Come rain or shine, Takahiko Takahashi, 69, is outdoors joking with customers and packing delicious peaches, mikan (mandarins), nashi (Japanese pears), apples and melons into their shopping baskets. Though he's a Tokyo fruit vendor, he knows and loves his vegetables, too. He even grows his own spinach, komatsuna (Japanese mustard spinach) and cabbages on a plot of land in the city's Edogawa Ward. Always full of energy and in perfect health, Takahashi is a poster boy for the power of fruit and veggies.

Fruits are like babies; they need protection and constant care. Japanese farmers put a lot of effort into growing wonderful products. They individually wrap each fruit — such as biwa (Japanese loquat), apples and bunches of grapes — into paper to protect them from bugs and the cold. They even change the paper as the fruits mature.

Unless parents put dynamite under their kids' butts, they never move or move out. Our son and our daughter are still single and living with us. Sure, we love them, but he's 37, she's 39 and they have no intention of marrying or ever getting a place of their own. Why should they? We've never pressured them to be independent. Now it's too late. They're the perfect parasite singles and only my wife and I are to blame. We spoiled them. Parents should be tougher on their kids or they'll end up like ours, no doubt.