Hacker News Reader

Comment by cromka | Hacker News Reader

> Food is cheap and plentiful. The portion sizes are twice as large for the same equivalent price as the EU :).

As someone who moved from EU to the US for 6 years and recently got back: the quality of the food is way lower there, though. As in: food standards imposed are significantly lower. I ended buying mostly organic food at Costco after my body significantly changed within first 6 months.

EDIT: don't know why I am being downvoted: the food standards difference is based on actual facts, not my personal experience, it doesn't take a lot of googling to compare the sheer numbers. Or if you're lazy just consider the mere fact that salmonella is still a thing in the US, which is why all eggs are washed before the sale.

View on HN

Food standards might be lower, but I would argue that the food quality is better, depending on the country in the EU.

Here in Germany, 25% of meat bought in grocery stores doesn't follow the most basic of butchering standards set forth: https://www.ua-bw.de/pub/beitrag.asp?subid=0&Thema_ID=2&ID=2...

What you get in the US is choice - and as a software engineer, you have the money to make those choices. Shop at Whole Foods, not the local gas station, and you will see there is a world of difference.

That's one mistake I see Europeans make - they apply a European world view to the US, and don't understand the wide spectrum of choices. Here in Europe, most things are equal or about the same. This mentality is even applied to universities (ask a German which university is "the best", and you will receive a confused look).

Whether you think all of this is morally correct is a different question.

For a fair comparison, what percentage of meat bought in US grocery stores follows the most basic German butchering standards?

It's true that any given German grocery store has fewer choices than any given US one, but extrapolating that to "there are no choices" is absurd. Germany has more choices of grocery store, and in both countries if you really want good meat you go to a real butcher (definitely not Whole Foods) anyway.

Your comment about universities must be a joke, or your social circle lacks any kind of discrminating ability. I've had multiple conversations with a dozen Germans about exactly this topic in the past month regarding our recruitment/hiring practices.

I don't know the statistics, but I've never encountered bone splinters in any meat I've ever eaten in the US.

As for the universities, it's not like I made this up. I'm well aware of the broad differences in quality of education (and futhermore, healthcare) here, but my comment wasn't about me and this is not an invention of mine, it is a widely held belief: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/comments/ay5nrs/which_un...

I also didn't say "there are no choices", so I don't know who you're quoting here. What I was trying to explain is the European worldview being applied to the US, where there is much vaster inequality between universities, products, income, etc. I didn't attempt to make a value judgement about it, I was trying to show a common pitfall of Europeans arriving in the US: it's important that you know where you're shopping, it's important that you know where you're going to school, and it's important that you know what neighborhood you're in. In Germany, you don't need to know what neighborhood you're in: they are all roughly the same in terms of crime.

> In Germany, you don't need to know what neighborhood you're in: they are all roughly the same in terms of crime

I was never to the US and maybe it is worse there. Don't want to compare but your statement is just plain wrong and the people always telling this as a mantra just never have lived in a bad neighborhood and/or do not have kids.

A reddit thread with 15 comments, several of which disagree with your claim, is not a "widely held belief"!

> you don't need to know what neighborhood you're in: they are all roughly the same in terms of crime.

This is unreal. Is this some Bavarian bullshit? Nobody in the north believes it.

washed refrigerated eggs are pretty standard also in many European countries, that's not exactly helping your argument though I agree US standards are lower than EU

Well, washing eggs nor refrigerating pre-purchase cannot be standard, because it's pretty much forbidden:

"4.3. Washing of eggs

The practice of washing eggs of class A for human consumption is forbidden by the European Union legislation."

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52...

Class A eggs are basically the only type you'd buy for consumption. I, for one, have not once found Class B eggs in a store. AFIK Class B are used in food manufacturing only.

Then why are eggs refridgerated if they are not washed? Also I wonder what is definition of washing, because often eggs I buy are perfectly clean.

Class A eggs are also forbidden from refrigeration, because unwashed eggs can develop mildew and contaminate other products. Everywhere I bought eggs in EU, they were on the regular store shelf, not in refrigerator.

I don't know what's your definition of perfectly clean, but eggs in EU are not perfectly clean in comparison to the US ones. The latter look like they're literally bleached. Not a single spot on the shell. The eggs I buy in EU, code 0-2, are quite dirty, with residue on them.

So that's definitely wrong most likely same as washed eggs ban, because at least in Czechia in Slovakia you will find them refridgerated in every single supermarket and in plenty other EU countries, I remember even discussion about this on HN. By perfectly clean I mean perfectly smooth surface without any dirt or anything attached to shell, maybe they differ between brushing and washing.

Don't know how to explain it, then. Never once seen eggs in refrigerator in Poland, for example. Maybe they're not Grade A? As in the cheapest eggs available would be Grade B.

Nah, they place there all kinds of eggs, no matter if cheap or fancy bio eggs, it's almost always refridgerated, only sometimes they place cheapest big boxes of 30-60 eggs on pallet next to refridgerator make sure they are in chilled enviroment, so actually the cheapest are sometimes not refridgerated.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com