to that. But just adding yogurt won't bring back what has been lost.

I have recently come to clearly believe that what I really want to do is not “Cho-katsu” (gut health), but “Hara-katsu” (cultivating the belly/core).
Gut health is about adjusting the gut. Hara-katsu is about cultivating the Hara. These two seem similar, but their foundations are different. Adjusting is for today; cultivating is for life.
Increasing the number of people who have a settled Hara. Increasing the number of people who live with an axis inside themselves. Increasing the number of people who can think and act with their own Hara without being swayed or rushed. I believe that this, in turn, will lead to reclaiming the spiritual foundation of this country.
I believe that enriching the soil and cultivating the Hara are the same thing. Just as invisible life supports the soil, invisible bacteria support the Hara. The accumulation of those small activities will align people, their lives, and this country from the inside out.
Beyond the term “gut health” lies “Hara-katsu.” That is what I am aiming for.

Yoshiko Kunisada
Gut Health Designer / Representative of Tsuchicoto
Through the soil bacteria supplement “Biototono,” I am engaged in activities that connect the soil and the Hara.
Instagram: @tsuchicoto
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