Adjectives. You can’t just have a thing. It has to have an adjective. For example: Milk. I wanted to buy milk. I get to the milk section, and there’s no such thing. There’s x milk and y milk and about a dozen other variants. Where is the basic milk (it turns out, I wanted “4% milk”) in this damned place?
Fresh produce. In fairness you’ve gotten loads better on this one after subsequent visits, but beyond some basic staples like potatoes, carrots, corn etc it was really limiting what fruit and vegetables you could get in the supermarket. Also: baby carrots are weird.
Your cheese is radioactive yellow. Cheese is not supposed to be that colour - but you seem expect it to be for some reason, so your producers add yellow colouring to their cheese.
Your eggs are weird. I’m not sure what yous guys do to to them, but it’s like you blast away half the shell and are left with a porous super-white textured inner shell. They need to be refrigerated and last a fraction of the time they’d last if you just left them alone and sold them as they are laid.
Your bread tastes weird. Maybe it’s sugar or preservatives in it, I don’t know. Bread is meant to have a really short ingredients list like flour, water, salt yeast and maybe a touch of oil and sugar. Take a look at the ingredients on your bread and it’s 5 lines long.
Portions! Your food portions are ludicrous. I’d much rather pay half the price for half as much food as they offer on the menu.
Money. You have this weird unconscious pecking order thing in your culture where you value people more based on their bank balance. You show a weird unconscious level of respect to someone who is rich. And similarly, unconsciously look down on someone poorer than you. Not in a mean way - just as a “I’m better than this person” way that is hard to quantify. You are aware at some level roughly how rich everyone you deal with is. I see this trait far less in people under 20. I hope there’s a cultural shift on this one, because money on its own is a weird way to measure someone’s worth.
Your police are run by the local counties. I think your schools also? I know you have state and federal police also, but most places only have police and schools at those levels.
I’ll mostly stay clear of health, because you know your health system is weird. But I will say that it’s weird that very few of your hospitals are run by government. They’re mostly run for profit. Health is meant to be a government service.
Outside a few cities, you barely have public transport of any sort. LA is a mega metropolis, and it’s train network is a joke for that level of population - something like 100 stations for 18 million people?
You have no idea what’s going on. Most of you couldn’t name the UK Prime Minister (this one has been hard to keep track of, in fairness), the German Chancellor or any of the G20 leaders aside from USA and maybe Canada/China. You don’t know about geopolitics beyond whatever you guys are doing. Your world news is literally stuff USA is involved in.
I’ll finish on a weird one: you guys are lovely. This may because I’m white and have an exotic accent to you guys, but almost everyone I’ve ever encountered from the USA in or out of the country has been wonderful. You don’t seem to think of your fellow countrymen you meet as ‘good’ by default. There’s a lot less connection and respect to each other than other nations I’ve been to.
You’re right, of course - I heard the same stuff referred to as “whole milk”. But the only thing you’re correcting about the wider point is the appropriate adjective. Which I find very funny. 😀
It’s interesting that you picked this one out. I thought the money one in particular was going to be a controversial take.
I just found it interesting that the thing you were looking for, most Americans wouldn’t have heard of. It makes me wonder why America has at least 3 milks.
If we ignore the 3.5% v 4% distinction and assume what we call Whole Milk, you just call Milk; what do you call Skim Milk? Or 2% Milk? And if you don’t have them, why do we?
As for the money question, I was curious to see if other non-Americans felt the same. I agree that there is a subset of people who believe that. That subset may be quite large, but I’m not sure how it’s perceived from an outsiders perspective. If you ask me, I don’t think it’s common, but I imagine some loud folks may make it appear that way. But I also acknowledge I’m an American in America, so maybe I don’t notice it.
In Australia and New Zealand: we have skim milk, and call 2% milk “Hi-Lo” - sometimes I see it branded “lite milk”.
Then there’s regular milk. It has 4% fat, but you need to read the fine print on the side of the bottle to learn that. I’ve heard it called “full cream milk”, but usually in a cafe setting when ordering coffee.
My brother in the USA had something called half-and-half in his fridge. I think that one was 8%? You guys would know better than I. We don’t have whatever it is.
Use it for cheese sauces as well! They come out creamy and silky.
If you want a sauce that just won’t break, add a single slice of the singles cheese, or 1/8 tsp of sodium citrate if you can find it, to 8 cups of cheese sauce. It won’t change the flavor or color, but will create a silky smooth sauce that doesn’t break like nacho cheese sauce.
