American food

[cherrypiepie]

I've a few questions about America food or cuisine. What is they day to day reality of food for those in the US?

I've just been on a cruise on an American orientated ship.

I read Michelle Obama's autobiography.

I've seen a few things in the internet.

What I noticed is that compared to the uk the food seemed ultra processed, even the same foods eg American Fanta, McDonald's fries (uk is potatoes salt and oil US is much more and lots of chemical additives), sliced bread. Fresh whole foods are not as prevalent in supermarkets so a whole shoe called Whole Foods has this market. I watched a person (wholesome family type) do a few recipes in you tube and they were "cooking from scratch" but they used cake mix for a cake recipe and jarred sauces for everything. Michelle Obama's description of the lack of ability to change the unhealthy school lunches as they are controlled by big business is a contrast to the uk where attempts have been made to address this issue. School lunches are hot dogs and pizza and fruit cup things.

The food on the cruise was nice but lacked the finesse of uk or continental food. And it wasn't as adventurous as a UK based cruise line. So the key lime pie would be similar to what I'd expect from a Pizza Hut type place not a £75 a head restaurant. (Appreciate this might just be this cruise line) The blue cheese salad was just called blue cheese not Roquefort or Stilton etc as it would I the uk. DH Fanta was bright orange (and he loved it!) I've read about people going nuts for American sprite too.

I wonder if any one can add any understanding to this?

I do love American food and we cook many seriously good American BBQ recipes and appreciate that there are some amazing food cultures in the US but wondered what the day to day reality is?

Pretty much the same as the UK. Some people eat a diet heavy in cheap processed junk and fast food; others cook entirely from scratch using ingredients bought from Whole Foods; most people are somewhere in the middle and eat things like lasagne, tacos, stew, stir fry, chilli, pot roast and vegetables, tray bakes.

Major US supermarkets all stock fresh produce in abundancy. It’s generally more expensive than in the UK, hence it might not feature as heavily in the diets of less well off people. Junk food is really cheap in comparison. School lunches aren’t always great; but they aren’t always great in the UK, either.

In terms of colorings and additives, yes, FDA regulations are different to UK and European ones, so a lot of things are a lot more vivid (Takis Fuegos I’m looking at you.) Imported produce like European cheeses obviously carry higher costs, so US-made cheeses predominate.

Well, food companies (like all companies) are there to make a profit and it turns out that highly processed foods are highly profitable. I don't know much about food regulation in the US but I gather it lags miles behind Europe. Probably because it's a highly capitalist economy...

@ComtesseDeSpair i wondered if my perception was skewed. I was surprised by the use of cake mix!
I agree about school lunches in the UK as I work in a school.

@FuncaMunca yes and then the the big pharma deal with the health consequences? Is this an actual thing? Make money by selling junk food and then make money fixing it by selling pharmaceuticals.

Michelle Obama said it was not possible to take on the school dinner companies (paraphrasing badly)

I've got no information to add to this, only an observation that in 2 weeks on holiday in the USA (from UK) I ate one meal that I enjoyed and could taste different nuances of flavours (an organic restaurant). Every other meal I had, (including things like pasta with lobster by the seaside) just tasted of very little.

We’ve just come back from staying with family in the states. Although they are super obsessed with sports and healthy lifestyles.. not once did they have fresh fruit or any veg with meals. I was craving fruit and veg by the end of the third week. We did go to whole foods once and brought peppers for the bbq but that was all we had throughout our time there. even meals out just didn’t seem to have veg / salad with them.

I lived there for 3 years. Whole foods (or Whole Paycheck as we like to call it) is next level but I’ve never seen an American grocery store without a decent fresh food section. Even Target sells fresh foods. Overall I’d say much better than British supermarkets. But it’s not cheap, it’s much much cheaper to eat fast food out then cook decent meals at home. Yes sliced bread is mostly full of sugar and rank, we didn’t eat much of it, you can get nice fresh bread easily enough though. Cheese is all pasteurised so even a naice Brie from Whole Foods is specially done for US export and is not the same. DD’s daycare had pretty good food but the fruit was often apple sauce and/or melon that they used to name by the variety e.g. honeydew or cantaloupe to pretend like it was different to what they’d served that morning.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the states and I think there are huge regional differences.
The offering in coastal So Cal is very different to the mid west, is different to the Deep South is different, is different to the middle of the country.
I do find alot of it is far sweeter than we are used to and you can’t get proper Brie!

