Method homemade mochi and alcohol as a method seems so simple

[idelttoilfsadness21]

Researched that it's a chocking hazard, you barely feel a thing from eating bit, but when shallowing will be hard, unless you get drunk before passing out.

Mochi is can be made from corn starch or any powdered starch but is from sweet flour from the sticky rice from the glutinous pasted floured rice that is then made in a stove top to form or the wikipedia written description of it being from sweet flour that is mixed with water and cooked on a stovetop or in the microwave until it forms a sticky, opaque, white mass. This process is performed twice, stirring the mass in between until it becomes malleable and slightly transparent.

I may be wrong about this, but after seeing the reports and the videos on this, would anyone use this as a method of some kind?

Also, its pretty simple, and you just need alcohol and get drunk before chewing on it right after making it... and its the stickiness that makes it quite simple too...

 

[TheHolySword]

I haven't really heard of choking as a method but it doesn't seem very efficient or peaceful. A lot can definitely go wrong, and lack of oxygen can cause serious damage. Other methods also involve lack of oxygen but they are more effective and easier to plan with less variables. Choking just sounds terrifying to me, and there's no guarantee it would work or even how long it would take (it's all dependent on airway blockage). Not to mention overcoming SI when it comes to purposefully trying to swallow something too big, your body will be fighting you even if you're drunk - plus being drunk increases likelihood to vomit which may interrupt the process. I personally would not try this or recommend this, but others may have different opinions

 

[idelttoilfsadness21]

I haven't really heard of choking as a method but it doesn't seem very efficient or peaceful. A lot can definitely go wrong, and lack of oxygen can cause serious damage. Other methods also involve lack of oxygen but they are more effective and easier to plan with less variables. Choking just sounds terrifying to me, and there's no guarantee it would work or even how long it would take (it's all dependent on airway blockage). Not to mention overcoming SI when it comes to purposefully trying to swallow something too big, your body will be fighting you even if you're drunk - plus being drunk increases likelihood to vomit which may interrupt the process. I personally would not try this or recommend this, but others may have different opinions

I definitely agree with the fact that anything can go wrong, but a lot of Japanese people ctb accidentally during New Years that there's first Responders always around because they are aware it actually has that sort of impact, and mainly targets older generations or children, but with adults who do take it in their 20s or 30s - which is rarely reported and would need to read Japanese media some more, they get drunk and forget to chew the mochi, and its so common and the latest reports I could find was around from 2006 and its still ongoing every year that its more common to talk about because more tourists are around and it could be a concern for safety if they would be around that without any awareness or were there for the hospitals and accidentally died there.

Edit: this report is funny to me because after sharing a death, they still bring up the fact mochi was introduced in the west forgetting that a death happened while talking about it like nothing happened... classic dystopian world.

 

[SilentSadness]

I found a paper on food deaths in Japan, which includes statements about mochi (https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jea/advpub/0/advpub_JE20200057/_pdf). It doesn't say whether it's painful but it does say "the median age of those included was 82 (inter-quartile range, 74-89)" along with a graph showing a much higher rate of deaths for the elderly. It also says "Overall, the
number of food choking deaths was relatively stable at
approximately 4,000 each year" and increases with age.
I also found a serious-looking article (https://gooday.nikkei.co.jp/atcl/column/22/091100011/121500005/?ST=m_bodycare) which has some information (machine translated):
"A choking accident that causes such a mochi to clog a throat is called "choking due to airway foreign matter." The food is stuck in the airway and I can't breathe. Hypoxemia occurs when a foreign object enters the airways and blocks it, leading to cardiac arrest in about 5 minutes."
"Many of the first-year suffocated accidents were elderly people over the age of 75, with the highest number in their 80s."
There are also lots of articles making claims which may or may not be true:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42537953 - "If not chewed but simply swallowed, the sticky mochi gets stuck in the throat - and can lead to suffocation."
https://grapeejapan.com/130697 - "Consciousness will fade within a few minutes."
https://soranews24.com/2018/01/02/m...-food-causes-two-deaths-in-tokyo-on-january-1 - "15 Tokyo residents were taken to the hospital for emergency medical treatment as they gagged on mochi."
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9723371 - "emergency endoscopy revealed 10 completely intact round mochi ... which remained intact after as long as 5 days."
https://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(20)30124-6/fulltext - "Among the 314 people who choked because of mochi during 8 years in Osaka, 43 (13.7%) choked on January 1 and 77 people (24.5%) experienced choking for 3 days, starting on January 1."
I am skeptical that alcohol would considerably numb the pain of choking to death.
Overall this is well documented as a cause of death but not as a suicide method. I could not find any known cases of suicide by mochi. Throughout the articles I have seen repeated claims about it affecting elderly people much more, and of course the claim that it leads to cardiac arrest after 5 minutes is very problematic. This would need a lot more evidence of successful use to be considered for suicide. That's my opinion.

 

[idelttoilfsadness21]

I found a paper on food deaths in Japan, which includes statements about mochi (https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jea/advpub/0/advpub_JE20200057/_pdf). It doesn't say whether it's painful but it does say "the median age of those included was 82 (inter-quartile range, 74-89)" along with a graph showing a much higher rate of deaths for the elderly. It also says "Overall, the
number of food choking deaths was relatively stable at
approximately 4,000 each year" and increases with age.
I also found a serious-looking article (https://gooday.nikkei.co.jp/atcl/column/22/091100011/121500005/?ST=m_bodycare) which has some information (machine translated):
"A choking accident that causes such a mochi to clog a throat is called "choking due to airway foreign matter." The food is stuck in the airway and I can't breathe. Hypoxemia occurs when a foreign object enters the airways and blocks it, leading to cardiac arrest in about 5 minutes."
"Many of the first-year suffocated accidents were elderly people over the age of 75, with the highest number in their 80s."
There are also lots of articles making claims which may or may not be true:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42537953 - "If not chewed but simply swallowed, the sticky mochi gets stuck in the throat - and can lead to suffocation."
https://grapeejapan.com/130697 - "Consciousness will fade within a few minutes."
https://soranews24.com/2018/01/02/m...-food-causes-two-deaths-in-tokyo-on-january-1 - "15 Tokyo residents were taken to the hospital for emergency medical treatment as they gagged on mochi."
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9723371 - "emergency endoscopy revealed 10 completely intact round mochi ... which remained intact after as long as 5 days."
https://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572(20)30124-6/fulltext - "Among the 314 people who choked because of mochi during 8 years in Osaka, 43 (13.7%) choked on January 1 and 77 people (24.5%) experienced choking for 3 days, starting on January 1."
I am skeptical that alcohol would considerably numb the pain of choking to death.
Overall this is well documented as a cause of death but not as a suicide method. I could not find any known cases of suicide by mochi. Throughout the articles I have seen repeated claims about it affecting elderly people much more, and of course the claim that it leads to cardiac arrest after 5 minutes is very problematic. This would need a lot more evidence of successful use to be considered for suicide. That's my opinion.

This is correct and I appreciate the more thorough articles, as I read only the newspapers alone and even researched deeply into it and seen a lot of current videos resurfacing before finally making the final decision.

I've heard from this video... if I could find it... Been trying to for the last 20 minutes of this Japanese English instructor's video on the fact and a comment mentioned how alcohol is used too, sake in fact, and how it is equally used in some deaths, but its usually the elderly, and other mochi artisans from other videos posted even shared they have to cut it in pieces because they have experienced its affects being consumed in a dangerous way. I sadly can't find the proof and I am not lying I swear

I don't know about the 5 min affects, but it does definitely lead to asphyxiation.

Also, definitely agreed!!

Edit: Found some screenshots to add