The autumn of appetite

Why the body wants more food when the weather cools, five autumn foods worth eating a lot of, and six habits that let you enjoy the season without giving back a year of progress.

There’s an old Japanese phrase — shokuyoku no aki, “the autumn of appetite” — that acknowledges what everybody notices anyway. Something about early September, once the humidity breaks, makes people hungry. The persimmons ripen. The chestnuts come in. The saury runs. If you have a garden, the sweet potatoes are ready.

For older adults who need to manage weight and blood sugar, this can be a difficult season. The food is genuinely wonderful, and the body genuinely wants more of it, and the two together can undo a year of careful eating in six weeks. What follows is how to enjoy the season without losing ground.

Why the appetite shows up

Three overlapping mechanisms.

Cooler weather raises the body’s energy demand slightly. The brain notices and sends “eat more” signals. This is an ancient survival system that assumed you’d need to fatten a little before winter. In a modern heated home, the demand isn’t real — but the signal still fires.

Shorter days reduce serotonin, and lower serotonin correlates with increased appetite and mood-related eating. This is why “seasonal depression” often shows up as, among other things, wanting to eat more carbohydrates.

And the body is recovering from a Japanese summer, which is exhausting for older adults. There’s a natural instinct to rebuild, and appetite is part of that.

None of this is pathology. But it does mean autumn is a season where “listening to your body” produces different behavior than in other months, and where a bit of deliberate structure serves you better than instinct.

The autumn foods worth eating a lot of

Mushrooms

Shiitake, maitake, and enoki all contain beta-glucans, a class of polysaccharide that appears to modulate immune function in useful ways. Low calorie, high fiber, satisfying, and everywhere in Japanese autumn cooking. Put them in soups, stir-fries, gratins. It’s hard to eat too many.

Sweet potato

Vitamin C that survives cooking. Fiber that helps satiety. But also real carbohydrate content, so treat it as a starch rather than a vegetable. If you eat a sweet potato with dinner, reduce the rice portion accordingly. The traditional preparation — yaki-imo, roasted whole — is one of the great small pleasures of Japanese autumn.

Persimmon

An old proverb: “when persimmons turn red, doctors turn pale.” The vitamin C content is remarkably high for a fruit — a single medium persimmon delivers around 70% of the daily target. One a day is a good target. More than two, and the natural sugar content starts to matter for blood glucose.

Autumn oily fish

Sanma (Pacific saury), when it’s in season, is one of the best sources of EPA and DHA in the Japanese diet. Salmon carries similar benefits. These omega-3 fatty acids reduce systemic inflammation, and for older adults with any inflammatory condition — from arthritis to cardiovascular disease — the effect is measurable over months. Two or three fish meals a week.

Lotus root

Renkon. Vitamin C, plus a mucilaginous compound that supports respiratory tract linings — useful heading into the winter cold and flu season. Simmered, stir-fried, or in tempura if you’re feeling festive.

Eating well without eating too much

The autumn problem isn’t the food. It’s the volume. Six practical habits:

Start every meal with soup or vegetables

A hot miso soup with mushrooms fills the stomach and warms the gut, and by the time you get to the rice you’re already partly satisfied. This one habit, done consistently, reduces total intake by 10 to 15% without any conscious portion control.

Chew like your grandmother told you to

The satiety center in the brain — the ventromedial hypothalamus — takes about 20 minutes to respond to food arriving in the stomach. If you finish the meal in 8 minutes, you feel satisfied 12 minutes after you’ve already overeaten. Chewing more, and putting the chopsticks down between bites, gives the biology time to catch up.

Don’t skip meals

Skipping breakfast or lunch means arriving at the next meal genuinely hungry, and that hunger drives disproportionate intake. Three regular meals is more forgiving than any diet strategy.

Smaller plates

The trick is well-documented in behavioral nutrition research. A smaller plate makes a smaller portion look substantial, and satiety tracks with visual cues more than most people admit. Get a set of slightly smaller bowls for the fall.

Watch the carbohydrate stacking

A meal of sweet potato, chestnut rice, and a persimmon for dessert is delicious, and delivers a substantial carbohydrate load in one sitting. If two of those items are on the table, drop the third to fruit-only or a small piece of dark chocolate.

Walk after dinner

Fifteen minutes after the main meal moves post-prandial glucose out of the bloodstream and into muscle where it’s used. Especially valuable in autumn when meals are heavier.

Immune support, actually

Cold and flu season starts in October in Japan and runs through March. Diet won’t prevent all illness, but a well-nourished immune system responds better to vaccines and shrugs off minor exposures more efficiently. The autumn foods above cover the bases.

Get the annual influenza vaccine in October or early November. If you’re 65 or older and haven’t had the pneumococcal vaccine in five years, ask your doctor. These two interventions have more effect on winter respiratory illness than any food.

The point of the season

Autumn in Japan is the culinary high point of the year for most people. It’s meant to be enjoyed. The goal isn’t to grimly endure a season of temptation — the goal is to eat the persimmon and the saury and the sweet potato without also gaining five kilos and drifting your blood sugar upward.

Structure the meals, walk after dinner, and let yourself enjoy the food. The two things are compatible, and neither has to lose.