That doesn’t mean there isn’t great American food, it just means that the stuff that’s sold the most is horridly heavily processed, thoroughly artificial and/or intensively farmed/raised crap.
It’s not a lack of knowledge or capable people in that domain, it’s that the system pushes cheap crap that whilst it own’t kill you outright it will shorten your Life Expectation by almost two decades compared to most Europeans.
I’m always surprised how homogeneous American food is. There are regional differences but only as rare exceptions. Supermarkets sell exactly the same thing everywhere.
You see some kinds of shit food also being pushed in Europe, and then you see different outcomes per country, depending on local food culture and also legislation - people expect some thing and won’t settle for less plus certain things are simply not allowed by Law to be sold as food or be branded in some ways (for example, there UK has very strict demands of what can go into what can be called a “sausage”, which is why the shit stuff is called “bangers”).
Also in Europe vs the US you see a major difference in where farming subsidies go to - if more traditional farming is subsidized instead of corn raising and hormone-filled cattle breeding, the better quality stuff is what’s cheaper not the crap stuff.
The CAP in Europe subsidizes more traditional farming and farming produce, not corn + hormone beef.
Also there are all sorts of local legislation that limit the extent to which crap food can be passed as real food: a lot of what can be sold as “cheese” in America can’t be sold as “fromage” in France and similarly a “sausage” in Britain has a very strict definition of what can go into it (the crap stuff is called a “banger” since BY LAW it can’t be called a “sausage”).
A lot of the bad practices would be just as cost-saving to do in Europe as in the US, it’s just that the legislation is way tighter and to some level (depending on the country) consumers are much more demanding (plus also due to the legislation, producers can’t just name the fake stuff the same as the real stuff).
The impression I have from talking to Americans is that to eat good food in the US you need to really make an effort, whilst in Europe for most things comparativelly higher quality ingredients are widespread (often the default), easy to find it and there are quite a lot of restrictions on what producers can put in it (or how it’s farmed or raised).
The impression I have from talking to Americans is that to eat good food in the US you need to really make an effort,
I promise, not anymore than the US. Actually, I’d argue especially in less urban areas getting fresh ingredients is more convenient from the prevalence of driving. The problem is if you can’t drive you’re screwed.
No it’s not it’s specifically that companies can sell Americans the same food they sell in other countries but in those countries, the same food is made with much better ingredients.
Look at the difference between the ingredient list in a Heinz ketchup bottle in the EU vs in America.
i will skullfuck you, american food is literally the only thing we do well because our cuisine is so fucking diverse holy shit are you completely and totally wrong. You just generalized an entire country full of diverse palates and tastes.
As somebody else pointed out in the other place you quoted that metric, that metric is about the likelihood of food contamination, not about the food’s nutritional value and certainly not about how healthy it is in the long term.
There is not a single thing in there about food additives, under nutrients micronutrient coverage is ridiculously narrow (only one kind of vitamin and two minerals), fat and fat quality are absent (and the other health-related macronutrient present - sugar - shows very below average scoring), the protein quality criteria seems designed to reward meat-heavy diets (which would’ve been penalized on any fat criteria but, surprise, surprise, that’s not included in that metric) and most of that entry is about “standards” (i.e. talk, not action) - “we know how to do things right” is not the same as “we do things right” when it comes to policy (that whole section is especially hilarious given that none of the best food practices in the World as show by actual life expectancy, such as the Mediterranean Diet, are at all the result of having a good “national nutrition plan” - you really got to be taking the piss or designing your model to yield specific conclusions if you’re measuring “food quality” on the quality of the “national nutrition plan”).
Oh, and there’s nothing there about long term outcomes, such as obesity rates and life expectation.
This being The Economist I’m not surprised at the model design: they seem to have gone for “measuring only that which is easy to measure” in order to get Worldwide coverage, plus quite some results-oriented model design - which is a common practice of theirs - which would explain things like their weird choice of micro nutrients, excluding fat (of all things!) or looking at national nutrition standards instead of looking at food related health outcomes (such as obesity or cardivascular diseases).
