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  • - [George] From calorie count to portion sizes,

  • we wanted to find out all the differences

  • between Pocky in Japan and the US.

  • This is "Food Wars."

  • In Japan, our Pocky comes in a 72-gram box

  • which contains two packets and a nine-pack.

  • (Pocky wrapper crinkles)

  • - Our Pocky's come in basically three sizes.

  • The one 1.14-ounce box, the 2.47-ounce box,

  • and the 4.13-ounce boxy bag.

  • But our strawberry-flavored box is smaller

  • than this chocolate box.

  • This is a 3.81-ounce box,

  • which is 0.32 ounces smaller than this one.

  • Largest box bag is this, the Cookies & Cream flavor,

  • which is 4.57 ounces

  • or 0.44 grams larger than the chocolate box.

  • One theory, my theory,

  • is that the Pocky boxes contain a specific number

  • of Pocky sticks

  • and each Pocky is a different weight

  • based on the flavor coating.

  • So we're gonna weigh each Pocky individually

  • to see if this is true.

  • All right, chocolate first.

  • So seven of these are 13 grams. Can someone write that down?

  • Strawberry, seven is 13 grams.

  • Was that what the first one was? Okay.

  • Cookies & Cream!

  • Cookies & Cream, seven of them are 18 grams.

  • Well, the Cookies & Cream ones are definitely a lot heavier.

  • A lot heavier.

  • (Joe chomping)

  • Mm!

  • - So let's see how many Pocky are in a box.

  • (George counting in Japanese)

  • (audio chirping)

  • 32, 33, 34.

  • Thirty-four Pocky in total.

  • So one packet has 17 Pocky

  • and another one also has 17 Pocky.

  • - Let's see how many Pocky's are in this box.

  • (Pocky wrapper crinkles)

  • (exhales) Oh, man.

  • Is this normal?

  • I think I can kind of like,

  • do you wanna get a close-up on there before?

  • So one, two, three, those are the broken ones.

  • (audio chirping)

  • 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36.

  • You know how everyone was complaining about

  • how I eat Kit-Kats in the Kit-Kat episode?

  • (suspenseful music)

  • (Joe chomps)

  • (Joe chewing)

  • Mm!

  • (upbeat music)

  • Here's all the Pocky's that are native to the US

  • that are not in Japan.

  • - And here are all the Pocky's native to Japan.

  • - Cookies & Cream, Cookies & Cream.

  • Not a solid block, so that's good.

  • (Pocky wrapper crinkles)

  • (Joe chomping)

  • Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  • Mm!

  • I like those.

  • This looks like fun, Yuelei.

  • Chocolate Banana, have you had these before?

  • You have?

  • No, mm-mm.

  • That banana flavor hits right away.

  • Oh, no.

  • Matcha green tea.

  • Any "Food Wars" heads watching know,

  • Joe does not like matcha.

  • Mm, smells like a freshly-cut lawn.

  • (lawnmower rumbles)

  • (Joe chomps)

  • Yeah, nah.

  • There's also a Crunchy Strawberry flavor you can get here

  • in the US,

  • but I was not able to get my hands on it

  • by the time of filming this episode.

  • So here's just regular strawberry.

  • Uh-oh.

  • Oh, another solid block.

  • Yeah.

  • (Joe chomps) (audience gasps)

  • Mm, yeah, dude.

  • Put me in jail for crimes against Pocky's.

  • - George's energy.

  • Bong, let's go!

  • All right, let's start with this one.

  • We have Pocky Luxury Milk Chocolate.

  • (laughs) Is it Pocky?

  • You look like corn dog.

  • What happened to you?

  • Hmm.

  • It's got milk and fermented butter flavor.

  • And we have another corn dog.

  • It's a Almond Milk flavor.

  • (George speaks in Japanese)

  • Mm.

  • It has strong almond milk flavor.

  • I prefer this one, the milk chocolate,

  • but both are so short.

  • You should be longer.

  • (whistle screeches)

  • You too!

  • We have this ultra-thin Pocky.

  • Oh. (laughs)

  • You are so thin this time.

  • This one is short.

  • This one is so thin.

  • We have Tasty.

  • Why is it Tasty?

  • Oh, fermented butter is used for this stick.

  • Ooh.

  • (George chomps)

  • It's got just a little bit of butter flavor.

  • I still prefer this one, this corn dog.

  • Almond Crush.

  • It's a little different. Look at the packets.

  • Yeah, obviously, it's got almonds.

  • Okey-dokey, Pocky.

  • (George speaks in Japanese)

  • I love this.

  • I love this.

  • Mm.

  • We've got Pocky Chocolate Coconut.

  • Oh, this one is also this style of packets.

  • Oh.

