Fit to eat

The Japanese are health-conscious people and even their vending machines offer fresh and healthy food.

Salad Stand, for one, caters to office workers by offering grilled chicken Cobb salad, imitation snow crab and dried young sardines salad, luxurious smoked salmon and cheese salad, juices and fruit granola, Japan Today (JT) reported.

Japanese wellness company Kompeito, which came up with the concept 10 years ago, says they recently incorporated artificial intelligence (AI) into the machines to make them smart and avoid “throwing away unwanted, short shelf-life salads.”

“Built-in cameras track foot traffic and expiration dates, allowing the machine to dynamically adjust prices. So, the same salad you saw at lunch might cost less at dinner,” JT quotes Kompeito as saying.

Meanwhile, a restaurant in Thailand attracts patrons with 5-percent to 20-percent discounts on orders.

The discount amounts, however, depend on the build of the customer, as shown in a viral video of tourists who ate at Chiang Mai Breakfast World.

As shown in the video, the restaurant entrance has upright bars of five different widths, with the narrowest gap entitling customers to the biggest discount of 20 percent. The next narrowest bar width corresponds to a 15-percent discount, while the next or middle width is good for 10 percent off.

The next largest gap offers 5 percent off to diners and the largest space gives no discount, sorry.

To get a discount, the diner will have to squeeze their body through the bars.

Customers were amused by the resto owner’s gimmick, though one was heard worrying they could not squeeze through the bars with the largest gap