3,5% milk is also the standard milk here in central europe and it says so on the packaging. People call it simply “milk”, but it clearly says 3,5% milk on the branding.
We’re not neighbors with 43 countries, so we don’t have as much immediate exposure to everything going on around those countries. For one, because it’s not going on around us, like it is for you. That said, I thought I had you with the Prime Minister comment. Of course it’s Boris Johnson. Doh! It seems you’ve had 4 prime ministers in 2 years? What’s going on with that? Like I said, we don’t really get exposure to what is happening over there, so unless we specifically go looking for it, I guess we’re out of the loop. We know what’s going on in Mexico and Canada though.
I just sort of assume my instance gives away my location - I’m in Australia, not the UK. Not that we can talk, we also churned through about 5 prime ministers in five years a while back.
But I could still talk about any number of issues going on around the world, because our news covers topics around the world. Yours doesn’t. It’s too busy talking about your election and recently a hurricane. Which I know about as it was in our news.
That’s not a criticism, I actually sought out world news while I was there, and there just weren’t any local sources of it.
Yes, many many milks, we can’t agree on what is best. Personally I like a quality almond milk, for its nutrients & no sugars and huge bonus it’s shelf stable. Great for emergencies.
I think the dearth of fresh produce is related to Americans not doing a lot of cooking. Most Americans have a simpler diet, and the stores need to concentrate on a number of things they know will sell. Baby carrots are actually awesome, you’re going to appreciate this – IIRC baby carrots are an innovative way to reduce food waste, sell crop. A farmer had ugly, misshapen, perhaps slightly molded or otherwise undesirable carrots. But most of it was good! So they cut off the bad parts & whittle it down to a nice, uniform, attractive shape & size. Baby carrots were born! Kids like them, they’re ‘snackable’…idk, I like them & I like the green effort.
Yes, food dyes are thrown into everything. RFK recently did a little rant about the yellow dye, some coal runoff chemical. He’s absolutely right, it’s not cool. I always say you go back 200 years & some people were starving, food of any kind was great. Now we throw red dye into ketchup solely because the ketchup isn’t red enough. Disgusting.
Natural eggs have some waxy layer on it, a protective layer. So your eggs look dirtier but are actually healthier, can withstand low/no refrigeration. IIRC. Our eggs have that layer removed, they’re required by law to be ‘washed’. Yes, I also think it’s bullshit.
It is definitely the sugar & preservatives.
As our bellies have grown, so has everything else. If you find old houses with old cabinets & old plates, you’ll find the dinner plates are much smaller than we have today! We have been programmed to consume. Search ‘dinner plates have gotten bigger’ and read for yourself.
Yes, our police forces get down to counties. Towns. Idk, I would say that this should provide a more personal & immediate presence. Also in the American spirit, keeping these matters fractured & separate (but also working together, and deferring to increasing levels of authority as needed) allows for the most freedom. You don’t like how things are run in this town? Well move to another one. Same with the states. I see people moving towns because they want a better school for their kids. It allows for choice.
Yeah, pretty much. TBF, though, our brains can only process so much. And what can we do about the European stuff, anyway?? We’ve got our jobs, maybe our families, our homes, 334M fucking people of our own with various beliefs scattered across 50 diverse states, heavy taxation without representation (hint, hint), our own problems…then somebody comes up to you…“Did you hear what happened in Fuckistan this morning? 🥺”NO! 😂🙃
Thankfully, with the internet, we can look into any world events we want to & educate ourselves that way. I do, I am politically more involved than most. But no, I cannot name current ministers, chancellors, presidents… I hear their position & that’s enough for me. Not my monkeys, not my circus, you handle yours & I’ll handle mine.
12 . Thanks! I think at heart we’re very cordial people generally speaking. But onto that second, contradictory part: I absolutely agree. I live in a generally good area, but I also see a lot of…other…people. There’s a saying, people were a lot more polite & considerate when duelling was legal. Looking around, I think things have become far too ‘civilized’, the people too soft & dumb, our food as you’ve pointed out is poisoned, mental & physical illnesses abound, the people haven’t seen real hard times, there is no clear & present danger to unite & fight so they make up stupid things to get offended by & fight each other, they’re protected from the natural consequences of their actions…I see it. Often. This & more culminates in disrespect & disconnects. Unlike other nations, partly because of our freedoms & partially because our legal system lacks balls, we tolerate a lot of bullshit behavior. As they say, if you tolerate something, expect more of it.
As an American, I kinda assumed that subconscious rich/poor thing comes into play with tourists. We “know” how much it costs to come visit this country and we really do want to make it as pleasant as possible, partially because most of us really do love the place even though it has problems, and partially because we want to be a “good value” for their money.
