5 ms·

If you want to understand what the average American consumes the answer is whatever is on the shelf of their local Walmart (they sell groceries). The average Am

If you want to understand what the average American consumes the answer is whatever is on the shelf of their local Walmart (they sell groceries). The average American may assemble food from time to time but generally does not cook. That said, there are hundreds of millions of people in that country, so this is obviously a generalization, and should be treated as such. That said Lidl is making aggressive inroads into the country and that MIGHT have an impact long term. They have legitimate and affordable fresh bread. https://www.walmart.com/tp/bread https://www.walmart.com/tp/bread This is Walmart's store brand (as cheap as possible): https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Wheat-Sandwich-Bread-Loaf-20-oz/10315699 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Wheat-Sandwich-Bread-... Ingredients: Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Water, Whole Wheat Flour, Sugar, Yeast, Contains 2% or less of the following: Soybean Oil, Wheat Bran, Salt, Vital Wheat Gluten, Molasses, Calcium Propionate (Preservative) Vinegar, Dough Conditioners (Monoglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Ascorbic Acid, Calcium Sulfate, Enzymes), Potassium Iodate, Monocalcium Phosphate

beepbooptheory 4y ago
I totally believe it, but it is just so wild to me that it has gotten to the point where we can somewhat confidently say that most Americans just do not cook at all. I just don't even understand how that works, even if you have enough income, how do you have enough space to like store all the trash for the week? Don't you just get tired of restraunt food at some point?
- orangepurple 4y ago
  In the US in many places trash disposal is a flat rate included in your utility bill, rolled up into your rent, or you have a common dumpster area you can throw trash into for free. This isn't Switzerland where you have to pay two bucks for a LICENSED small plastic trash bag. Here you can generate as much residential trash as you want for the same price or for free if you drive the trash to the county dump yourself. You have to call the county to schedule a pickup of huge trash like for appliances if your new appliance delivery people won't take your old stuff. In most cities there are usually many options for restaurants nearby and Uber Eats for anything further out. For everyone else there's McDonalds and friends: https://www.qsrmagazine.com/content/ranking-top-50-fast-food-chains-america https://www.qsrmagazine.com/content/ranking-top-50-fast-food...
  - ldkdodkd 4y ago
    > you can generate as much residential trash as you want for the same price or for free if you drive the trash to the county dump yourself. They charge a fee if you do that in my county, and the "flat rate" is dependent on the size of your bin, as a proxy for how much trash you generate. If you have more trash than fits in your bin you have to buy stickers for the extra bags to pay for them to be picked up. Where are you? I'm in the US
    - yurishimo 4y ago
      It's highly dependent on where you live. Some cities/suburbs find it easier to financially manage flat rate payments instead of usage-based. Many would argue this is counterproductive and they are probably overcharging some citizens, but the upside in logistical billing makes it worth it (for now). Garland TX, a suburb of Dallas, has a flat rate per bin, with free curbside large item/landscaping waste twice a month. Throw your old washing machine on the curb and move on with your life! My mother in law, lives about 50 miles outside the DFW Metroplex and pays a flat rate based on the average of her trash usage. She rolls 2 bins up to the curb once a week. She can put more out and they will take it, but if she consistently puts out more trash, they will bill her extra when it comes time to renew every year. The guys on the trash truck keep a rolling tally of your "usage" and then the office works out who needs to pay more if the customer skews towards more usage than they signed up for. I live in Europe now and moved here last year. I pay $12 PER PICKUP for residential trash here in the Netherlands. The catch? They pickup that bin ONCE every TWO MONTHS. If I want to throw more stuff away, I need to somehow transport all my trash to the local dump, pay a fee, and unload and sort it all myself. On a more positive note though, recycling plastic is free. Some of my neighbors generate an entire large bag of plastic every day. My wife and I fill up one bag a week. Our "normal trash" bin is usually half full when it's time for pickup. Pricing for waste is largely dependent on the municipality as well here in the Netherlands.
    - sqeaky 4y ago
      I have live in 5 different states, 3 had "free" municipal trash, 2 had cheap flat rate trash. Currently, I am in Omaha and if your weekly trash fits in the generous 100 gallon or so bin it is flat rate. If you need a second bin you pay extra for just that bin. My household typically throws away 3 or 4 ten gallons bags per week leaving the bin maybe a quarter full. The neighbors across the street are constantly having food delivered and routinely fill two bins.
- ldkdodkd 4y ago
