Europe

Why use more word when few do?

European food is better.

Exactly what I was thinking. I didn't read the whole thing, but figured that's where it'd end up.

The UK is still part of Europe.

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.

Nearly everything industrially made here is sweetened and it's formed a feedback loop where it ensures that's what "comfort food" tastes like unless it's homemade (even then many families cook with sugar in savory meals). And since that's what American food tastes like, companies coming in to American markets add hfcs to appeal to our tastes. Add in the fact that when cheaping out good old fashioned, highly subsidized hfcs is always a cheap crowd pleaser that can hide the flavor of substandard ingredients and processes.

Not being sweetened is more common in luxury and high quality pre made foods here, which means that they're culturally and financially separated from the average person. The alternative to saccarine foods is to cook, something we often feel we don't have time for and some will dislike because it tastes different. Also because "health cooking" has a well earned bad reputation here of things such as not using salt, cutting the fat off meat, and cooking tofu with no idea how to cook tofu well.

I just want unsweetened sandwich bread. Only Aldi seems to have it at a good price here, and they aren't everywhere

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.

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.

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.

I've heard French people telling me they couldn't wait to go to the US so they can "finally" eat great food, citing novelty mcdonalds and ice cream

There's a makeshift farmers market in a parking lot every Saturday near my mom's house. I text her a week in advance if im coming over to visit to get me veg and fruit. It's the only time the kids really eat their veggies and they love the fruit.

It's crazy how much better it tastes.

Every joghurt has more culture than the US