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Most of the landmass is far from the coasts, true, but the population concentrates at the coasts. So the geography is probably not the reason why fish is less
by tmalsburg2 9y ago
Most of the landmass is far from the coasts, true, but the population concentrates at the coasts. So the geography is probably not the reason why fish is less popular in the US. There are probably multiple reasons but one could be that the competition from meat is very strong. Coming from Europe, I was always surprised how cheap meat is in the US.
- opportune 9y agoYeah all these people talking about Americans not having good taste in food are entirely missing the point. It has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with economics. There's no reason to eat fish when in almost all cases chicken, pork, and beef provide much cheaper and filling sources of protein. I mean, I love the taste of fish, but even I rarely eat it because it's just that much more efficient to feed myself with chicken and red meat.
- davidw 9y agoThe US is a pretty wealthy place. I lived in Italy for something like 15 years, and people there eat a lot of fish too, of varying kinds. By and large, they do not have as much money as people do in the US. If it were only about efficiency, you'd probably just eat beans and rice, day in and day out, with a bit of this and that thrown in. Edit: BTW, this book has some interesting ideas about the US and food: http://amzn.to/2oVeaYz http://amzn.to/2oVeaYz Among other things, he points out that the US does have slow food with a high degree of regional variety: barbecue.
- leesalminen 9y ago> If it were only about efficiency, you'd probably just eat beans and rice, day in and day out, with a bit of this and that thrown in. Saving $1 > Saving $0
- simonh 9y agoFrance is much the same, people there seem to spend a much bigger proportion if their disposable income on food than here in the UK.
- justinator 9y agoFrench companies often offset the price of the largest meal of the day via restaurant vouchers. The meal is that important to them. I wouldn't cover that under, "disposable income", exactly.
- Dirlewanger 9y agoEconomies of scale, no doubt. While there's only a few nationwide grocers (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Walmart), there's many more regional grocery supply chains all over the country, that largely offer the same products in every single one. Given any population center, odds are you're within an hour of at least one of these. Insanely impressive given the size of the US.
- ams6110 9y agoThe point is, in the US most seafood at the store is at least $15/lb. Beef (depending on cuts) is as little as $3/lb. Chicken and pork are typically cheaper than beef.
- davidw 9y agoGood steaks are more expensive than chuck, too. And yet people consume both.
- Alupis 9y agoFew people eat steaks every night, let alone good cuts of steak.
- davidw 9y agoAnd yet... you can get them in stores. That's kind of the whole point. Not everyone in Italy eats clams or octopus or whatever every night either.
- lotharbot 9y agoThis has a lot to do with the fact that a cow is a whole animal. If you raise one to sell the chuck, you also get T-bones and ribeyes and tri-tips and flank steaks and so on. Most of that goes into the same retail pipeline, so availability is correlated. On the other hand, expensive fish aren't usually a byproduct of producing cheap fish, nor vice versa.
- brianwawok 9y agoWhole foods has a decent selection of fish. Real salmon is like $20 a pound though.
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoThe US is a pretty wealthy place. I lived in Italy for something like 15 years, and people there eat a lot of fish too, of varying kinds. By and large, they do not have as much money as people do in the US The US is a wealthy place, but a lot of individual families aren't wealthy at all. Cheap, mass-produced, pre-prepared food (either frozen or in cans/boxes) are the cheapest things to eat. Where I lived - a few hours flight to a coast or many hours of driving - fish was one of the more expensive protein options if one doesn't want to eat fish sticks or the like. Chicken and pork were usually cheaper, followed by beef. If it were only about efficiency, you'd probably just eat beans and rice, day in and day out, with a bit of this and that thrown in This misses part of the equation - the stuff folks are eating are time efficient as well. Plus a good amount of folks wouldn't know what to do with lentils and rice: Cooking isn't a focus of schools. I had 6-9 weeks of cooking instruction, and we only cooked (in groups of 4-5) once every week or two and that included things like baking sweets. It is amazing how many folks don't just look this stuff up.
- melq 9y agoFWIW I live on the coast in a place where people eat a decent amount of seafood (anecdotally), and fish is also one of the most expensive protein options. Significantly more expensive than chicken/pork and often even beef. Up until I got my first post-college dev job, my family could not afford fresh fish and thus didn't eat it. Now I live comfortably and can afford it, but it costs as much as a nice piece of beef (like a ribeye), and since I didn't eat fish growing up, I'm going for that ribeye 9 times out of 10.
- ido 9y agoOT but doesn't learning common household skills like cooking the parents' responsiblity? I've never learned it at school
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoI've always viewed that as an excuse not to teach it in school, and I've never quite understood. Same with personal finance. How are you supposed to learn something from your parents if the parents do not cook or are not responsible with their money or refuse to share financials with the child? We know some kids are in that situation and teaching such things is a preventative measure.
- derefr 9y agoI don't know: it seems like a lot of America's logistics and infrastructure design choices are made with equal consideration to inland and coastal populations, despite unequal size. For example, coastal US cities are designed for car travel despite their density, presumably because that makes them more accessible to "the average US citizen" who lives inland and goes everywhere by car.
- tbihl 9y agoYou presume incorrectly. It's a tangled web of federal and state policies, along with the (not exclusively) American fetish for cars and low-density home ownership, which led to the car-centric design. And that's certainly reductive, but helping from landlocked states visit NYC and SF probably never played a role.
- Spooky23 9y agoGiven the choice people prefer not to cram into crowded cities. Cars bring flexibility and freedom. The current trend is to go more urban/inner suburban. That more due to the cycle of aging property and best value than anything else.
- usefulcat 9y agoThere's nothing inherently dense about American "coastal cities". In the U.S., density is primarily related to age--how large a city was prior to the invention of the automobile. With the exception of the oldest cities in the north east, most U.S. coastal cities are not particularly dense unless they are also quite old. LA is a prime example.
- stickfigure 9y agoWhile our population concentrates on the coast, IIRC on balance it still ends up being about a 50-50 split depending on how generously you want to define "coast". Also, the demographic trend is people moving towards coastal cities, so a large portion of current coastal city dwellers established their taste preferences growing up inland. Geography is certainly a plausible component of the answer. But I personally think cultural norms are pretty arbitrary and self-sustaining; there doesn't need to be a deeper reason why "americans like beef" other than our parents did and that's what we grew up with (recurse N generations).
- alasdair_ 9y ago>Coming from Europe, I was always surprised how cheap meat is in the US. Lower quality meat is cheaper. Similar quality meat (for example, in Scotland, all the beef is grass-fed, I don't know about the rest of the EU) seems to cost a similar amount in either area.