No, not really compared to most of the rest of the world. I live in Europe, every time I go to the US there is a lot of food I enjoy. My partner was surprised when I showed him actually good tasting American food. In terms of produce quality, fruits are by far better in most of the US then where I live in Europe(Central Europe). A lot of Europe (Germany, UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, Czech Republic, etc) has pretty bland food for the most part.
For starters, you seem to be falling into the trap of comparing the food you eat when you visit a place and go to restaurants with the food you eat at home and have to cook from available ingredients.
Further, having lived in both the UK and Germany I have to disagree on your “blandness” assessment, unless you’re talking about the local culinary tradition alone, in which case that is true for the UK, but then again the US to doesn’t really have a local culinary tradition so a like to like comparison of local cuisine with it wouldn’t exactly put the US on top.
As for the rest, in my experience all large international cities in the West (at least the couple I lived in and the ones I visited) have lots of great and tasty cuisine in restaurants, because they all have available culinary traditions from just about anywhere - unlike what some seem to think, the US doesn’t have a monopoly on receiving immigrants from all over the World.
(Even smaller places like Berlin, Amsterdam or Brussels have great variety of food in restaurants).
The point I’m making is about the “average” (hence why I actually used the word “average” in my post), not the way outside the average places which are the main cities and it’s about the food people normally eat, and that doesn’t mean the restaurant trade (unless you’re telling me most Americans eat the majority of their meals at restaurants) which tends to be great pretty much in any large city of the World in any nation rich enough to attract people from all over the place.
For starters, you seem to be falling into the trap of comparing the food you eat when you visit a place and go to restaurants with the food you eat at home and have to cook from available ingredients.
No. I lived in the US for the first 18 years of my life.
unless you’re talking about the local culinary tradition alone
Sort of both, of course metropolises will have a lot of immigrant cuisine, but I’ve found at least in continental Europe(I can’t speak for the UK) that immigrants often tone down stronger flavors in restaurant food- immigrant foods I grew up with are also harder to find in Europe(Czech Republic doesn’t have any Ethiopian restaurants for example, and at least the ones I went to in Vienna were not very good).
the US to doesn’t really have a local culinary tradition
That’s simply untrue. Just because foods had foreign inspiration has nothing to do if its locally american food, from Chinese-American Chinese food, to American Pizza, to more traditionally american foods like chilli and gumbo(and other cajun food), american style bbq and fried chicken- etc. Tempura being based on fried foods brought by Portugese doesn’t make it not Japanese.
As for the rest, in my experience all large international cities in the West
What does the west mean to you? But yeah I would agree large international cities all have immigrants, though I would argue the US has much better coverage of a variety of foods in smaller/medium sized cities. But that’s also not exactly relevant. I didn’t say the US as a whole is not terrible compared to large international western cities, I said compared to the rest of the world- then mentioned specifically countries(or regions) that I believe to have blander food than the US(on average).
(Even smaller places like Berlin, Amsterdam or Brussels have great variety of food in restaurants).
… Smaller places are not capital cities of major countries for the most part. And those are actually bigger than many European capital cities, and Berlin is very large.
The point I’m making is about the “average” (hence why I actually used the word “average” in my post),
You’re talking about the average but listing above average cities. Compare Louisville, KY, a very average american city in terms of food, size, and income, to Prague, CZ, a capital city twice the size- there is far more variety of food available in Louisville, the only thing keeping Prague alive in terms of options is the Vietnamese immigrant community.
not the way outside the average places which are the main cities and it’s about the food people normally eat, and that doesn’t mean the restaurant trade
Again, I have found more variety and quality of produce in stores in the US- stores that I tend to go to in the US also tend to have more variety in general. But that’s mostly because in the US its common to drive to larger stores, rather than going to smaller local stores- and big stores in Europe also of course have a lot of options. (Something very weird though, I was cooking chilli for my partner and I- and we could only find ground beef mixed with pork in our local grocers and not purely ground beef- but that’s just a weird quirk of our area.)
which tends to be great pretty much in any large city of the World in any nation rich enough to attract people from all over the place.
