Why Some People Think Food Is Better In Europe Than In The US
(www.foodrepublic.com)
NorskSud
EuropeBecause food is better in Europe than in the U.S.
Wish I could get affordable smoked salmon, comté cheese, and real baguettes in the U.S.
Cause we have actual nutrition lessons in school
Feels like the headline is saying "some people" are wrong.
Around when I was 16, a bunch of really fit and slim girls from our town left to be exchange students in the US.
They all came back with roughly 10-15kg more than they had when they left. Said all bread tasted like dessert.
Said all bread tasted like dessert.
A friend of mine was couple times on a work trip in the USA back when Nokia was a dominant player on cellphones for a few months at a time. He often complained that his breakfast sugar could have used more juice/youghurt/bread/whatever. Also, while he was a bit on the heavy side and not a light eater by any stretch, the portion sizes around there were apparently just ridiculous everywhere and everything was covered in some form of grease. Either straight up deep fried or just buried in cheese/bacon/etc.
I don't think situation has much improved in 20 or so years.
Because European laws prevent food from containing chemicals that are toxic to humans
The whole article is just too many words to say
Because our legally mandated food standards are better
Why use more word when few do?
European food is better.
Why many words when few do trick?
D'oh. I knew it wasn't quite the right quote.
even less:
Europe is better
Exactly what I was thinking. I didn't read the whole thing, but figured that's where it'd end up.
Wishful thinking, mostly.
EU food standards are fast far far more stringent than USA? That's not wishful thinking
I thought that the article implied the opposite.
My bad in that case.
Are you a US american? It would be such an US thing to go to a european community and think "our" means US stuff.
No, I'm just used to them being everywhere
Having moved from the US to the EU recently (but having visited for 25+ years). Yes, the food is better in the EU.
The US food is over processed sugar infused sawdust unless you work hard to get specialized and direct from small farms sources.
Here in the EU I walk to any corner store or street vendor and it's consistently amazing.
Horse shit. Unless your actual complaint is you have to drive to get there.
The VAST majority of towns have multiple sources of fresh healthy food, in just about every grocery store.
Uhhh... As an American who's spend a huge amount of time abroad as well, I always baffles me how hard it is to eat healthy in the US. The healthy things cost more (fresh local produce, local meat, etc) and the cheapest shit is always the worse for you with ultra processed crap everywhere. Not that you can't find a plethora of ultra processed elsewhere, it is just more expensive in much of the world.
The fact that you have to work to eat healthy in the US and spend more to do it, is absolutely a fact.
And that's not even getting into the interesting quality of dishes you'll get in regional difference throughout Europe as well as the rest of the world. Whereas, the US seems to thrive on selling the same food everywhere. Burger, Pizza, Hot Wings, chicken strips, house salad (with tomato, carrots slivers, maybe cucumbers), etc, etc. I swear you go into any random restaurant in the US off a road trip, it's the same food and you have to work hard to find something interesting like steak tartare, or freshly made pasta, or a real greek salad without lettuce (like the Greeks do!), or impala steaks, or even a decent duck confit.
Even saying this is making me enjoy the fact I don't have to fight with avoiding a Kroger, Walmart, and even now the Whole Paycheck, to find a local chain and be horrified that even they are selling Chiquita Bananas and Hass Avacados. I do miss my local ethic shops for their flair, but I'd rather have my cafe Paella and a amazing glass of house wine that isn't totally $50.
/r/IamveryCulinary shit.
None of this has a basis in reality. You walk in, there are giant sections of veggies, cheap, some local, some of it season because strawberries don't grow in February. It'll be right next to the literally hundreds of pounds of local unprocessed meat.
Y'all have intervened fantasies about the food supply here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
Did I say all? No most..
But now that we're part reading comprehension, I can point out that food deserts exist in Europe as well. Both in the rich counties and those pesky Eastern ones you like to block out of your head.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36360732/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0143622823003156
https://www.slowfood.com/blog-and-news/how-food-injustice-impacts-lives-in-europe/
Y'all notice the lack of truly hard data. Turns out the yuros just ain't monitoring and it's highly likely through correlation to be very underreported.