  It's wild to you because it's total bullshit. > Today, 82 percent of the meals Americans eat are prepared at home, a much higher percentage than a decade ago, according to research from NPD Group Inc. cited by Bloomberg. Uncited comments on HN are frequently confidently incorrect, especially when they are descriptions of average American culture Maybe if you're a highly paid SWE in California with endless takeout options you never cook but that's an absurd proposition for flyover country https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/news/2018/9/americans-are-cooking-more-meals-at-home--eating-out-less https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/news/2018/9/americans-ar...
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    Please, the meals that are so-called "prepared at home" in the statistics are mere assembly of highly processed ready to eat foods. Final assembly is hardly cooking. That said, in general more people are cooking from primary ingredients than in the recent past, I agree.
  - beepbooptheory 4y ago
    Haha I see! The more I thought about it, the more it really didn't make sense.. Wouldn't all grocery stores be out of business?
    - orangepurple 4y ago
      You don't see small grocery stores in the US unless they specialize in the food of a particular ethnicity. They are all huge and serve a massive area.
  - jrsj 4y ago
    It really isn’t BS at all. I’m in Ohio and almost nobody I know under the age of 40 knows how to cook anything that doesn’t come out of a can or a box. “Prepared at home” in many cases is just warming up processed foods or combining a couple processed ingredients. The vast majority of the people I see actually buying produce at the grocery store are older people and immigrants. Almost everyone else is buying the processed crap in the aisles.
  - 4y ago
dfxm12 4y ago
If you want to understand what the average American consumes the answer is whatever is on the shelf of their local Walmart (they sell groceries). This is the crux of the matter: we can only buy what is on our shelves. If we have to start looking at ingredients lists, I think we've already lost the plot. Why are these questionable things on our shelves in the first place? Likely because they're cheaper to make, or worse, there's some government subsidy involved. And I don't mean "questionable" as in plain junk food, because even then, we have to decipher labeling like chocolate vs "chocolate flavored candy". It can be hard to try to be reasonably healthy once you leave the the edge of the super market.
- akiselev 4y ago
  I think it's a two sided chicken and egg type problem: we can only buy what's on our shelves but - having personally come from a country that's hardly famous for its cuisine - I think American food culture ranges from poor to nonexistent. The bar for agricultural and processed products that the average consumer recognizes as edible food is shockingly low whether we're talking about bread or what passes for tomatoes here. There is plenty of ultraprocessed rye breads in Europe, for example, that are far more nutritious and produced at similar industrial scales because most consumers would recoil at the thought of eating Walmart's value brand of sugar bread. Here in Southern California there are plenty of food desserts that sit adjacent to immigrant enclaves that provide critical mass for amazing grocery stores with a wide variety of higher quality, cheap produce and a diverse collection of nutritious processed and ultraprocessed food simply because that's the stuff that their communities demand. Replacing such a supermarket with a McDonalds would never work within these communities because most families simply don't consider fast food an alternative to their existing diets. These are huge supermarkets that are often similar in size to Costco or Walmart stores (see Shun Fat, 99 Ranch, Zion Market, etc). We could do with a little more culinary elitism among consumers in my opinion.
  - zamnos 4y ago
    The immigrant melting pot, and the food that results is American food culture, at least when you're outside of homogeneous strip malls that the Midwest is famous for. So in Southern California, there's no shortage of immigrants who started their own restaurant or food truck. Next to the 99 Ranch or H-mart, there's little boutiques of food from back home. And then to top it off, there are fusion places targeting the American palate, which just couldn't exist anywhere else in the world. If you think American cuisine consists of massive chains; TGI Fridays, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Hooters, Texas Roadhouse, etc, then no wonder you don't think highly of American cusine. But if you branch out from there, there's a ton of food culture, and Southern California's a great place to experience it.
emodendroket 4y ago
Walmart sells fresh-baked bread too. Come on.
- yurishimo 4y ago
  But it costs twice as much...
  - emodendroket 4y ago
    So it costs $3 instead of $1.50? I think people buy sandwich bread because they prefer it and not because of cost.
    - yurishimo 4y ago
      You also get "more" because fresh bread tends to be thick slices. Even at home, it's difficult to slice a fresh loaf thin enough to stretch as far as sandwich bread.
      - emodendroket 4y ago
        I do not believe this is a significant factor and if it is you can ask them to cut it for you.

