American food is just so... sugary?

[LMuhlen]

You can't regulate this problem out of existence. The primary causes are cultural and behavioral. You have to focus on the problem where it is. Until we start holding the individuals accountable within our culture, their behavior will persist.

If a core cause of the issue is that the government is subsidizing corn syrup, then it is a problem regulated into existence. Seems pretty logic to think you could regulate it in a better direction, at least in regards to corn.

[Tiwack]

The thing is this forum has a policy against nation-bashing threads. To circumvent that and play around the edges of the spirit of the rule, people create these thinly veiled threads talking about completely trivial shit that no one in their right mind thinks or cares about. Then the usual suspects flood in to tell us Americans what giant pieces of shit we are and they get away with it scott-free. There are several of them going at any single time on this forum and no one receives infractions like they should if the forum followed it's own rules and wasn't moderated by heavily biased moderators.

I could go make a thread right now about X European country has the shittiest Y and would probably get immediately infracted. Good thing we Americans don't have the time or will to give a shit about them like they apparently do us.

For instance the post replying to me on page 2 was someone straight up nation-bashing saying that America was the shittiest developed nation and all this other garbage. I reported it for violating the site ToS hours ago and it will remain uninfracted because this place is moderated by intellectual crooks.

So fuck the OP for asking questions and being curious about why the world is the way it is huh? Did you ever consider yourself to be a part of the problem or must it be everyone else who has a problem? Innocent discussion and debate on the nuances of the different cultures of the world has to devolve into nation bashing thanks to insensitive individuals like yourself coming around with your agendas and skin caught up in the game so much that you're left blinded.

OT: Various subsidies and regulations largely decide what ends up in the food on the shelves. Cheap substitutes like foam in McD buns are true depending where in the world you are. Businesses only care about the short term bottom line regardless of the impact their practices have on society as a whole. Some governments are more libertarian than others and refuse to make paternal laws as consumers should just read labels and avoid the businesses and things they don't like. As such letting the free market decide despite the subsidies on corn syrup causing the abundance of sugar in most things out of USA anyhow.

[cuafpr]

traveled to 15 different countries.. and honestly I've never noticed the difference.. but I'm also like an anti-foodie, so meh.

[Mormolyce]

Even the accent is kind of saccharine :P

But seriously I've heard that from a lot of Australians who go to the US as well. Apparently the food is sweet.

[Deleted]

Never heard of anyone here doing that The lo-fi bread is usually bread, butter, sugar on top.

Both sound pretty disgusting

[Mormolyce]

The thing is this forum has a policy against nation-bashing threads. To circumvent that and play around the edges of the spirit of the rule, people create these thinly veiled threads talking about completely trivial shit that no one in their right mind thinks or cares about. Then the usual suspects flood in to tell us Americans what giant pieces of shit we are and they get away with it scott-free. There are several of them going at any single time on this forum and no one receives infractions like they should if the forum followed it's own rules and wasn't moderated by heavily biased moderators.

I could go make a thread right now about X European country has the shittiest Y and would probably get immediately infracted. Good thing we Americans don't have the time or will to give a shit about them like they apparently do us.

For instance the post replying to me on page 2 was someone straight up nation-bashing saying that America was the shittiest developed nation and all this other garbage. I reported it for violating the site ToS hours ago and it will remain uninfracted because this place is moderated by intellectual crooks.

Don't you think you're taking a thread about how sugary food is a wee bit seriously there?

[Klingers]

Basic way American food industry works: Corn farmers gets government subsidies. That makes corn cheaper to grow. There's more corn than people want to turn into edible things like Corn chips, corn flakes, corn... stuff, so they take the excess and turn it into the liquid sugary goodness that they pump into all your other stuff. Most other countries get their processed sugar from sugar cane which isn't quite as strongly sweet.

American food is basically the taste-bud equivalent of ruining you for white men. You stop noticing it if you grow up eating/drinking it.

I say this as an Australian who's drunk imported American Coke, root beer and stuff: Bloody hell that shit is sickly sweet. Your bread is basically cake. Your cheese is also disturbingly orange. Cheese shouldn't be orange.

[Scooby Dooby Doo]

Basic way American food industry works: Corn farmers gets government subsidies. That makes corn cheaper to grow. There's more corn than people want to turn into edible things like Corn chips, corn flakes, corn... stuff, so they take the excess and turn it into the liquid sugary goodness that they pump into all your other stuff. Most other countries get their processed sugar from sugar cane which isn't quite as strongly sweet.

American food is basically the taste-bud equivalent of ruining you for white men. You stop noticing it if you grow up eating/drinking it.

I say this as an Australian who's drunk imported American Coke, root beer and stuff: Bloody hell that shit is sickly sweet. Your bread is basically cake. Your cheese is also disturbingly orange. Cheese shouldn't be orange.

Correct. Same goes for cheese. Although the American government wasn't directly responsible for the over production of cheese (at least I don't think so) they decided to advertise and invent new cheese products and uses for cheese.

[Independent voter]

It's literally impossible for me to be part of the problem that I'm pointing out. The problem is people jumping on the USAs back about anything and everything they can think of and not getting properly infracted for it. This thread was not started to strike up an intriguing and nuanced conversation. It was started to dig up what exactly is fucking wrong with those dastardly Americans, as they all are and eventually devolve to be.

A lot of threads are veiled American bashing threads, that's true. I don't think it's a big deal, it gives foreigners a chance to vent if nothing else.

