From our other sites
The story
A thread on 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo board) titled “Once you’re over 30 you can’t eat fatty short rib anymore” sparked an age-based debate over BBQ fat. The thread starter complained of feeling bloated right after eating yakiniku, but posters in their 20s and 30s pushed back hard: “I can eat as much as I want even at 40,” “Isn’t that just individual differences?” On the other hand, some admitted to real physical changes that come with age — “my joints and autonomic nervous system are wrecked,” “marbled wagyu is genuinely rough these days” — and plenty shared how they’d come to prefer offal or alcohol over fatty cuts. The discussion ended up going deeper than a simple young-versus-old split.
What people said
I can eat as much as I want even at 40
Come on, that's pushing it
But you do start preferring skirt steak over fatty short rib
I can still put away a slice of short rib with rice just fine
but my joints and autonomic nervous system are wrecked
Feels like it just comes down to individual differences
Maybe you're just broke and can't afford it at your age
↓
Can scarf down burgers and pizza no problem
how long are you gonna keep this up
Eat it and I get diarrhea 100% of the time
Yeah, that's basically it
Yeah, that might be a factor too
One drumstick
One crispy piece
Coleslaw
One biscuit
Me: *burp*… don't need dinner tonight 🥺
Isn't that kind of rough
honestly it's weird that people treat that stuff like it's precious, it's basically all fat
Apparently even Americans who pig out on T-bone steaks find it tough going
this whole take is really just vanity dressed up as an argument — like enjoying it makes you look like a kid, so people front otherwise
It's basically like bragging about not sleeping
it's embarrassing
If that's the goal, steak and rice seems like the better call honestly
with BBQ you're grilling it yourself bit by bit and taking your time, so isn't that kind of built around drinking
if I'm the designated driver at a barbecue though, I go all-in on grilled rice balls and fatty meat
Yeah, that's pretty much it
young guys can just plow through fatty meat and rice
it gets tougher as you get older
If I'd been drinking since I was young, I don't think I'd have eaten white rice with it
without alcohol, even a middle-aged guy will eat rice with fatty meat — it's just that you wouldn't pick a BBQ place for a no-drinking occasion in the first place
At 35 you might still be fine
but bit by bit it shifts from rice-and-short-rib
toward
offal-and-booze
pro baseball players, for instance, have insanely strong stomachs
Well, there's some truth to that
Nah, with BBQ it's rice, hands down
rice over booze
If I'm not drinking, I just want to eat quick and head home, so a steakhouse works better for me
BBQ places take forever
if I am drinking though, I'd rather be lazily grilling meat myself, so BBQ it is
Yeah, young people really do want white rice with their BBQ
they can handle rice plus booze together no problem
That's possible too, but the booze tastes better without white rice
cut the rice and drink twice as much instead — you'll get wrecked, trust me
haven't eaten it in like 7-8 years now
I still eat ramen occasionally even though it's just as heavy
but with age I've genuinely shifted from meat to fish
Every time I eat Ramen Jiro-style ramen (a famously huge, greasy ramen chain) I get diarrhea, but somehow when I'm starving enough I still want to go back for more, no matter how many times it happens
Background and key points
Threads like this are a recurring genre on 5ch — the “getting older” thread — and there’s no established medical consensus here. As one poster in the thread put it, “how tough your gut is varies a lot person to person,” so tolerance for fatty meat seems to hinge more on individual constitution and everyday diet than on age alone. What’s notable is that most of the pushback wasn’t really about being unable to eat fatty meat at all, but about how people’s eating style changes. Several posters described shifting away from piling rice with fatty cuts toward favoring offal and tongue that pair well with alcohol — framing it less as declining digestion with age and more as a change in how they relate to drinking and personal taste. Note that some posts disparaging other commenters have been left out of this writeup.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo board) thread “Middle-aged guy: “Once you’re over 30 you can’t eat fatty short rib anymore” 20-something me: “As if lol”“.
Leave a Reply