Some people in the US will use things like cake mix, yes (you can also buy boxed cake mix in the UK, so I presume some British people must also use it.) Likewise, some people in the UK would class a lasagne made with Dolmio jars of ragu and bechemal; or a roast dinner with Aunt Bessie’s frozen roast potatoes and yorkshires as “home made”; whilst others absolutely wouldn’t. It’s not much different in the US, really.

I tried to buy bread at the supermarket in Florida, it all had ridiculous amounts of sugars in it. Ended up buying Jewish black bread which was not too bad, the others had many times the sugar content we have here.

And I agree there are huge regional differences.

@ComtesseDeSpair thank you - my sample of one isn't reliable scientific study!

I find it fascinating though.

@33goingon64 where did you go?

I don’t think you’re wrong per se: junk food overrepresented in a lot of diets because it is insanely cheap. As an example, we’ve just done a Walmart shop to feed us at Burning Man for the next nine days - no refrigeration, basic cooking facilities, so almost everything had to be canned, ambient, just-add-hot-water, preserved etc. 12 portions of instant noodles cost $1.89. Two kilos of snacking pretzels for $2.39. A box of 36 sugary nothing cereal bars, $6.29. Whereas a cucumber (for alcoholic iced tea!) was over a dollar each, and a 120g pack of whole grain rice cakes $3.79.

US is a pretty big place.

Geography, cost level all impact what food is available.

From 'chicken fried steak', a regular on the menu in Texas to the abundant veg and 'sense your aura' juice bars in Calif.

Not essentially different to, well, anywhere else.

Ancel Keys gained widespread popularity and traction in the US, championing the low fat/high carb approach to healthy living, ruining the reputation of our own John Yudkin in the process.

I grew up in the States but have lived in the UK for 20 years. One difference re baking is that virtually everyone I have ever met in the UK has done some baking from scratch, a fair few bake regularly. Most people have flour, baking powder, sugar etc as standard in their cupboards and can at least make fairy buns with the DC. And actually nearly every British woman I know can make a decent cake from scratch.

In the States, I can't think of a single person or family that I knew who could bake from scratch. A cake or pie would always be bought from Costco, Marie Calenders, the grocery store or made from a box mix, pre made pie shell filled with jello pudding mix and cool whip or the like. Truly I can think of nobody who would have baking ingredients in their cupboards as standard.
I know there will be exceptions to this, but that is my experience.

Fast food is so ubiquitous in the US, so heavily advertised and so ridiculously cheap that it’s not surprising that it becomes the default diet for so many people. Of course you can by healthy, fresh nutritious food to cook yourself but it’s relatively expensive and major supermarkets tend to compete more on quality than price. The Aldi effect isn’t really a thing over there.

And the cakes that you buy are covered with lurid fluorescent icing, taste of absolutely nothing and are so sweet you nearly pass after eating it.

Agreed. I was so excited to try Sander’s Bumpy Cake when we first visited DH’s parents (thus giving away our Detroit perspective!) because it’s a quintessential celebration cake. It was truly awful. I can’t imagine eating it, even if you weren’t much of a baker, and thinking it was in any way delicious. But clearly I am in the minority.

Surley an ounce of common sense tells you that it's a big place full of people who's diets vary wildly.
Is the answer you are looking for, everyone eats shit for every meal & you can't by fresh food anywhere?.
Here on the west coast we eat lots of fresh produce, local Salmon & Halibut, many of my friends are amazing bakers. Way more active & healthy lifestyle than any of my family in various parts of the UK.