beepbooptheory 4y ago

I totally believe it, but it is just so wild to me that it has gotten to the point where we can somewhat confidently say that most Americans just do not cook at all. I just don't even understand how that works, even if you have enough income, how do you have enough space to like store all the trash for the week? Don't you just get tired of restraunt food at some point?

orangepurple 4y ago
In the US in many places trash disposal is a flat rate included in your utility bill, rolled up into your rent, or you have a common dumpster area you can throw trash into for free. This isn't Switzerland where you have to pay two bucks for a LICENSED small plastic trash bag. Here you can generate as much residential trash as you want for the same price or for free if you drive the trash to the county dump yourself. You have to call the county to schedule a pickup of huge trash like for appliances if your new appliance delivery people won't take your old stuff. In most cities there are usually many options for restaurants nearby and Uber Eats for anything further out. For everyone else there's McDonalds and friends: https://www.qsrmagazine.com/content/ranking-top-50-fast-food-chains-america https://www.qsrmagazine.com/content/ranking-top-50-fast-food...
- ldkdodkd 4y ago
  > you can generate as much residential trash as you want for the same price or for free if you drive the trash to the county dump yourself. They charge a fee if you do that in my county, and the "flat rate" is dependent on the size of your bin, as a proxy for how much trash you generate. If you have more trash than fits in your bin you have to buy stickers for the extra bags to pay for them to be picked up. Where are you? I'm in the US
  - yurishimo 4y ago
    It's highly dependent on where you live. Some cities/suburbs find it easier to financially manage flat rate payments instead of usage-based. Many would argue this is counterproductive and they are probably overcharging some citizens, but the upside in logistical billing makes it worth it (for now). Garland TX, a suburb of Dallas, has a flat rate per bin, with free curbside large item/landscaping waste twice a month. Throw your old washing machine on the curb and move on with your life! My mother in law, lives about 50 miles outside the DFW Metroplex and pays a flat rate based on the average of her trash usage. She rolls 2 bins up to the curb once a week. She can put more out and they will take it, but if she consistently puts out more trash, they will bill her extra when it comes time to renew every year. The guys on the trash truck keep a rolling tally of your "usage" and then the office works out who needs to pay more if the customer skews towards more usage than they signed up for. I live in Europe now and moved here last year. I pay $12 PER PICKUP for residential trash here in the Netherlands. The catch? They pickup that bin ONCE every TWO MONTHS. If I want to throw more stuff away, I need to somehow transport all my trash to the local dump, pay a fee, and unload and sort it all myself. On a more positive note though, recycling plastic is free. Some of my neighbors generate an entire large bag of plastic every day. My wife and I fill up one bag a week. Our "normal trash" bin is usually half full when it's time for pickup. Pricing for waste is largely dependent on the municipality as well here in the Netherlands.
  - sqeaky 4y ago
    I have live in 5 different states, 3 had "free" municipal trash, 2 had cheap flat rate trash. Currently, I am in Omaha and if your weekly trash fits in the generous 100 gallon or so bin it is flat rate. If you need a second bin you pay extra for just that bin. My household typically throws away 3 or 4 ten gallons bags per week leaving the bin maybe a quarter full. The neighbors across the street are constantly having food delivered and routinely fill two bins.
ldkdodkd 4y ago
It's wild to you because it's total bullshit. > Today, 82 percent of the meals Americans eat are prepared at home, a much higher percentage than a decade ago, according to research from NPD Group Inc. cited by Bloomberg. Uncited comments on HN are frequently confidently incorrect, especially when they are descriptions of average American culture Maybe if you're a highly paid SWE in California with endless takeout options you never cook but that's an absurd proposition for flyover country https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/news/2018/9/americans-are-cooking-more-meals-at-home--eating-out-less https://www.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/news/2018/9/americans-ar...
- orangepurple 4y ago
  Please, the meals that are so-called "prepared at home" in the statistics are mere assembly of highly processed ready to eat foods. Final assembly is hardly cooking. That said, in general more people are cooking from primary ingredients than in the recent past, I agree.
- beepbooptheory 4y ago
  Haha I see! The more I thought about it, the more it really didn't make sense.. Wouldn't all grocery stores be out of business?
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    You don't see small grocery stores in the US unless they specialize in the food of a particular ethnicity. They are all huge and serve a massive area.
- jrsj 4y ago
  It really isn’t BS at all. I’m in Ohio and almost nobody I know under the age of 40 knows how to cook anything that doesn’t come out of a can or a box. “Prepared at home” in many cases is just warming up processed foods or combining a couple processed ingredients. The vast majority of the people I see actually buying produce at the grocery store are older people and immigrants. Almost everyone else is buying the processed crap in the aisles.
- 4y ago

