2 people choke to death on mochi rice cakes, continuing deadly New Year’s trend in Japan

Despite an annual warning from authorities, a deadly New Year’s trend continued in Japan this week as two people died after choking on mochi — a doughy cake made from steamed sweet rice that is traditionally served to celebrate the new year. Nine people were taken to hospitals in Tokyo after choking on mochi during the first three days of January, Japan Today reported, citing the Tokyo Fire Department. Two of those people, both elderly men, later died.

A man in his 70s choked on mochi at his home in Itabashi, just outside Tokyo, on New Year’s Day, and was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead, local TV reported. Another man in his 80s who lived in the Tokyo suburb of Nerima also died after choking on the delicacy, according to Japan Today.

Mochi is a staple of the Japanese New Year’s holiday menu and is often eaten in a savory soup called ozoni. Emily Anderson, a curator at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, told “CBS Sunday Morning” last month that New Year’s Day is the most important holiday in Japan, and the rice cake delicacy is an integral part of celebrating.

“Eating mochi is a really important part of the most important family-oriented day,” she said.

But the glutinous cakes can easily get stuck in people’s throats, restricting breathing. Choking on mochi is so common that authorities offer tips every year on how to help someone who has the food lodged in their throat. The National Police Agency and the Fire and Disaster Management Agency annually advise people to cut up the rice cakes into small chunks, and to eat them in the presence of someone else, Japan Today reported.

Despite the public warnings, the treats made of pounded, steamed rice have caused suffocation deaths nearly every year, often among elderly people. According to a survey by the Tokyo Fire Department cited by local media, from 2019 to 2023, 368 people were hospitalized with mochi or other items stuck in their throats, and more than 90% of them were people over the age of 65.

In 2022, four elderly women choked to death on the rice cakes and 12 other people were hospitalized. In 2015, nine people were believed to have died taking part in the annual culinary tradition.

In 2001, a woman famously saved her father’s life when she used a vacuum cleaner to dislodge mochi from the 70-year-old man’s throat.