  • It's pretty similar with this one, Almond Crush.

  • (George chomps)

  • Hmm?

  • Yeah, obviously, it's got coconut flavor,

  • and also, it's got a little bit of saltiness.

  • It's not my taste.

  • Strawberry chocolate Pocky.

  • (George chomps)

  • Oh.

  • Ah.

  • Right after you bite this, you get some sweetness.

  • But after that, you get sourness.

  • It smells so strong.

  • I can smell it from here.

  • Cocoa powder Pocky,

  • And it says you can only get this in winter season.

  • Oh yeah, look at this. It's got cocoa powder.

  • (George speaks in Japanese)

  • (George's lips smack)

  • We've got the cutest Pocky ever.

  • Cherry heart-shaped Pocky.

  • Aha.

  • Oh, look at this!

  • Heart! It's in there.

  • How cute.

  • And this part, cherry chocolate is so awesome.

  • You get strong cherry flavor.

  • We've also got blueberry heart-shaped chocolate Pocky.

  • (Pocky wrapper crinkles)

  • Ooh, look at this.

  • So blue.

  • This color doesn't make me want to eat this, but let's try.

  • (George speaks in Japanese)

  • Ooh!

  • Mm.

  • So sour.

  • But look at this heart-shaped Pocky.

  • Not for me.

  • This is what I've been waiting for, sakura matcha.

  • So "sakura" means cherry blossom.

  • Cherry blossom matcha taste.

  • Ooh.

  • Look at this!

  • So it's got matcha chocolate

  • and this stick is pink.

  • (George chomps)

  • Mm, this is so Japanese-y Pocky.

  • Just sweet matcha.

  • The feeling of spring has come to my life.

  • (bird chirping)

  • Spring days here in my body.

  • (George sings in Japanese)

  • Everybody's curious what these are.

  • Megami no Ruby.

  • Otona no Kohaku.

  • What does it mean?

  • I don't even know. (laughs)

  • Anyway, so it says Megami no Ruby.

  • It means like, "Goddess Ruby".

  • Otona no Kohaku, in English, it says, "amber."

  • Kind of like stone, fossil, jewel.

  • It says it goes well with red wine.

  • Interesting.

  • Ta-da!

  • It looks like regular chocolate Pocky.

  • (George chomps)

  • Oh?

  • What is this?

  • This taste itself is like berries.

  • This one goes well with whiskey.

  • (George chomps)

  • Huh?

  • It's pretty close to dark chocolate, it's bitter.

  • In Japan, we have this Gokuboso extra-fine Pocky,

  • which are roughly half the thickness

  • of a regular chocolate Pocky.

  • - In the US, ours are called the Ultra Slim.

  • - I got a new digital scale.

  • What I'm gonna do is weigh a regular chocolate Pocky.

  • 2.13 grams.

  • So ultra thin Pocky.

  • So it weighs 1.52 grams.

  • - Thinner, that's it?

  • Here's a big boy.

  • Here's the thin.

  • Is it able to do this?

  • Can I get out of the way so it's just the white background?

  • 23, 24, 25, and there's another bag in here, so 50 per box.

  • Okay, so 50 instead of 36.

  • Seven regular Pocky's are 13 grams.

  • Let's see how many slim ones we needed to get to 13 grams.

  • 5, 6, 7, 8 1/2.

  • Eight and a half slim ones are the same

  • as seven regular ones.

  • Is that that much slimmer?

  • I guess that's slimmer.

  • Does anyone think that's not significant enough

  • to be a selling point?

  • Pocky adjusts its sweetness for different countries.

  • Not surprisingly, the US ones are meant to be sweeter.

  • I'm gonna do a taste test side by side.

  • We got the American ones and the Japanese one,

  • and we're gonna see just how different they taste.

  • I'm worried that these are also gonna be a Pocky popsicle.

  • Oh no, okay.

  • Japanese.

  • These are only Japanese ones I can find.

  • Obviously, they're bigger. I don't know if this is the norm.

  • (Joe chomps)

  • Mm-hm, in the baseline sweetness.

  • Yeah.

  • Mm.

  • (Joe chomps)

  • Yeah, it's noticeably different.

  • They taste identical, but ours has a sweet aftertaste.

  • I like the Japanese ones much better.

  • - So Pocky is in the Guinness World Records three times.

  • It's the largest chocolate-coated biscuits brand,

  • has the most mentions of a brand name

  • on Twitter in 24 hours,

  • which was 3,710,044 times.

  • And finally, it was part

  • of the most people opening packaged food online

  • simultaneously with 143 people.

  • - 143 people, that's it?

  • That doesn't seem like that many.

  • I feel like I've been on Zoom work calls

  • with 143 people in it, right?

  • It would've been literally one email to set that up.