Don't even get me started on Asia.
Oh my god the fucking fragility and whataboutism.
No one ever said other countries don't have food desert problems. They absolutely do.
Your original comment is just disingenuous when there are millions of people suffering because of the in the US, and millions more elsewhere as well.
Do you not know what most means? If I said billionaires owned most of the wealth would you be screeching over is usage?
What about 85%+ and my usage of most do you most specifically take issue with?
Y'all notice the lack of truly hard data
First of all, speak English, this isn't Bumfuckcousinfuckernowhereville.
Secondly, oh no "hard data" on European food deserts? Because we really don't have them like the US. Even if our cities tried planning as shit as yours, around a completely car centric culture, they really can't because the routes and buildings that have existed for centuries just don't allow for that. And that's saying if we even had someone doing that. We don't.
Compare public transport and social security in EU vs US.
Stark contrast.
Compare design philosophy of cities.
Stark contrast.
Compare to American food regulation.
Stark contrast.
I know you never want to admit that the US is worse in anything, but now you're just genuinely being ridiculous.
In the US you sometimes literally can't walk out of a neighbourhood, because anything surrounding it is private land and there's no curb to walk on. So get driven over or shot by some angry land owner. And that wasn't me making that up, word for word for Americans said in a thread not long ago.
I can walk through any fucking field or woods I feel like, no matter who owns it.
Oh akd also everyone's not strapped so even if they did get mad, my chances of getting shot are way smaller.
The US is a garbage country and the sooner you accept it the sooner we can fix it.
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Food Is Better In Europe Than In The US
This was 96.4% true until the UK left the EU. Now it's 100% true.
The UK is still part of Europe.
And Guam, and even US embassies based in Europe are technically part of the USA too, but that's not what's being referred to.
It's part of Europe the same way a divorced dad who moved out is still part of the family.
Not when it comes to food culture
Food in (some parts of) the UK got dramatically better over the last few decades. When people bash it I always wonder whether they're working with outdated information. It used to be pretty awful. But recently when I travel from Canada to the UK the food is one thing I look forward to.
people have many good reasons to bash the uk, but the food isnt one. Maybe if theyre talking about traditional recipies, sure. But in terms of availability and variety, I've seen far worse here in 'continental europe'.
Hey, don't knock the UK's traditional recipes. The British should learn to be far more proud of their food.
People who will dismiss Shepherd's Pie (a tremendous dish when made well) will then go weak-kneed at a bloody moussaka or beef ragu because they're fancy and exotic... There's nothing wrong with a steak and kidney pud, or a bloody good roast with all the trimmings, or a corned-beef hash, or a cornish pasty, or a good kedgeree made with leftovers or.... Well, point is there is loads of amazing food in the UK culinary tradition. That most of it doesn't involve salad leaves artfully balanced on top of a cherry tomato owes more to climate than cuisine; nobody wants that shit when it's winter outside 11 months in 12.
I swear the whole "British cuisine is bad" thing is just a conspiracy cooked up by the French in order to distract everyone from the fact they've elevated overcomplicating otherwise thoroughly unremarkable dishes to an artform. If you've ever worked in a French factory and had to chew on horsemeat with the texture of a car tire in the canteen, you'd know the caraffe of cooking wine isn't there to provide a touch of exotic class, it's to try and numb the tastebuds. (The Italians though, they get to judge tbf.)
The British diet may be awful, but it's not because British cuisine is awful, it's mainly because of shovelling junk food - mainly US in origin - instead of the traditional food.
You are right. British cuisine has absolute gems in it that are hardly recognized outside of GB itself. I think it would need some attemps at fusion kitchen. Like a sheperd's pie goulash.
If you compare the diet of a regular blue collar worker in Manchester with the diet of a blue collar worker in Lille, Dortmund or Kraków I can assure you British guy will have the worst diet.
Because it's true?
l guess a factor are also the different local habits for doing groceries.
Here in our home town in Germany we have three mid-sized full-range grocery stores within walking distance, so typically do shopping 3-4 times a week.