From restaurants that tend to be affordable? No, I don’t agree. I keep mentioning Ethiopian food just because its something important to me that would be impractical for me to cook myself, but all of Poland didn’t have an Ethiopian restaurant until about a year ago. (Granted the one that opened in Warsaw now is very good.)
The point I was making was about what people normally eat - so mainly at home - and the nutritional value and healthiness of food not how tasty and varied (in its culinary traditions) it is, so your post, whilst interesting and informative, doesn’t really cover it.
Mostly due to legislation on farming, husbandry and food safety (in everything from hormones in beef and allowed pesticides and herbicides to how the EU uses the Precautionary Principle in approving food additives whilst the US does not) the quality of the average ingredients in Europe is superior to the US and the prices of fresh produce are lower (because Farming Subsidies are aimed at maintaining more traditional farming, so they’ll end up in things like apples, lettuce and olive oil, not intensivelly reared beef and corn).
Absolutelly, you can find good quality ingredients in the US - that’s the point of places like Whole Foods - but what’s available in abundance and for the average person to affordably make their own meals is not as good.
The US has lower rates of food contamination from e.g. Salmonella or E coli, which I think is what that study is measuring. However, I think food in the EU generally has superior, better tasting, ingredients. There are two reasons I believe this to be the case. The first one probably has a smaller impact than the second.
The first reason that in the US an ingredient must be proven to be harmful before the FDA is allowed to ban it. In the EU an ingredient must be proven to be safe before it is allowed in commercial products.
The second reason is that while both the US and EU have farming subsidies, the way these subsidies are structured means that in the US they tend to incentivize the use of high fructose corn syrup and the production of highly processed foods while in the EU highly processed foods tend to be more expensive and “whole foods” tend to be cheaper.
As a result people in the EU tend to eat less processed food as a percentage of their caloric intake:
The second reason is that while both the US and EU have farming subsidies, the way these subsidies are structured means that in the US they tend to incentivize the use of high fructose corn syrup
Yes, but that is actually not solely subsidies- but also overregulation. Sugar imports are taxed. Though, it would be better for people’s health to try to transition away from caloric sugars to substitutes like aspartame.
the production of highly processed foods
Source?
highly processed foods tend to be more expensive and “whole foods” tend to be cheaper.
This is just the blog of a guy selling a book.
As a result people in the EU tend to eat less processed food as a percentage of their caloric intake:
Americans can afford raw potatoes too, they choose not to buy it. In fact, despite buying meat something supposedly 25% of Europeans cannot afford to eat every second day(though I don’t believe that statistic to be honest)- Americans spend significantly less of their budget on food.
The US congressional research service thinks EU subsidies are more spread out among all types of crops, including fruits and vegetables, whereas US policy focuses more on grains, sugars, dairy, and oil seeds:
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46811
That’s not a direct subsidy of food processin of course, but the crops the US chooses to support ends up incentivizing it.
You’re just talking about the pre made shit you get at the grocery store in the frozen foods isle.
The US has the most varied and some of the best foods in the world, because there’s no other nation on earth that has such a merltings pot worth of cultures, heritages, and people. Our BBQ and smoked meats are the best. Chicago’s take on pizza is better that traditional Italian pizza. Our “chinese food” isn’t really Chinese cuisine. It’s a hybrid version and mainly was created in the US. Hamburgers are American creations. Key lime pie. Jambalaya! I mean, we made chocolate chip cookies. The Reuben sandwich that everyone assumes came from like Germany? Nope. USA. American made Chili is also great.
You can have your handful of French cuisine. The US has everyone’s menu.
You’re confusing eating out with what people normally eat in their day to day.
In my experience every large city in a prosperous enough nation has restaurants from the best culinary traditions, and that was also my experience when visiting the US.
However what’s available for people to prepare food at home and what people normally eat, is a whole different story.
In average American food is terrible.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t great American food, it just means that the stuff that’s sold the most is horridly heavily processed, thoroughly artificial and/or intensively farmed/raised crap.
It’s not a lack of knowledge or capable people in that domain, it’s that the system pushes cheap crap that whilst it own’t kill you outright it will shorten your Life Expectation by almost two decades compared to most Europeans.