  • - I can do (George speaks in Japanese).

  • Pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom.

  • Now I got more than 200 George's clones right here.

  • Simultaneously, three, two, one.

  • Boom.

  • Now I broke the Guinness World Records.

  • So November 11th is known as a Pocky (speaks in Japanese)

  • or Pocky Day in Japan.

  • This date was chosen because a Pocky is shaped like a one.

  • At November 11th, visually, it looks like four Pocky.

  • And also, Pretz are included in this day, November 11th,

  • which is the pretzel version of Pocky.

  • And in Japan, you can get them in flavors like Salad,

  • Ripe Tomato, Sweet Potato, and Roasted Bread flavor.

  • In the US, we also have Pretz,

  • and we get these fun flavors like Sweet Corn, fun,

  • and Pizza.

  • Oh, God.

  • It has nothing on it.

  • (Joe chomps)

  • Nope.

  • I mean, yeah, it tastes like corn.

  • Why though?

  • What is the demand for corn-flavored sticks?

  • (Joe sighs)

  • Besides pizza, anything flavored like pizza is terrible.

  • Even pizza combos aren't very good.

  • (Pretz wrapper crinkles)

  • No.

  • (Joe chomps)

  • I mean, it's up there with croutons.

  • Does anyone grab a handful of croutons on-the-go?

  • And would just eating a box of croutons.

  • These probably would be good on something.

  • (catchy music)

  • - In Japan, our chocolate Pocky box,

  • per 100 grams, has 506 calories.

  • Adjusted for the box size, 72 grams,

  • the package contains 364.3 calories.

  • And let's break it down even further to per Pocky.

  • One Pocky contains, on average, 11.38 calories.

  • - A US chocolate Pocky box contains 340 calories.

  • Just a little bit less than a Japanese box,

  • but note, there is a two-gram difference.

  • Now here at "Food Wars", we thrive on scientific accuracy.

  • So let's break it down per Pocky.

  • One US Pocky is 9.44444444444444444...

  • calories.

  • - The highest-calorie Pocky in Japan is to be determined.

  • We emailed the customer service,

  • but we didn't get their response.

  • What are you doing? Hurry up!

  • But I guess this Pocky is the most calorific Pocky.

  • It's 196 calories.

  • So it should be 'cause it's got a lot of butter in it.

  • - The US Pocky

  • with the most calories is the Cookies & Cream.

  • It contains total 630 calories.

  • There's no question I can murder this whole box

  • in one sitting.

  • 630 calories? That's nothing.

  • That's kind of reassuring like, "Wow, only 630?

  • Found my breakfast!"

  • (steady music)

  • - Japa-Pocky contains these ingredients.

  • Wheat flour, sugar, cacao mass, vegetable oils,

  • whole-milk powder, shortening, malt extract,

  • starch, salt, yeast, cocoa powder, butter,

  • emulsifier, flavoring, leavening agent, annatto coloring,

  • and mineral salt.

  • - Any US Pocky contains wheat flour, sugar,

  • chocolate liquor, blend of vegetable oils,

  • that blend being sunflower oil, palm oil,

  • whole-milk powder, vegetable oil shortening,

  • which is palm oil, hydrogenated palm oil, and cocoa butter,

  • salt, artificial flavors, yeast, soy lecithin,

  • leavening, sodium bicarbonate,

  • mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids.

  • Wink.

  • - In Japan, our Pocky contains malt extract,

  • which is sometimes used as a replacement

  • for sugar in baking.

  • It contains lots of maltose,

  • a type of sugar

  • which actually has a higher glycemic index value

  • than normal sucrose.

  • So it's a surprise that American Pocky are supposed

  • to be sweeter.

  • - There are actually differences in the types of cocoa used.

  • If you've watched the "US versus UK Snickers" episode,

  • you know that American chocolate is not so great.

  • In the US, our Pockys are made with chocolate liquor

  • and cocoa butter.

  • Chocolate liquor is just cocoa that's been processed

  • into semisolid form,

  • and it's actually around 50% cocoa butter itself.

  • The trouble is for an American product

  • to be classified as milk chocolate,

  • it only needs to contain around 10% of chocolate liquor,

  • and the rest can be made up of sugars

  • and various ingredients.

  • - In Japan, the rules are different,

  • depending on the type of product.

  • Milk chocolate material must contain

  • at least 21% cocoa content,

  • double the required amount in America.

  • So our chocolate has more chocolate.

  • Are you jealous of us?

  • Come to Japan.

  • - So if I had to go favorite flavors,

  • I'm gonna go number one, number two.

  • These two Pocky.

  • These are the best ones.

  • Grab your glocky when you see two Pocky.

- [George] From calorie count to portion sizes,

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