Adjectives. You can’t just have a thing. It has to have an adjective. For example: Milk. I wanted to buy milk. I get to the milk section, and there’s no such thing. There’s x milk and y milk and about a dozen other variants. Where is the basic milk (it turns out, I wanted “4% milk”) in this damned place?
you guys are out there buying NULL milk??
Your cheese is radioactive yellow. Cheese is not supposed to be that colour - but you seem expect it to be for some reason, so your producers add yellow colouring to their cheese.
american cheese or cheese more generically? I assume more generically but i’ve seen this mentioned a few times and not specified lol.
They need to be refrigerated and last a fraction of the time they’d last if you just left them alone and sold them as they are laid.
“So what’s the deal with washing and refrigeration? Soon after eggs pop out of the chicken, American producers put them straight to a machine that shampoos them with soap and hot water. The steamy shower leaves the shells squeaky clean. But it also compromises them, by washing away a barely visible sheen that naturally envelops each egg.”
huh, basically just seems like a different approach to solving the problem. Prevention of disease and what not.
Your police are run by the local counties. I think your schools also? I know you have state and federal police also, but most places only have police and schools at those levels.
schools are run locally, though they all adhere to state standards. Sometimes it depends on the schools, some of them are run by the state directly, with a local school board, others are private.
I’ll mostly stay clear of health, because you know your health system is weird. But I will say that it’s weird that very few of your hospitals are run by government. They’re mostly run for profit. Health is meant to be a government service.
i did find this stat, which appears to show that there are more non profit hospitals.
Outside a few cities, you barely have public transport of any sort. LA is a mega metropolis, and it’s train network is a joke for that level of population - something like 100 stations for 18 million people?
the obvious answer here is that it’s not for 18 million people. Public transit is almost never intended to get 100% of society from one place to another. It’s just to relocate mass traffic from the roads to something more efficient.
You have no idea what’s going on. Most of you couldn’t name the UK Prime Minister (this one has been hard to keep track of, in fairness), the German Chancellor or any of the G20 leaders aside from USA and maybe Canada/China. You don’t know about geopolitics beyond whatever you guys are doing. Your world news is literally stuff USA is involved in.
in our defense, Britain is basically the size of a small state… So with local politics alone we’re basically dealing with the entirety of the EU, and probably more. Also, we don’t really live next to anywhere exciting, so world news isn’t really super relevant to us. We have canada up north, they exist, we’re friendly. Mexico to the south, we’re relatively friendly too, but they have an organized crime problem, and beyond that it’s sort of just outside of our bounds.
Canada and mexico are considered “domestic” policy for us lol.
They don’t need to be washed with hot water and soap, they’re perfectly good as they are.
Sorry about the hospital thing. By “for-profit”, I meant you had to pay to go there. That’s completely alien to everyone in the first world. We have private hospitals as well, and yep: lots of them are (or claim to be) non-profit also.
from what i saw when i looked into the egg washing thing. It’s two different solutions to the same problem. The same problem ultimately being unsafe eggs. From what i can recall the europeans generally treat chickens against them, whereas the US generally treats eggs against them (by washing them)
presumably the US does it because either, we started doing it, and it worked, or it’s just more flexible. I know japan ended adopting it after they got a particularly bad batch of infected eggs causing a pretty bad health spook. Other than that i don’t think it’s happened anywhere else.
Sorry about the hospital thing. By “for-profit”, I meant you had to pay to go there. That’s completely alien to everyone in the first world. We have private hospitals as well, and yep: lots of them are (or claim to be) non-profit also.
yeah fair enough, it just bothers me when people say for profit when it’s literally not lol. It’s getting money in either scenario, it’s just taxes from one, and people who pay for insurance and operations directly in the other so.
Actually you’re not wrong about for profit hospitals here. Many of them are getting acquired by private equity firms(look into PE acquisitions across this country it will make you sick) and those are for profit hospitals.
I’ll try to avoid stuff you know is weird.
As a lifelong American, I don’t think we have 4% milk (reliably). Growing up we had Skim, 2% and Whole. Looking it up Whole is defined as 3.5%
I did look up a local store online and I was able to find it, but not universally at every store.
Whole milk also often called “Vitamin D Milk”
We had 1% as well where I grew up.
You’re right, of course - I heard the same stuff referred to as “whole milk”. But the only thing you’re correcting about the wider point is the appropriate adjective. Which I find very funny. 😀
It’s interesting that you picked this one out. I thought the money one in particular was going to be a controversial take.
