If you want the ultimate in "The staff ate it later" watch Steven Raichlen's Project Smoke on PBS. The crew of that show eat like Kings.

https://www.pbs.org/show/steven-raichlens-project-smoke/

this seems to be making its way to western shows as well - when taskmaster has a food based challenge, they often include a reassurance that the food didn't go to waste. and i've seen similar on some youtube shows.

for example: https://youtu.be/_gNZR5IEsAA?si=x5nvoBzC9Xc4fxFs&t=1674

The whole “the staff ate it later” routine is really just a symptom of a broader intolerance in Japanese media. After years of getting complaints over the most innocuous things, Japanese TV shows have started slapping disclaimers on everything, even the most trivial situations.

You see it everywhere: statements like “this is just one of many possible hypotheses” to appease people who might disagree, though to be fair, Western media sometimes include similar disclaimers, or “this was filmed with the owner’s permission” even when it is not really necessary. Then there is the excessive blurring—if someone with even a minor scandal appears, they are edited out or blurred, and a message like “this was recorded on MM-DD” pops up, all to avoid viewers asking, “Why is this person on TV?”

Of course, I understand the need for disclaimers in situations that really warrant them, such as scientific experiments that require proper oversight. But the disclaimers added just to dodge silly complaints do nothing but infantilize viewers, and honestly, they are kind of insulting.

Ultimately, this is part of a bigger problem with Japanese TV. It has dumbed itself down to the lowest common denominator, pandering to the most vocal complainers who often lack basic critical thinking skills. This is not unique to TV, either; Japanese businesses in general have long been hypersensitive to the “customer is always right” mindset. Thankfully, there is some pushback against that now. Still, TV is especially vulnerable since broadcasters get access to public airwaves at relatively low cost and are expected to act like a public utility, making them an easy target for complaints.

Ironically, all of this is helping drive younger generations away from TV, not just as a medium, but because the shows themselves feel less and less relevant.

Having spent my first couple years right out of college at a production company that shot a lot of ads for a grocery chain I can assure you that I took as much food home with me as possible

I used to work in an R&D type environment as a mobile developer. Once in a while, people would go into a room nearby to test bread for the stores. Of course, they got whole loaves but only needed to taste a little, so I got free bread. Didn't have a big enough freezer at the time though, so I couldn't get as much as I wanted to.

And I used to live with an Indonesian lady (student housing, but she was in her 40's, I think she worked for the embassy), she had a friend or relative that had a restaurant and would sometimes come home with foodstuffs like a bag of cooked chicken or fish rolls.

I wish some of these cooking competition reality shows would declare this kind of thing. One recent competition one "Is It Cake?" constantly trucks out these sort of demonstration items where some true wizard behind the scenes is making a ton of lifelike items that the actual contestants have to guess about just to determine their own order/ranking in the competition. I always wonder what happens to all of the cake from just that portion of the show (and some other segments). The 'Kraft services table' in the back much be epic etc

I'd contrast this with the game show "Double Dare".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Dare_(franchise)

I hope the staff didn't eat the food later, as the competitors often had to swim in it or crawl through it. I think it was generally real food, which was occasionally controversial (maybe it would have been more controversial in Japan?).

I genuinely thought this would be about a temporal dog-ate-my-homework sort of thing. Really.

I’m glad that Japanese society cares this much about food waste. We could use more of that where I am (USA).

I read somewhere that there's more English articles on Japanese topics in wikipedia than the entire japanese wikipedia.

Seems to check out true. HN types really seem to love their Japan.

I’m Japanese, and in Japan it’s pretty common for TV shows or YouTubers to get called out if they look like they’re wasting food. Japanese people really expect food not to be treated carelessly. Folks would love to see a “No food was wasted” one.