7 ms·

Totally armchairing this thought, but: My understanding is that it's much more common for Europeans to live in or close to cities, or at least walkable neighbo

by mholt 2y ago

Totally armchairing this thought, but: My understanding is that it's much more common for Europeans to live in or close to cities, or at least walkable neighborhoods, than it is for Americans; and I have this idea that Europeans often will get groceries more often, even daily, since they are often a short walk away. And European dwellings are typically more compact, so there's less storage. The typical American experience is driving 20 minutes to a superstore (basically a huge warehouse with price tags on every shelf -- an order of magnitude larger than most European supermarkets), stockpiling food for a week or more in walk-in pantries. A month of food is not uncommon here. I think our family goes to Costco and Walmart every 2-3 weeks or so. So maybe this preparation directive is more relevant to Europeans who typically have smaller dwellings (less storage space) and more fresh food on hand? (I envy it!) Because when I read it, I'm like, "Yeah, most American homes have this already." Our family also has "go bags" that are ready with about 1 week of portable supplies (food, clothing, light shelter, etc) and a stockpile of food at home, with long shelf lives, in case of any number of events that may disrupt supply chains for months...

sssilver 2y ago
I am fascinated by this. How do you shop for groceries every two weeks? Doesn’t bread go stale, milk go sour, chicken/beef/pork/eggs go spoiled, and fruits and veggies go moldy in two weeks? Where I live nobody enjoys yesterdays bread and we don’t cook meat or chicken if it’s been in the fridge for more than about five days. Please explain how you’re able to do this, I would love not to have to shop for groceries every one or two days.
- chris1993 2y ago
  we keep bread in the freezer. eggs are fine at room temperature for a few weeks if they have never been chilled.
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  There is bread made such that its shelve life is increased at the expense of taste and texture. It is sort of gummy, I find it hard to describe. But that's not the only option, you can buy normal bread but it's more expensive. With that in mind I too find it hard to do groceries every 2 weeks, some items do last but I prefer to get the fresh version.
  - Symbiote 2y ago
    I think you mean bread made with the Chorleywood process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process Most Europeans know what this is, calling it something like "toast bread". In Britain and Ireland it's the default bread, but in most other European countries it's only used for making cheap, toast-based things.
- unsnap_biceps 2y ago
  Meat freezes well. We load up the freezer and defrost in the fridge a day or two before cooking. Bread tends to last two weeks in the fridge, but our bread isn't what I'd consider great bread. It's just for toast or sandwiches. Eggs last a long time in the fridge, well beyond their best by dates. Milk also lasts two weeks just fine. Veggies are the hardest if they can't be frozen. We tend to go fresh veggie heavy the first week and frozen veggies the following weeks until we get to the store.
- dh2022 2y ago
  OK, I will answer. Bread goes in the fridge in a ziploc (sealed plastic bag). It can last days without getting moldy or dry or stale. Meat goes in the freezer - and it can stay there for months if it is vacuum sealed (I have salmon I caught from last summer in my freezer. Because it is vacuum sealed there are no freezer 'burns'). Veggies - the fridges have some type of circulation inside and they have some bins marked for veggies. In these bins veggies do not go stale in a day or two. Tomatoes / peppers / carrots / celery can easily last more than 1 week. My two cents.
  - bgnn 2y ago
    I mean this is what I do too, while doing daily groceries. I think the fridges are much larger in the US, amd the prevalence of the car culture, you guys ended up having bigger but far away super markets. We also have those in Europa but I really hate driving to do groceries. It's just so inconvenient and too much hassle. I rather walk to the small shop daily than driving to the bigger one, which is maybe 3 km away.
- atestu 2y ago
  Bread is mostly sliced bread in the US which lasts long. Can be frozen. Lots of meat / fish is frozen. Milk lasts for weeks in the store, same at your house (until you open it). I know in France milk is sold in bricks or bottles that aren't even refrigerated. Most veggies can be frozen. And they weren't picked a couple days before you bought them, they can clearly last a long time.
  - bestouff 2y ago