I’m always surprised how homogeneous American food is. There are regional differences but only as rare exceptions. Supermarkets sell exactly the same thing everywhere.
I think a more accurate conclusion then, would be “the average American is too poor to afford good food”
Sort of, it goes both ways its not just on the consumer.
Yeah, I too think it’s a mix.
You see some kinds of shit food also being pushed in Europe, and then you see different outcomes per country, depending on local food culture and also legislation - people expect some thing and won’t settle for less plus certain things are simply not allowed by Law to be sold as food or be branded in some ways (for example, there UK has very strict demands of what can go into what can be called a “sausage”, which is why the shit stuff is called “bangers”).
Also in Europe vs the US you see a major difference in where farming subsidies go to - if more traditional farming is subsidized instead of corn raising and hormone-filled cattle breeding, the better quality stuff is what’s cheaper not the crap stuff.
FYI, the US doesn’t use more antiobiotics in livestock than Europe in general, and uses much less than some European countries
I know you said hormones but I couldn’t find data for that before I decided its time to go to sleep.
I don’t believe this chart but it claims 1 in 4 EU citizens can’t afford 1 meal with meat or fish every 2nd day
The average US company is too greedy to make good food.
The CAP in Europe subsidizes more traditional farming and farming produce, not corn + hormone beef.
Also there are all sorts of local legislation that limit the extent to which crap food can be passed as real food: a lot of what can be sold as “cheese” in America can’t be sold as “fromage” in France and similarly a “sausage” in Britain has a very strict definition of what can go into it (the crap stuff is called a “banger” since BY LAW it can’t be called a “sausage”).
A lot of the bad practices would be just as cost-saving to do in Europe as in the US, it’s just that the legislation is way tighter and to some level (depending on the country) consumers are much more demanding (plus also due to the legislation, producers can’t just name the fake stuff the same as the real stuff).
The impression I have from talking to Americans is that to eat good food in the US you need to really make an effort, whilst in Europe for most things comparativelly higher quality ingredients are widespread (often the default), easy to find it and there are quite a lot of restrictions on what producers can put in it (or how it’s farmed or raised).
I promise, not anymore than the US. Actually, I’d argue especially in less urban areas getting fresh ingredients is more convenient from the prevalence of driving. The problem is if you can’t drive you’re screwed.
No it’s not it’s specifically that companies can sell Americans the same food they sell in other countries but in those countries, the same food is made with much better ingredients.
Look at the difference between the ingredient list in a Heinz ketchup bottle in the EU vs in America.
i will skullfuck you, american food is literally the only thing we do well because our cuisine is so fucking diverse holy shit are you completely and totally wrong. You just generalized an entire country full of diverse palates and tastes.
Why are you being downvoted? Your comment is true, accurate, and unbiased. 🤷🏽
Lol
US ranks 3rd in “food quality and safety”, beat only by Denmark and Canada
As somebody else pointed out in the other place you quoted that metric, that metric is about the likelihood of food contamination, not about the food’s nutritional value and certainly not about how healthy it is in the long term.
That’s not true, you can click on a country… It has 4 components, safety is 1 of them
There is not a single thing in there about food additives, under nutrients micronutrient coverage is ridiculously narrow (only one kind of vitamin and two minerals), fat and fat quality are absent (and the other health-related macronutrient present - sugar - shows very below average scoring), the protein quality criteria seems designed to reward meat-heavy diets (which would’ve been penalized on any fat criteria but, surprise, surprise, that’s not included in that metric) and most of that entry is about “standards” (i.e. talk, not action) - “we know how to do things right” is not the same as “we do things right” when it comes to policy (that whole section is especially hilarious given that none of the best food practices in the World as show by actual life expectancy, such as the Mediterranean Diet, are at all the result of having a good “national nutrition plan” - you really got to be taking the piss or designing your model to yield specific conclusions if you’re measuring “food quality” on the quality of the “national nutrition plan”).
Oh, and there’s nothing there about long term outcomes, such as obesity rates and life expectation.
