Kimchi Every Day? 22.7% of Korean Adults Ate None Yesterday
People say it in every thread about Korean food. Koreans eat kimchi at every meal. A paper published in June 2026 in the Korean Journal of Community Nutrition put a number next to it. Among 103,267 adults surveyed between 2010 and 2024, the share reporting no kimchi at all on the previous day went from 11.7% to 22.7%. Just over one adult in five, on any given day. Where the number comes from The study is by Hui-Yang Zhao, Hyunji Ham, Sumin Kim, Chang Hyeon Lee, Kyungho Ha and Sangah Shin, working across Chung-Ang University, Jeju National University and the World Institute of Kimchi (세계김치연구소), and it is open access on PMC . Their data is KNHANES, the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, covering its 2010 to 2024 rounds. The intake figure comes from a 24-hour dietary recall, a record of what a person ate in the previous day. So 22.7% counts people who happened to eat none in one particular day, and it says nothing about whether they have kimchi in the fridge. Th...