    > Bread is mostly sliced bread in the US which lasts long. Can be frozen. Lots of meat / fish is frozen. Oh I see. We have the same word to designate different things. "Sliced bread" is no bread at all.
- taude 2y ago
  Not OP, but for a lot of things, I actually get two or three months worth of meat (typically chicken) that is frozen (from a super-mega-super store called Costco), and I keep it in the freezer. Not uncommon for people to even have a chest freezer, or second refrigerator in their garages, if they live in the suburbs. Bread keeps for a week, no problem, and when it's older than that and has started to go stale, it gets toasted for sandwiches. But I typically go to grocery store weekly, because we eat a lot of produce in our house, and though I have some techniques to keep lettuce good for 1 to 2 weeks, some stuff spoils quickly. Our eggs are refrigerated, they can keep for awhile in the fridge.
  - fy20 2y ago
    > Bread keeps for a week, no problem A flour based food, full of preservatives will keep for a week. Bread does not :-)
    - readthenotes1 2y ago
      The bread-like product I consume usually lasts for about a month. It does not claim to have any preservatives, but is provided in a plastic bag with a twist tie.
      - Incipient 2y ago
        No bread like product will last a month without some pretty serious preservatives that isn't frozen. And it'll probably be taste awful well before them. I'd be taking a long hard look at whatever this product is, and honestly a lot of the other stuff you may eat. Mass produced food companies are not your friend. They want cheap stuff ebay keeps people happy. Health and well being wouldn't even make the list.
        6510 2y ago
        If people want healthy food they can write it on the packaging.
        2y ago
- mholt 2y ago
  Well, we drink almond milk mostly, and it keeps for 2 weeks. A lot of our meat is frozen unless we're planning a special meal. Some fruits and veggies are a bit tricky, sometimes we make a quick trip to get some fresh produce, but between some produce keeping well on the counter, and others in the fridge, they last a week or so. Bread keeps long enough, unfortunately thanks to preservatives. "Homemade" (can't believe that label is allowed on factory-made food here) bread lasts a little longer in the fridge. But all bread I know freezes well, so we thaw it when we're ready to it the loaf, and it's gone within a few days. We also live in a dry climate in the mountain west. I don't think we could get away with this in a wet climate.
- DarmokJalad1701 2y ago
  > bread go stale Freeze loaves in chest freezer > milk go sour Ultra-pasteurized milk cartons have a shelf life of months (some even unrefrigerated) when unopened. Once open, they need to be used within a week or so, but that is doable with 1.5 gallon cartons. > eggs go spoiled Not really. At least the ones we get here, can last a long while in the fridge. Easily a couple of weeks if not more. > fruits and veggies Some veggies can be frozen e.g. carrots. Others can be fried/roasted and then frozen. Fruits do go bad fast yes. Some of the fruits can be bought frozen as well. > Where I live nobody enjoys yesterdays bread and Frozen bread thawed at room temperature tastes surprisingly fresh IMO. And no, it's not the "flour-based product" you refer to. I have made home-made bread and frozen with no issues and then thawed it out later. > we don’t cook meat or chicken if it’s been in the fridge for more than about five days. I don't eat meat, but I think the answer is again a chest freezer that sits at -20 C or so. A 10 cu.ft freezer is super compact and cheap and can store a lot of food.
  - ASalazarMX 2y ago
    You'd be surprised how some American homes have coolers that Europeans would think only a store would need, filled with all kinds of things, from veggies and meat to pancakes and tamales. Best news is, once everything inside freezes, the cooler doesn't consume much electricity to maintain it. Between ultra-pasteurization, canning, freezing, dried food, and electricity, one of such families could stockpile nearly a year of food.
    - chneu 2y ago
      Chest freezers are one of the most efficient storage methods for food.
  - throw0101c 2y ago
    >> bread go stale > Freeze loaves in chest freezer This works (I do it with rye loaves I eat), but IMHO most folks in the US have lower standards for what is called "bread" than a lot of other cultures.
- theshrike79 2y ago
  From what I've gathered the average American doesn't use fresh produce at all. Everything is frozen, canned or full of preservatives.
- chneu 2y ago
  One thing nobody said, a lot of what Americans buy is ultra-processed and designed to have a very long shelf life. It's going to last longer than most European foods to start with.
marginalia_nu 2y ago
