5 ms·

You are wrong. In the few major urban centers, you can buy the most expensive and supposedly high-quality food, but that food is still MUCH LOWER QUALITY than t

by alt_f4 9y ago

You are wrong. In the few major urban centers, you can buy the most expensive and supposedly high-quality food, but that food is still MUCH LOWER QUALITY than the one sold in Western Europe. And we're talking international brand names here too. E.g., for example, soft drinks and candy bars would be sold with HFCS instead of sugar, chocolate will have lower % cocoa. You will find artificial colorings, preservatives and, generally, all kinds of artificial flavor improvers over healthier, more natural ingredients that are found in the Western versions of the same products of the same brand names. And don't get me started on the quality of meat... If you haven't noticed that, it is possible you just haven't travelled enough. I've lived for years in both Western and Eastern Europe, so I can tell you -- the differences are very stark and, IMHO, should be illegal.

virtuabhi 9y ago
> for example, soft drinks and candy bars would be sold with HFCS instead of sugar, chocolate will have lower % cocoa. You will find artificial colorings, preservatives and, generally, all kinds of artificial flavor improvers over healthier, more natural ingredients that are found in the Western versions of the same products of the same brand names. Are you talking about USA?
- alt_f4 9y ago
  Nope, but it is generally well known to us, Europeans, that a lot of the food sold in the US is of lower quality, which is contributing to the US obesity epidemic, cancer rates, heart issues... This is starting to become a problem here too.
  - faster 9y ago
    When I returned to the US after living in Western Europe, the hardest thing to adapt to was the quality of food in the supermarkets. I left the first two grocery stores empty-handed because nothing looked like food to me. It was all cardboard and plastic and sugar in all its various forms. However, high quality food is available, but it requires time (to go where it is, since it isn't always distributed like the plastic-wrapped sugar stuff) and money, though not always more than the stores charge for mass-produced things.
    - alt_f4 9y ago
      In the US, unlike most cities in Eastern Europe, you at least have the option to pay a premium and get high quality food.
Mediterraneo10 9y ago
> that food is still MUCH LOWER QUALITY than the one sold in Western Europe It depends where you shop. A Profi will sell low-quality products regardless of whether it is in a big city or a small town. On the other hand, only in the big city can you shop at Mega Image, which sells a lot of products identical to their Western European versions. Its distribution network is much better than any of the competition. Carrefour and Auchan's more expensive generic brands are identical to that sold in the West (their cheaper generic brands, however, are such crap I don’t even know who would buy it). Meat, I don’t know because I don’t eat it.
- alt_f4 9y ago
  > It depends where you shop It does not. You're not getting my point. You go to a Profi or Mega Image and you buy a Milka chocolate, it is the same Milka chocolate because there is only 1 distributor and this is the version of Milka chocolate that gets manufactured for Romania, Bulgaria, etc. And it's shit - it has less cocoa, it is 90g instead of 100g, it is filled with sugar substitutes. You go to Germany, to an EDEKA or a REWE, and you buy the same Milk chocolate - it has higher % cocoa, it is 100g, it contains milk, cocoa and sugar, no chemical substitutes. I can make the exact same point for soft drinks and pretty much all packaged goods. Hell, even things like laundry detergents are diluted compared to their western counterparts.
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    The whole point of going to a Mega Image is that you don’t have to buy a Milka. Instead, you can buy a Western European chocolate brand in its original Western European version, and for not significantly more money than that Milka would cost in a Profi or village shop. Similarly, at a Carrefour or Auchan you could buy the generic-label chocolate, which is just the French version with a Romanian ingredients sticker pasted on it, for the same price as a Milka. People in big cities have access to plenty of high-quality products if they just take advantage of that opportunity and ignore stuff like your Milka example. It is people in small towns and villages who are forced to buy shit food.
    - 9y ago
zzzcpan 9y ago
I think you are over generalizing. Local brands in Eastern Europe sell pretty high-quality food, but they sell it cheaper and don't make as much profit on it, than in Western Europe. Non-local brands, on the other hand, sometimes substitute their products with lower quality crap.
- alt_f4 9y ago
  > Local brands in Eastern Europe sell pretty high-quality food any examples? > Non-local brands, on the other hand, sometimes substitute their products with lower quality crap change 'sometimes' to 'very frequently' and that would be correct

by alt_f4 9y ago

virtuabhi 9y ago

> for example, soft drinks and candy bars would be sold with HFCS instead of sugar, chocolate will have lower % cocoa. You will find artificial colorings, preservatives and, generally, all kinds of artificial flavor improvers over healthier, more natural ingredients that are found in the Western versions of the same products of the same brand names. Are you talking about USA?

alt_f4 9y ago
Nope, but it is generally well known to us, Europeans, that a lot of the food sold in the US is of lower quality, which is contributing to the US obesity epidemic, cancer rates, heart issues... This is starting to become a problem here too.
- faster 9y ago
  When I returned to the US after living in Western Europe, the hardest thing to adapt to was the quality of food in the supermarkets. I left the first two grocery stores empty-handed because nothing looked like food to me. It was all cardboard and plastic and sugar in all its various forms. However, high quality food is available, but it requires time (to go where it is, since it isn't always distributed like the plastic-wrapped sugar stuff) and money, though not always more than the stores charge for mass-produced things.
  - alt_f4 9y ago
    In the US, unlike most cities in Eastern Europe, you at least have the option to pay a premium and get high quality food.

Mediterraneo10 9y ago

> that food is still MUCH LOWER QUALITY than the one sold in Western Europe It depends where you shop. A Profi will sell low-quality products regardless of whether it is in a big city or a small town. On the other hand, only in the big city can you shop at Mega Image, which sells a lot of products identical to their Western European versions. Its distribution network is much better than any of the competition. Carrefour and Auchan's more expensive generic brands are identical to that sold in the West (their cheaper generic brands, however, are such crap I don’t even know who would buy it). Meat, I don’t know because I don’t eat it.

alt_f4 9y ago
> It depends where you shop It does not. You're not getting my point. You go to a Profi or Mega Image and you buy a Milka chocolate, it is the same Milka chocolate because there is only 1 distributor and this is the version of Milka chocolate that gets manufactured for Romania, Bulgaria, etc. And it's shit - it has less cocoa, it is 90g instead of 100g, it is filled with sugar substitutes. You go to Germany, to an EDEKA or a REWE, and you buy the same Milk chocolate - it has higher % cocoa, it is 100g, it contains milk, cocoa and sugar, no chemical substitutes. I can make the exact same point for soft drinks and pretty much all packaged goods. Hell, even things like laundry detergents are diluted compared to their western counterparts.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  The whole point of going to a Mega Image is that you don’t have to buy a Milka. Instead, you can buy a Western European chocolate brand in its original Western European version, and for not significantly more money than that Milka would cost in a Profi or village shop. Similarly, at a Carrefour or Auchan you could buy the generic-label chocolate, which is just the French version with a Romanian ingredients sticker pasted on it, for the same price as a Milka. People in big cities have access to plenty of high-quality products if they just take advantage of that opportunity and ignore stuff like your Milka example. It is people in small towns and villages who are forced to buy shit food.
  - 9y ago

zzzcpan 9y ago

I think you are over generalizing. Local brands in Eastern Europe sell pretty high-quality food, but they sell it cheaper and don't make as much profit on it, than in Western Europe. Non-local brands, on the other hand, sometimes substitute their products with lower quality crap.

alt_f4 9y ago
> Local brands in Eastern Europe sell pretty high-quality food any examples? > Non-local brands, on the other hand, sometimes substitute their products with lower quality crap change 'sometimes' to 'very frequently' and that would be correct