This being The Economist I’m not surprised at the model design: they seem to have gone for “measuring only that which is easy to measure” in order to get Worldwide coverage, plus quite some results-oriented model design - which is a common practice of theirs - which would explain things like their weird choice of micro nutrients, excluding fat (of all things!) or looking at national nutrition standards instead of looking at food related health outcomes (such as obesity or cardivascular diseases).
No, not really compared to most of the rest of the world. I live in Europe, every time I go to the US there is a lot of food I enjoy. My partner was surprised when I showed him actually good tasting American food. In terms of produce quality, fruits are by far better in most of the US then where I live in Europe(Central Europe). A lot of Europe (Germany, UK, Ireland, Scandinavia, Czech Republic, etc) has pretty bland food for the most part.
For starters, you seem to be falling into the trap of comparing the food you eat when you visit a place and go to restaurants with the food you eat at home and have to cook from available ingredients.
Further, having lived in both the UK and Germany I have to disagree on your “blandness” assessment, unless you’re talking about the local culinary tradition alone, in which case that is true for the UK, but then again the US to doesn’t really have a local culinary tradition so a like to like comparison of local cuisine with it wouldn’t exactly put the US on top.
As for the rest, in my experience all large international cities in the West (at least the couple I lived in and the ones I visited) have lots of great and tasty cuisine in restaurants, because they all have available culinary traditions from just about anywhere - unlike what some seem to think, the US doesn’t have a monopoly on receiving immigrants from all over the World. (Even smaller places like Berlin, Amsterdam or Brussels have great variety of food in restaurants).
The point I’m making is about the “average” (hence why I actually used the word “average” in my post), not the way outside the average places which are the main cities and it’s about the food people normally eat, and that doesn’t mean the restaurant trade (unless you’re telling me most Americans eat the majority of their meals at restaurants) which tends to be great pretty much in any large city of the World in any nation rich enough to attract people from all over the place.
No. I lived in the US for the first 18 years of my life.
Sort of both, of course metropolises will have a lot of immigrant cuisine, but I’ve found at least in continental Europe(I can’t speak for the UK) that immigrants often tone down stronger flavors in restaurant food- immigrant foods I grew up with are also harder to find in Europe(Czech Republic doesn’t have any Ethiopian restaurants for example, and at least the ones I went to in Vienna were not very good).
That’s simply untrue. Just because foods had foreign inspiration has nothing to do if its locally american food, from Chinese-American Chinese food, to American Pizza, to more traditionally american foods like chilli and gumbo(and other cajun food), american style bbq and fried chicken- etc. Tempura being based on fried foods brought by Portugese doesn’t make it not Japanese.
What does the west mean to you? But yeah I would agree large international cities all have immigrants, though I would argue the US has much better coverage of a variety of foods in smaller/medium sized cities. But that’s also not exactly relevant. I didn’t say the US as a whole is not terrible compared to large international western cities, I said compared to the rest of the world- then mentioned specifically countries(or regions) that I believe to have blander food than the US(on average).
… Smaller places are not capital cities of major countries for the most part. And those are actually bigger than many European capital cities, and Berlin is very large.
You’re talking about the average but listing above average cities. Compare Louisville, KY, a very average american city in terms of food, size, and income, to Prague, CZ, a capital city twice the size- there is far more variety of food available in Louisville, the only thing keeping Prague alive in terms of options is the Vietnamese immigrant community.
Again, I have found more variety and quality of produce in stores in the US- stores that I tend to go to in the US also tend to have more variety in general. But that’s mostly because in the US its common to drive to larger stores, rather than going to smaller local stores- and big stores in Europe also of course have a lot of options. (Something very weird though, I was cooking chilli for my partner and I- and we could only find ground beef mixed with pork in our local grocers and not purely ground beef- but that’s just a weird quirk of our area.)
From restaurants that tend to be affordable? No, I don’t agree. I keep mentioning Ethiopian food just because its something important to me that would be impractical for me to cook myself, but all of Poland didn’t have an Ethiopian restaurant until about a year ago. (Granted the one that opened in Warsaw now is very good.)
I think we’re going out on a tangent.