Yeah fwiw, as a European urbanite, when I was younger and single, I'd pay zero mind to having more than what I immediately needed for my next meal. If I needed anything, I'd slip into my shoes and walk to the store (which was 5 minutes away) and buy the thing. I'd regularly drop by the grocery store twice or even three times in a day. Though now I'm older and not living alone, I walk 15 minutes to buy 1-2 days worth of food instead.
MrDresden 2y ago
Living in the Netherlands, I have two grocery stores within 1 minute walk from my front door. Because of that my home has barely any stocks of food, and I go almost daily to the store and grab what is needed for the evening meal. If supply lines were to break down then I would be in trouble. This stands in contrast to when I lived in Iceland, where it is more like the US when it comes to stockpiling food a week or two at a time
- 6510 2y ago
  I had one 2 min away. I went to the store to get 1 item, like a bag of chips or croutons for a salad.
- jjav 2y ago
  > I have two grocery stores within 1 minute walk from my front door I'm curious about the physical arrangement that makes this possible? Here (California) the walk from its parking lot to the grocery store is about 1 minute, so having two grocery stores within 1 minute would mean having your house right next to the parking and having two grocery stores next to each other. I'm having trouble visualizing how that can work. For comparison, I do also have two grocery stores within easy walking distance, but one is about 6 minutes and the other one 10-12 minutes walk. One is across the street and the other one a couple blocks in the other direction.
  - chrismatheson 2y ago
    No car parks, smaller more frequent convenience shops & supermarkets. just an random town in the UK https://www.google.com/maps/search/grocery+store/@51.3449444,0.7355826,15z/data=!3m1!4b1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDMyNC4wIKXMDSoJLDEwMjExNDUzSAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/search/grocery+store/@51.3449444... houses/flats in the middle / near the centre of this town probably have 8 options within a 5 minute or so walk. Id imagine its not impossible to live across the road / above a shop and round the conniver from another somewhere in the EU
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    Likely the grocery stores in question do not have parking lots. I have I think four supermarkets plus some convenience stores within ten minutes walk; none of them have parking; have to go a bit more suburban if you want that (there's a big-ish one with underground parking about 30 mins walk/10 mins on bus away); I'm not sure where the nearest one with non-underground parking would be, but further than that, anyway.
NalNezumi 2y ago
On the extreme opposite of the US stockpiling you have mega cities like Tokyo (Seoul, HK...) where it's not common for many people to have almost empty freezers. Since you can get almost anything, at convenience store open 24/7 that you can find more than one in 500m radius. They usually have a pretty elaborate stockpiling strategy (frequent earthquake) but most of it is done at local municipal level and not individual. During covid, many municipalities had the service to drop off crates of food for people that had to isolate. Mostly because many just didn't keep much around for more than a day or two
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
raxxorraxor 2y ago
It certainly is and I think it is like you said, many people more or less buy supplies on demand. Although this is probably a more recent development of city dwellers and the younger generation. It isn't at all unusual that people still have supplies lasting for a month aside maybe from drinking water. The odd canned vegetables and noodles you never used for cooking can last you for quite a while. That said, to survive 72h you would only need drinking water anyway, even if you might end up hungry. If a real catastrophe hits, a well or access to drinking water would be quite helpful. The rest wouldn't be too acute at first.
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
If you ever have to grab your "go bags", also grab your dirty laundry, because that's the clothes that you actually use. (Source: We sheltered some friends who had to evacuate the California wildfires. They missed those clothes.)
- schmookeeg 2y ago
  That's brilliant advice.
bgnn 2y ago
I can confirm this, being resided in several European countries. I do my groceries twice daily as the supermarket is 7 mins walking 2 mins cycling distance. Most people do the same. Some people, including my immediate neighbors, do a monthly big grocery shopping to fill up their freezer. I guess I can survive 72 hours, with rice, beans etc at home but sometimes there's not much left. There's often some meat in the freezer for 1-2 meals.