[Tiwack]

It's literally impossible for me to be part of the problem that I'm pointing out. The problem is people jumping on the USAs back about anything and everything they can think of and not getting properly infracted for it. This thread was not started to strike up an intriguing and nuanced conversation. It was started to dig up what exactly is fucking wrong with those dastardly Americans, as they all are and eventually devolve to be.

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Not at all. Also, fuck marmite.

You don't see that you taking offense by an innocent question on why food is sugary in America makes you part of the problem? Did you check yourself for a spine or are you so preoccupied with alien threats that any mention of your country must be a veiled attack?

[Mormolyce]

Not at all. Also, fuck marmite.

This might land me in hot water but I actually don't know the difference between marmite and vegemite.

They're an acquired taste though.

[Tiwack]

LOL vent? I bet whatever millions/billions in diplomatic and military aid they receive from us is such a huge burden on them.

Didn't know that absolved us of our right to bitch and complain like you are in this thread.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Hard to take you seriously when one of your restaurant choices is McDonalds. (That's not meant to bait you, but, seriously... McDonalds?)

Having said that, yes, fast food and processed food is a big issue in the USA: lots of sugar and lots of artificial flavoring. I'm glad I live in an area where its easy to avoid both.

Allergies means that when I can't cook and have to eat, I pretty much always ends-up at McDonald. They (used to) have strong ethics with allergies, so it was safe.

Don't go to McDs sheesh. The trouble with corn syrup being in everything instead of sugar is real though. You have to check labels to find what you want.

I don't if I have the choice :P

So for a Canadian, things in the USA are too sweet? From a European viewpoint, I found many things in Canada too sweet already! O.O

OMG I will probably never go to the USA, would get sick from the food there...

Really? Damn. I tend to cook, but I always thought our stuff was mostly moderate. If that's not indiscrete, where do you come from?

Fat is a good thing, well healthy fat. But yes, dumbasses in the 80s said fast was bad so they took it out of our food and replaced it with sugar then we started getting fat.

The sugar industry has invested billions to keep people blind about its effects. Fat was just collateral damage. Although too much fat is also dangerous, but there's a lot of good fat out there that needs to be consumed for a healthy lifestyle.

Artificial flavors deeply disturb you and then you talk about eating chicken McNuggets at McDonalds? Interesting......

Again, not by choice. I understand your point though.

You said the thread was about nation bashing, but it is not. People coming into it throwing slurs is different thing. The thread's topic is about sugar in food.

This thread was created out of curiosity. If people perceive this as nation bashing, they're fundamentally misunderstanding the goal of this thread. That's on them.

A lot of threads are veiled American bashing threads, that's true. I don't think it's a big deal, it gives foreigners a chance to vent if nothing else.

But it's not. Frankly I don't understand why people gets defensive over something like this. Obviously, six pages in, I supposed my observation is at least a bit accurate. That doesn't mean the US is a bad country. Why would anyone even think that?

Yes, and a lot of that has to do with something you mentioned... Corn. We have a lot of subsidies on corn, and we have to use it somewhere... so pretty much everything has corn syrup in it.

We Americans are people of the corn. Literally... most of the atoms in us funneled in from Corn. Our animals are corn fed with corn meal, and corn sugar is in most food.

Corn is not inherently bad. But I have to say that is was surprising to see it in food that seemingly had nothing in common with it. It's definitely something unusual here.

[gyrados]

i remember reading an article few months ago that said that what is in food in america is actually banned in other countries

[endersblade]

I WISH the problem was legit sugar. More like corn. HFCS. Fuck that stuff.

[freezion]

This might land me in hot water but I actually don't know the difference between marmite and vegemite.

They're an acquired taste though.

basically the same product, but marmite is sweeter and darker in colour.

acquired taste for some maybe, i kindda liked it off the bat, but a lot of people over-dose it the first time they eat it, or simply eat it wrong. it would be kindda comparable to eating a bouillon cube vs drinking the actual bouillon.

thin layer on toast (not nutella-thin, but THIN-thin, maybe even some butter underneath even). even tho it's still salty, then it's still less salty than the general MMO-champ thread discourse.

[Deleted]

I don't live in America but across the internet it comes off as some third world dystopia more and more.

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i remember reading an article few months ago that said that what is in food in america is actually banned in other countries

Interesting. My brother told me that at his university they had a guest teacher from America. In a class she touched upon this. Iirc it was something about growth hormones in cattle or pigs, and how some traces would remain and make it all the way to the store. And how a lot of things are banned in Europe that are common practice in America.

[Grapemask]

American food is 99% sugar. We love sweet shit here. Everything needs to have a fancy flavor. Even our bread needs to be a little bit sweet, it can't just be bread. A lot of that is probably because sugary, carby goodness is cheaper than whatever actual nutritional item they would put in its place, not to mention that the more popular sweeteners are also fantastic preservatives.

It's actually gotten really hard to make a decent diet out of American food unless you have a lot of time in the kitchen to spend cooking. If you eat anything pre-packaged, it becomes an ordeal to get more than 30, 40 grams of protein in a day, because everything is just carbs on carbs on carbs. And 30 grams of protein doesn't even meet most people's daily sedentary requirements.

[Zandalarian Paladin]

Oh, I agree, but the reasons to use it, IMO, are dubious. "We have lots of it, let's put it in everything!"

But there have been studies that show while HFCS has the same calorie content, it spikes your insulin levels higher than normal sugar, and when you consume it with fat, your body craves both a lot more.

See, I didn't know that. Although the more I read here, the more that some issues with the health system in the US starts to make sense. Diabetes, for instance.

Isn't there some form of regulation for these products in the US?

[PACOX]

In America even the air is sweet. Sweet with the taste of Freedom and Democracy.