We conducted an awareness survey on 720 university students living in boarding houses/apartments regarding their awareness of dietary habits and health between June and August, 1987. The results were statistically cross-analyzed for significance by the chi-square test between all the items. The results are as follows.
1) The item which respondents were most concerned about was “nutritional balance” at 42.8%. Female students were more concerned than males about the nutritional balance (p<0.01), but males were more concerned about food costs than females (p<0.01).
2) Their evaluation of current dietary life ranged from “not so good” at 40.3% to “average” at 37.0%. More freshmen evaluated their dietary life “good” than sophomores and seniors (p<0.05).
3) Problems in dietary life encountered by the respondents were “nutritional unbalance” (60.0%), “irregular meal hours” (39.6%), “biased diet” (27.4%), and “food costs” (26.1%). Males were more concerned than females about “smoking” (p<0.001), “alcohol intake” (p<0.01), and “food costs” (p<0.05). There were significant regional differences for the items of “nutritional balance”, “food cost”, “too much smoking”, “biased diet”, “skipping meals”, and “no problems”.
4) Forty eight % of respondents indicated their willingness to improve their dietary life.
5) As for their health, 51.6% answered they were “easily fatigued”, and 38.6% had “stiff shoulders”. More females answered they were “easily constipated” and “had irregular bowel movements” (p<0.001), “dizziness” (p<0.001), and “stiff shoulders” (p<0.05). There were significant regional differences for items such as “unable to sleep”, “easily constipated” and “pains in the body”.

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This study was carried out to determine the effect of vinegar on the elution of mineral elements (potassium, sodium, calcium and magnesium) in fresh vegetables on the therapeutic diets using vinegar for renal failure patients. The results were as follows.
1) Potassium contents in fresh vegetables (edible burdock, lotus root, spinach, cabbage and cucumber) were generally high.
2) After the vegetables were washed by shaking in a vessel, no significant differences were observed in elution rate of mineral elements in fresh vegetables (edible burdock, lotus root, spinach and cucumber) between 10% vinegar solution and pure water.
3) After the vegetables were soaked in water, elution rate of potassium in vegetables mentioned in 2) above and magnesium in lotus root increased in 3% vinegar solution.
4) After the vegetables were boiled, the elution rate of potassium, sodium, calcium and magnesium in vegetables mentioned in 2) above was high, especially that of potassium and magnesium, in 3% vinegar solution.
5) After the vegetables were cooked (seasoned by salt, sugar and in part by vinegar), the elution rate of potassium and magnesium in vegetables mentioned in 2) above was fairly high regardless of the use of vinegar.
6) After the vegetables were pickled using vinegar, the elution rate of potassium, calcium and magnesium in cabbage and cucumber was fairly high, and that of sodium low. When the vegetables were pickled using salt, calcium and magnesium contained in cucumber were higher than those contained in fresh state.
These results suggest that vinegar has an effect of diminishing potassium and magnesium contents in vegetables which were soaked, boiled and pickled.

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