by mholt 2y ago

sssilver 2y ago

I am fascinated by this. How do you shop for groceries every two weeks? Doesn’t bread go stale, milk go sour, chicken/beef/pork/eggs go spoiled, and fruits and veggies go moldy in two weeks? Where I live nobody enjoys yesterdays bread and we don’t cook meat or chicken if it’s been in the fridge for more than about five days. Please explain how you’re able to do this, I would love not to have to shop for groceries every one or two days.

chris1993 2y ago
we keep bread in the freezer. eggs are fine at room temperature for a few weeks if they have never been chilled.
onemoresoop 2y ago
There is bread made such that its shelve life is increased at the expense of taste and texture. It is sort of gummy, I find it hard to describe. But that's not the only option, you can buy normal bread but it's more expensive. With that in mind I too find it hard to do groceries every 2 weeks, some items do last but I prefer to get the fresh version.
- Symbiote 2y ago
  I think you mean bread made with the Chorleywood process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process Most Europeans know what this is, calling it something like "toast bread". In Britain and Ireland it's the default bread, but in most other European countries it's only used for making cheap, toast-based things.
unsnap_biceps 2y ago
Meat freezes well. We load up the freezer and defrost in the fridge a day or two before cooking. Bread tends to last two weeks in the fridge, but our bread isn't what I'd consider great bread. It's just for toast or sandwiches. Eggs last a long time in the fridge, well beyond their best by dates. Milk also lasts two weeks just fine. Veggies are the hardest if they can't be frozen. We tend to go fresh veggie heavy the first week and frozen veggies the following weeks until we get to the store.
dh2022 2y ago
OK, I will answer. Bread goes in the fridge in a ziploc (sealed plastic bag). It can last days without getting moldy or dry or stale. Meat goes in the freezer - and it can stay there for months if it is vacuum sealed (I have salmon I caught from last summer in my freezer. Because it is vacuum sealed there are no freezer 'burns'). Veggies - the fridges have some type of circulation inside and they have some bins marked for veggies. In these bins veggies do not go stale in a day or two. Tomatoes / peppers / carrots / celery can easily last more than 1 week. My two cents.
- bgnn 2y ago
  I mean this is what I do too, while doing daily groceries. I think the fridges are much larger in the US, amd the prevalence of the car culture, you guys ended up having bigger but far away super markets. We also have those in Europa but I really hate driving to do groceries. It's just so inconvenient and too much hassle. I rather walk to the small shop daily than driving to the bigger one, which is maybe 3 km away.
atestu 2y ago
Bread is mostly sliced bread in the US which lasts long. Can be frozen. Lots of meat / fish is frozen. Milk lasts for weeks in the store, same at your house (until you open it). I know in France milk is sold in bricks or bottles that aren't even refrigerated. Most veggies can be frozen. And they weren't picked a couple days before you bought them, they can clearly last a long time.
- bestouff 2y ago
  > Bread is mostly sliced bread in the US which lasts long. Can be frozen. Lots of meat / fish is frozen. Oh I see. We have the same word to designate different things. "Sliced bread" is no bread at all.
taude 2y ago
Not OP, but for a lot of things, I actually get two or three months worth of meat (typically chicken) that is frozen (from a super-mega-super store called Costco), and I keep it in the freezer. Not uncommon for people to even have a chest freezer, or second refrigerator in their garages, if they live in the suburbs. Bread keeps for a week, no problem, and when it's older than that and has started to go stale, it gets toasted for sandwiches. But I typically go to grocery store weekly, because we eat a lot of produce in our house, and though I have some techniques to keep lettuce good for 1 to 2 weeks, some stuff spoils quickly. Our eggs are refrigerated, they can keep for awhile in the fridge.
- fy20 2y ago
  > Bread keeps for a week, no problem A flour based food, full of preservatives will keep for a week. Bread does not :-)
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    The bread-like product I consume usually lasts for about a month. It does not claim to have any preservatives, but is provided in a plastic bag with a twist tie.
    - Incipient 2y ago
      No bread like product will last a month without some pretty serious preservatives that isn't frozen. And it'll probably be taste awful well before them. I'd be taking a long hard look at whatever this product is, and honestly a lot of the other stuff you may eat. Mass produced food companies are not your friend. They want cheap stuff ebay keeps people happy. Health and well being wouldn't even make the list.
      - 6510 2y ago
        If people want healthy food they can write it on the packaging.
      - 2y ago
mholt 2y ago
Well, we drink almond milk mostly, and it keeps for 2 weeks. A lot of our meat is frozen unless we're planning a special meal. Some fruits and veggies are a bit tricky, sometimes we make a quick trip to get some fresh produce, but between some produce keeping well on the counter, and others in the fridge, they last a week or so. Bread keeps long enough, unfortunately thanks to preservatives. "Homemade" (can't believe that label is allowed on factory-made food here) bread lasts a little longer in the fridge. But all bread I know freezes well, so we thaw it when we're ready to it the loaf, and it's gone within a few days. We also live in a dry climate in the mountain west. I don't think we could get away with this in a wet climate.
DarmokJalad1701 2y ago
> bread go stale Freeze loaves in chest freezer > milk go sour Ultra-pasteurized milk cartons have a shelf life of months (some even unrefrigerated) when unopened. Once open, they need to be used within a week or so, but that is doable with 1.5 gallon cartons. > eggs go spoiled Not really. At least the ones we get here, can last a long while in the fridge. Easily a couple of weeks if not more. > fruits and veggies Some veggies can be frozen e.g. carrots. Others can be fried/roasted and then frozen. Fruits do go bad fast yes. Some of the fruits can be bought frozen as well. > Where I live nobody enjoys yesterdays bread and Frozen bread thawed at room temperature tastes surprisingly fresh IMO. And no, it's not the "flour-based product" you refer to. I have made home-made bread and frozen with no issues and then thawed it out later. > we don’t cook meat or chicken if it’s been in the fridge for more than about five days. I don't eat meat, but I think the answer is again a chest freezer that sits at -20 C or so. A 10 cu.ft freezer is super compact and cheap and can store a lot of food.
- ASalazarMX 2y ago
  You'd be surprised how some American homes have coolers that Europeans would think only a store would need, filled with all kinds of things, from veggies and meat to pancakes and tamales. Best news is, once everything inside freezes, the cooler doesn't consume much electricity to maintain it. Between ultra-pasteurization, canning, freezing, dried food, and electricity, one of such families could stockpile nearly a year of food.
  - chneu 2y ago
    Chest freezers are one of the most efficient storage methods for food.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  >> bread go stale > Freeze loaves in chest freezer This works (I do it with rye loaves I eat), but IMHO most folks in the US have lower standards for what is called "bread" than a lot of other cultures.
theshrike79 2y ago
From what I've gathered the average American doesn't use fresh produce at all. Everything is frozen, canned or full of preservatives.
chneu 2y ago
One thing nobody said, a lot of what Americans buy is ultra-processed and designed to have a very long shelf life. It's going to last longer than most European foods to start with.

