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Comment by stemlord | Hacker News Reader

Weird. As an American I feel like it's common knowledge that we have shit food options. The 70s-90s were basically the golden era of processed foods and generations of Americans have learned the hard way how detrimental this was for public health at large. We came out with things like Supersize Me and People of Wal-Mart that brought our terrible culinary cultural values to the forefront of public opinion. We were the fattest nation on earth for a while. Maybe still are. I don't know who is supposed to be shocked by the assertion that American food is worse than European food.

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> As an American I feel like it's common knowledge that we have shit food options.

If you live in a medium to large city in the United States you have great food options, but most people ignore them and go for the easy stuff.

> I don't know who is supposed to be shocked by the assertion that American food is worse than European food.

The article was probably intended more to play to the “America bad, Europe good” meme that permeates social media, not to shock people into some revelation.

The reality is that America does have good food options if you go looking for it, but it also has large amounts of convenient and processed foods for people to choose from. Turning this into another culture war topic isn’t really helpful.

The food options in big cities aren't that great, even if you go to try look for them.

Depends of which European food. I'd rather eat US food than Dutch or English food. We kept eating in Chinatown in London because their food was both shitty and expensive. And we bought stuff from Indian grocery shops. I can't thank the Chinese and Indian immigrants enough for this. Germany was a bit better in this regard.

During our visits to England, in both Nottinghamshire and Sussex we had great (albeit not very varied, healthy or interesting) local cuisine. I was actually surprised, as I was aware of the stereotype that English food is terrible!

My resting theory is that England invaded most of the world because they just wanted something better to eat.

Their weather too. I always remember the opening chapter from Bleak House when anyone mentions English weather.

What I do like about their food is breakfast. It's simple, tasty and would set you up until 4 pm. Plus the tea and the cookies but I don't consider those "food".

The problem with English/British food is that some/a lot of restaurants care very little about the food, and more about maximising profits. These restaurants tend to be in the most highly trafficked areas, and in tourist spots.

So you need to research where to go. But English food at its best is as good as anywhere and pulls influence from a variety of cultures.

But I would rather shop in a general UK supermarket than a general American one any day. The food is not as processed and not full of crazy ingredients ( but is getting worse ), and you can often buy local.

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