Of course there are plenty of fresh foods in all the supermarkets- but they are pricey compared to here, though eating out is cheaper.
My family over there all cook and make much the same goods as you'd find here. One thing they don't seem to have is fresh ready meals, though the deli sections are fabulous.

I did a work secondment in the US when pregnant with my DC and I found it quite difficult to eat both healthily and affordably. Maybe because I was just buying for one (except when my DH visited for a few weeks and we did a road trip) and was city-based with no car and less access to shops. In the UK, for example, I could go along to my local Coop or small Tesco and pick up a pint of milk, an apple, some blueberries, a freshly made cheese sandwich and some carrot sticks for around £5-6. The same options just didn't seem to be available or cost a lot more in the US.

And after eating out a lot when DH visited, we found that everything did start to taste the same.

Having lived 30 years in the US, I can say it's dependant on where in the US you are as well as what family you are looking at.
We were in California near the valley where it all grows. Fresh fruit veg and nuts were in abundance and cheap. We ate what was in season a lot. So got loads of oranges in winter, squash in the fall, salads in summer, all cheap. They were available year round imported from Chile and Mexico and strangely Canada (they must have massive greenhouses) We were also given lots as neighbours shared their bounty. Lots of Zucchini, tomatoes and oranges etc were given to us, we gave eggs. Bags of Asparagus from friend with a ranch as well as nuts too.
Our diet now we are back in the UK is a lot less healthy unfortunately.
I used to crave fresh veg when we went on holiday around the US as eating out in places like Chilis, Applebees, and Dennys didn't give much other than a salad.

tbf, I don't know how people live now...
I suppose I grew up snacking hugely. We drink a lot of milk, lol.
Pffft... (born in CA in 1960s) I grew up making cookies from scratch (not even SR flour, I had to add a leavening agent). So good at it I never used recipes. And then I lost the knack. I know it must be easy because I made any flavour cookies casually when I was 12. My mother almost never cooked after I turned 8yo so anything I liked I had to learn to cook/bake. Lots of recipe books at home. We ate lots of raw salad veg and wonderful fresh fruit. Raw courgette, brocoli & cauliflower (plus conventional salad vegetables) with dips was ordinary at parties. I've been chatting to an old friend that if I make it to Cali this year, we must make tamales again together. Californians traditionally eat a lot of fresh produce. My mother made the best eggnog, potato salad & lasagne from raw ingredients. She used to make different home-made salad dressings & mayonaise from scratch. My aunts still do massive amounts of cooking to feed huge hoards of people, producing meals that look traditional English Christmas food (for our Christmas or Thanksgiving).

But I had no idea before I moved to UK how to make from scratch pastry or cakes (DH taught me), or pancakes (Canadian friend taught me).

I would say big difference between how we now in UK live & how my cousins/relatives eat now: they eat out A Lot. Even the ones on tight incomes. Several times a week, Every variety cuisine you can think of. Cousins' 9yr old casually said that Sushi was probably his favourite food, but then rattled off 12 other candidate ethnic minority cuisines he liked. My aunt currently posts restaurant reviews by her 5yo grandson (his own heritage is United nations spread & so are the restaurants he goes to). Same Canadian friend lamented the dining-out culture when she lived in SoCal: she loves to cook & host dinner parties.

My midwestern connections can't seem to cook, I will acknowledge this. Every item they eat at home comes prepared or ready-made from Costco. They were fascinated to see us produce a roast dinner.

There are over 30 American "foods" (additives) banned in other countries - more than from any other place. This includes hormone fed beef (which is the majority of US beef), potassium bromate which is in most US bread products. The US drinks all have Bromine in (like in Potassium bromate), which is known to cause nerve damage and is banned in the EU (and currently still the UK).

I'm actually dreading us going in to food trade with the US.

As for "cooking from scratch" using lots of tinned and jarred stuff, that comes from lots of the US being very remote, hours between towns etc making deliveries more difficult so people use a lot of easily stored/ long life stuff. In the Bible belt, lots of people preserve their own foods.