The point I was making was about what people normally eat - so mainly at home - and the nutritional value and healthiness of food not how tasty and varied (in its culinary traditions) it is, so your post, whilst interesting and informative, doesn’t really cover it.
Mostly due to legislation on farming, husbandry and food safety (in everything from hormones in beef and allowed pesticides and herbicides to how the EU uses the Precautionary Principle in approving food additives whilst the US does not) the quality of the average ingredients in Europe is superior to the US and the prices of fresh produce are lower (because Farming Subsidies are aimed at maintaining more traditional farming, so they’ll end up in things like apples, lettuce and olive oil, not intensivelly reared beef and corn).
Absolutelly, you can find good quality ingredients in the US - that’s the point of places like Whole Foods - but what’s available in abundance and for the average person to affordably make their own meals is not as good.
FYI, US ranks 3d globally for quality and safety
Overall score is 13th.
The US has lower rates of food contamination from e.g. Salmonella or E coli, which I think is what that study is measuring. However, I think food in the EU generally has superior, better tasting, ingredients. There are two reasons I believe this to be the case. The first one probably has a smaller impact than the second.
The first reason that in the US an ingredient must be proven to be harmful before the FDA is allowed to ban it. In the EU an ingredient must be proven to be safe before it is allowed in commercial products.
The second reason is that while both the US and EU have farming subsidies, the way these subsidies are structured means that in the US they tend to incentivize the use of high fructose corn syrup and the production of highly processed foods while in the EU highly processed foods tend to be more expensive and “whole foods” tend to be cheaper.
As a result people in the EU tend to eat less processed food as a percentage of their caloric intake:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34647997/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8921104/
Yes, but that is actually not solely subsidies- but also overregulation. Sugar imports are taxed. Though, it would be better for people’s health to try to transition away from caloric sugars to substitutes like aspartame.
Source?
This is just the blog of a guy selling a book.
So we were talking about supply, not consumption. But regardless, yes americans choose to eat processed foods more on average. So? The predominant cheap form of calories/proteins in Europe are cereals and tubers, those aren’t exactly lacking in the US. (Btw, its just because they’re cheap everywhere,
Though its not like either Americans or Europeans are significantly different in food group consumption for the most part The other differences being a much higher preference for meat in the US, also supported by the US actually getting majority of its protein from meat sources
Americans can afford raw potatoes too, they choose not to buy it. In fact, despite buying meat something supposedly 25% of Europeans cannot afford to eat every second day(though I don’t believe that statistic to be honest)- Americans spend significantly less of their budget on food.
And to preempt a possible argument, American antiobiotic use in livestock is on par with some of Europe and much lower than some of Europe
The US congressional research service thinks EU subsidies are more spread out among all types of crops, including fruits and vegetables, whereas US policy focuses more on grains, sugars, dairy, and oil seeds: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46811
That’s not a direct subsidy of food processin of course, but the crops the US chooses to support ends up incentivizing it.
And this paper also makes it sound like subsidized crops in the US end up in processed foods: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2530901
Cultural factors are a thing but I think they’re used far too often to explain away trends at the population level and the effects of public policy.
You’re just talking about the pre made shit you get at the grocery store in the frozen foods isle.
The US has the most varied and some of the best foods in the world, because there’s no other nation on earth that has such a merltings pot worth of cultures, heritages, and people. Our BBQ and smoked meats are the best. Chicago’s take on pizza is better that traditional Italian pizza. Our “chinese food” isn’t really Chinese cuisine. It’s a hybrid version and mainly was created in the US. Hamburgers are American creations. Key lime pie. Jambalaya! I mean, we made chocolate chip cookies. The Reuben sandwich that everyone assumes came from like Germany? Nope. USA. American made Chili is also great.
You can have your handful of French cuisine. The US has everyone’s menu.
You’re confusing eating out with what people normally eat in their day to day.
In my experience every large city in a prosperous enough nation has restaurants from the best culinary traditions, and that was also my experience when visiting the US.
However what’s available for people to prepare food at home and what people normally eat, is a whole different story.
You’re confusing cheap chain restaurants with American culinary?
Which part of
has led you to believe I was talking about chain restaurants?