Makes it much easier to shop fresh products and stuff with more limited shelf life (this demand causes easily availability for these).
As I understand shopping in the US, it seems to be more typical to go shopping only once a week or so to the far away mega-store, making it less viable to buy much fresh stuff and also increases the need for products that have been treated to ensure longer shelf-life.
In the US (for us) it was big shopping every month (Costco warehouse type shopping, I would typically go to the restaurant supply stores because I couldn't handle the Costco/consumerism frenzy), then once a week for smaller, fresh products. Plus shopping available all day, every day.
Here we have 2 supermarkets, a local Mercado (town center market stalls, open from 8am-3pm) within walking distance, plus 1 vegetable & 1 general convenience shops. Only the last two open Sundays. There is also a fish market/auction in the afternoons when the boats come in, and I almost forgot 3 bakeries (plus 2 french run pastry shops a little further, but that's ok, I'm getting fat and need the exercise )
I've been cooking a long time, in and out of the US (left it the first time when I was 18) and there is no comparison to the flavor of food in the EU, and not just because of the standards and regulations, but because it is still mostly SEASONAL.
Sure you can get some berries in the winter but they are not fully stocked like the summer, and you know the flavor is not going to be the same, but in the US the flavor is so washed out you get the cardboard taste all year long (but they look amazing !).
Lamb in the US 30 years ago used to taste like something, but the preference for milder flavor forced a change in the market. Lamb has flavor here...it tastes like lamb.
Salmon, in the US is 95% farm raised Atlantic Salmon, a shitty invasive species that tastes like water, and has no fat.
Chicken? The most basic of meats? First of all the preference for breast meat is ridiculous (due to heavy marketing way back when), prices for breast meat in the industry cheaper than leg/hind qtrs because of the butchering/human interaction is more time consuming. The color of the chicken in the US doesn't exist in nature. Growing up, a housewife in my home state campaigned on passing a law so that our state grown chicken would be labeled as such in the supermarket because it was flooded with out of state/cheaper alternatives. She won....and is still in the US senate (lol, no term limits & goldfish brained voters) AND the chicken still looks & tastes like nothing.
Olive oil? Sure, it's 'store brand ' olive flavored oil (or some marketing trick like Ooolive or olOve oil ....every once in a while a company gets a small fine for cheating it's consumers but that's just the cost of doing business).
Heirloom tomatoes, when they first got onto the market we had a farmer who shipped exclusively to high end restaurants & catered to them, and when you opened the box it smelled like you were in a tomato field...now they taste as bland as any other. Here, we locally have a contest to see who can grow the best flavored tomatoe in the community (had our neighbor win a couple years ago and she dropped some off at our restaurant just because!). Even the supermarket tomatoes still taste like they should.
All in all, there is no comparison. Commercialism, marketing, corporation consumption of the industry killed the American bread basket.
Since 1977 the US federal government has had to require many grocery stores to sell produce. The margins are lower, the labor is higher, and they use a lot of grocery floor space. Without that intervention there probably wouldn't be access to any produce at all for most Americans. Capitalism is very much the center of this story. In Europe the varieties of produce being grown are being mainly dictated by flavor and taste, in the USA resistance to insects, cheaper to harvest, size of product are the main criteria when the varieties of seeds to plant are being selected.
Yep exactly this. Even though the grocery store is extremely close to my house, it’s the only one, it’s still not a reasonable walking distance for trips 3-4 times per week, and the food is exactly like you said, mostly treated.
I’ve been to several places in Europe and the grocery situation there is so much better, it’s honestly astounding.
Why some people think food is better
Some people? Don’t you all think that?
No, some of us know.
you take me from stew, polenta, sarmale to eat burgers and overly sweet fast-food? Ofc European food is better, because it’s so diversified, US is only dreaming of what we have here
Every joghurt has more culture than the US
What's the difference between Joghurt and the US? When you leave Joghurt alone for over 200 years, it develops a culture.
Think?! It's a fact, isn't it?
they might have better food regulation on some things.
better as in tastier? depends on the product. If the product is european, then yes, otherwise no.
better as in healthier? absolutely!