dfxm12 4y ago

If you want to understand what the average American consumes the answer is whatever is on the shelf of their local Walmart (they sell groceries). This is the crux of the matter: we can only buy what is on our shelves. If we have to start looking at ingredients lists, I think we've already lost the plot. Why are these questionable things on our shelves in the first place? Likely because they're cheaper to make, or worse, there's some government subsidy involved. And I don't mean "questionable" as in plain junk food, because even then, we have to decipher labeling like chocolate vs "chocolate flavored candy". It can be hard to try to be reasonably healthy once you leave the the edge of the super market.

akiselev 4y ago
I think it's a two sided chicken and egg type problem: we can only buy what's on our shelves but - having personally come from a country that's hardly famous for its cuisine - I think American food culture ranges from poor to nonexistent. The bar for agricultural and processed products that the average consumer recognizes as edible food is shockingly low whether we're talking about bread or what passes for tomatoes here. There is plenty of ultraprocessed rye breads in Europe, for example, that are far more nutritious and produced at similar industrial scales because most consumers would recoil at the thought of eating Walmart's value brand of sugar bread. Here in Southern California there are plenty of food desserts that sit adjacent to immigrant enclaves that provide critical mass for amazing grocery stores with a wide variety of higher quality, cheap produce and a diverse collection of nutritious processed and ultraprocessed food simply because that's the stuff that their communities demand. Replacing such a supermarket with a McDonalds would never work within these communities because most families simply don't consider fast food an alternative to their existing diets. These are huge supermarkets that are often similar in size to Costco or Walmart stores (see Shun Fat, 99 Ranch, Zion Market, etc). We could do with a little more culinary elitism among consumers in my opinion.
- zamnos 4y ago
  The immigrant melting pot, and the food that results is American food culture, at least when you're outside of homogeneous strip malls that the Midwest is famous for. So in Southern California, there's no shortage of immigrants who started their own restaurant or food truck. Next to the 99 Ranch or H-mart, there's little boutiques of food from back home. And then to top it off, there are fusion places targeting the American palate, which just couldn't exist anywhere else in the world. If you think American cuisine consists of massive chains; TGI Fridays, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Hooters, Texas Roadhouse, etc, then no wonder you don't think highly of American cusine. But if you branch out from there, there's a ton of food culture, and Southern California's a great place to experience it.

emodendroket 4y ago

Walmart sells fresh-baked bread too. Come on.

yurishimo 4y ago
But it costs twice as much...
- emodendroket 4y ago
  So it costs $3 instead of $1.50? I think people buy sandwich bread because they prefer it and not because of cost.
  - yurishimo 4y ago
    You also get "more" because fresh bread tends to be thick slices. Even at home, it's difficult to slice a fresh loaf thin enough to stretch as far as sandwich bread.
    - emodendroket 4y ago
      I do not believe this is a significant factor and if it is you can ask them to cut it for you.