I just found it interesting that the thing you were looking for, most Americans wouldn’t have heard of. It makes me wonder why America has at least 3 milks.
If we ignore the 3.5% v 4% distinction and assume what we call Whole Milk, you just call Milk; what do you call Skim Milk? Or 2% Milk? And if you don’t have them, why do we?
As for the money question, I was curious to see if other non-Americans felt the same. I agree that there is a subset of people who believe that. That subset may be quite large, but I’m not sure how it’s perceived from an outsiders perspective. If you ask me, I don’t think it’s common, but I imagine some loud folks may make it appear that way. But I also acknowledge I’m an American in America, so maybe I don’t notice it.
In Australia and New Zealand: we have skim milk, and call 2% milk “Hi-Lo” - sometimes I see it branded “lite milk”. Then there’s regular milk. It has 4% fat, but you need to read the fine print on the side of the bottle to learn that. I’ve heard it called “full cream milk”, but usually in a cafe setting when ordering coffee.
My brother in the USA had something called half-and-half in his fridge. I think that one was 8%? You guys would know better than I. We don’t have whatever it is.
Half-and-half is supposed to be “half milk, half cream” and is used primarily in coffee instead of heavy cream.
Use it for cheese sauces as well! They come out creamy and silky.
If you want a sauce that just won’t break, add a single slice of the singles cheese, or 1/8 tsp of sodium citrate if you can find it, to 8 cups of cheese sauce. It won’t change the flavor or color, but will create a silky smooth sauce that doesn’t break like nacho cheese sauce.
Sodium citrate is an absolute game changer for cheese sauces.
3,5% milk is also the standard milk here in central europe and it says so on the packaging. People call it simply “milk”, but it clearly says 3,5% milk on the branding.
We’re not neighbors with 43 countries, so we don’t have as much immediate exposure to everything going on around those countries. For one, because it’s not going on around us, like it is for you. That said, I thought I had you with the Prime Minister comment. Of course it’s Boris Johnson. Doh! It seems you’ve had 4 prime ministers in 2 years? What’s going on with that? Like I said, we don’t really get exposure to what is happening over there, so unless we specifically go looking for it, I guess we’re out of the loop. We know what’s going on in Mexico and Canada though.
I just sort of assume my instance gives away my location - I’m in Australia, not the UK. Not that we can talk, we also churned through about 5 prime ministers in five years a while back.
But I could still talk about any number of issues going on around the world, because our news covers topics around the world. Yours doesn’t. It’s too busy talking about your election and recently a hurricane. Which I know about as it was in our news.
That’s not a criticism, I actually sought out world news while I was there, and there just weren’t any local sources of it.
In fairness for number 11, many Americans can’t even name their own government officials, expecting to know about other countries is a tall order.
I’ll try to address some of this, as I’m able. 🙂
Yes, many many milks, we can’t agree on what is best. Personally I like a quality almond milk, for its nutrients & no sugars and huge bonus it’s shelf stable. Great for emergencies.
I think the dearth of fresh produce is related to Americans not doing a lot of cooking. Most Americans have a simpler diet, and the stores need to concentrate on a number of things they know will sell. Baby carrots are actually awesome, you’re going to appreciate this – IIRC baby carrots are an innovative way to reduce food waste, sell crop. A farmer had ugly, misshapen, perhaps slightly molded or otherwise undesirable carrots. But most of it was good! So they cut off the bad parts & whittle it down to a nice, uniform, attractive shape & size. Baby carrots were born! Kids like them, they’re ‘snackable’…idk, I like them & I like the green effort.
Yes, food dyes are thrown into everything. RFK recently did a little rant about the yellow dye, some coal runoff chemical. He’s absolutely right, it’s not cool. I always say you go back 200 years & some people were starving, food of any kind was great. Now we throw red dye into ketchup solely because the ketchup isn’t red enough. Disgusting.
Natural eggs have some waxy layer on it, a protective layer. So your eggs look dirtier but are actually healthier, can withstand low/no refrigeration. IIRC. Our eggs have that layer removed, they’re required by law to be ‘washed’. Yes, I also think it’s bullshit.
It is definitely the sugar & preservatives.
As our bellies have grown, so has everything else. If you find old houses with old cabinets & old plates, you’ll find the dinner plates are much smaller than we have today! We have been programmed to consume. Search ‘dinner plates have gotten bigger’ and read for yourself.
Yes, our police forces get down to counties. Towns. Idk, I would say that this should provide a more personal & immediate presence. Also in the American spirit, keeping these matters fractured & separate (but also working together, and deferring to increasing levels of authority as needed) allows for the most freedom. You don’t like how things are run in this town? Well move to another one. Same with the states. I see people moving towns because they want a better school for their kids. It allows for choice.
Yeah, pretty much. TBF, though, our brains can only process so much. And what can we do about the European stuff, anyway?? We’ve got our jobs, maybe our families, our homes, 334M fucking people of our own with various beliefs scattered across 50 diverse states, heavy taxation without representation (hint, hint), our own problems…then somebody comes up to you…“Did you hear what happened in Fuckistan this morning? 🥺” NO! 😂🙃
Thankfully, with the internet, we can look into any world events we want to & educate ourselves that way. I do, I am politically more involved than most. But no, I cannot name current ministers, chancellors, presidents… I hear their position & that’s enough for me. Not my monkeys, not my circus, you handle yours & I’ll handle mine.
12 . Thanks! I think at heart we’re very cordial people generally speaking. But onto that second, contradictory part: I absolutely agree. I live in a generally good area, but I also see a lot of…other…people. There’s a saying, people were a lot more polite & considerate when duelling was legal. Looking around, I think things have become far too ‘civilized’, the people too soft & dumb, our food as you’ve pointed out is poisoned, mental & physical illnesses abound, the people haven’t seen real hard times, there is no clear & present danger to unite & fight so they make up stupid things to get offended by & fight each other, they’re protected from the natural consequences of their actions…I see it. Often. This & more culminates in disrespect & disconnects. Unlike other nations, partly because of our freedoms & partially because our legal system lacks balls, we tolerate a lot of bullshit behavior. As they say, if you tolerate something, expect more of it.
As an American, I kinda assumed that subconscious rich/poor thing comes into play with tourists. We “know” how much it costs to come visit this country and we really do want to make it as pleasant as possible, partially because most of us really do love the place even though it has problems, and partially because we want to be a “good value” for their money.
you guys are out there buying NULL milk??
american cheese or cheese more generically? I assume more generically but i’ve seen this mentioned a few times and not specified lol.
“So what’s the deal with washing and refrigeration? Soon after eggs pop out of the chicken, American producers put them straight to a machine that shampoos them with soap and hot water. The steamy shower leaves the shells squeaky clean. But it also compromises them, by washing away a barely visible sheen that naturally envelops each egg.”
huh, basically just seems like a different approach to solving the problem. Prevention of disease and what not.
schools are run locally, though they all adhere to state standards. Sometimes it depends on the schools, some of them are run by the state directly, with a local school board, others are private.
is this true? there are a lot of non profit hospitals, i can’t think of any “for profit” hospitals off the top of my head though. https://www.aha.org/statistics/fast-facts-us-hospitals
i did find this stat, which appears to show that there are more non profit hospitals.
the obvious answer here is that it’s not for 18 million people. Public transit is almost never intended to get 100% of society from one place to another. It’s just to relocate mass traffic from the roads to something more efficient.
in our defense, Britain is basically the size of a small state… So with local politics alone we’re basically dealing with the entirety of the EU, and probably more. Also, we don’t really live next to anywhere exciting, so world news isn’t really super relevant to us. We have canada up north, they exist, we’re friendly. Mexico to the south, we’re relatively friendly too, but they have an organized crime problem, and beyond that it’s sort of just outside of our bounds.
Canada and mexico are considered “domestic” policy for us lol.
Eggs look like this:
They don’t need to be washed with hot water and soap, they’re perfectly good as they are.
Sorry about the hospital thing. By “for-profit”, I meant you had to pay to go there. That’s completely alien to everyone in the first world. We have private hospitals as well, and yep: lots of them are (or claim to be) non-profit also.
from what i saw when i looked into the egg washing thing. It’s two different solutions to the same problem. The same problem ultimately being unsafe eggs. From what i can recall the europeans generally treat chickens against them, whereas the US generally treats eggs against them (by washing them)
presumably the US does it because either, we started doing it, and it worked, or it’s just more flexible. I know japan ended adopting it after they got a particularly bad batch of infected eggs causing a pretty bad health spook. Other than that i don’t think it’s happened anywhere else.
yeah fair enough, it just bothers me when people say for profit when it’s literally not lol. It’s getting money in either scenario, it’s just taxes from one, and people who pay for insurance and operations directly in the other so.
Actually you’re not wrong about for profit hospitals here. Many of them are getting acquired by private equity firms(look into PE acquisitions across this country it will make you sick) and those are for profit hospitals.