marginalia_nu 2y ago

Yeah fwiw, as a European urbanite, when I was younger and single, I'd pay zero mind to having more than what I immediately needed for my next meal. If I needed anything, I'd slip into my shoes and walk to the store (which was 5 minutes away) and buy the thing. I'd regularly drop by the grocery store twice or even three times in a day. Though now I'm older and not living alone, I walk 15 minutes to buy 1-2 days worth of food instead.

MrDresden 2y ago

Living in the Netherlands, I have two grocery stores within 1 minute walk from my front door. Because of that my home has barely any stocks of food, and I go almost daily to the store and grab what is needed for the evening meal. If supply lines were to break down then I would be in trouble. This stands in contrast to when I lived in Iceland, where it is more like the US when it comes to stockpiling food a week or two at a time

6510 2y ago
I had one 2 min away. I went to the store to get 1 item, like a bag of chips or croutons for a salad.
jjav 2y ago
> I have two grocery stores within 1 minute walk from my front door I'm curious about the physical arrangement that makes this possible? Here (California) the walk from its parking lot to the grocery store is about 1 minute, so having two grocery stores within 1 minute would mean having your house right next to the parking and having two grocery stores next to each other. I'm having trouble visualizing how that can work. For comparison, I do also have two grocery stores within easy walking distance, but one is about 6 minutes and the other one 10-12 minutes walk. One is across the street and the other one a couple blocks in the other direction.
- chrismatheson 2y ago
  No car parks, smaller more frequent convenience shops & supermarkets. just an random town in the UK https://www.google.com/maps/search/grocery+store/@51.3449444,0.7355826,15z/data=!3m1!4b1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDMyNC4wIKXMDSoJLDEwMjExNDUzSAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/search/grocery+store/@51.3449444... houses/flats in the middle / near the centre of this town probably have 8 options within a 5 minute or so walk. Id imagine its not impossible to live across the road / above a shop and round the conniver from another somewhere in the EU
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Likely the grocery stores in question do not have parking lots. I have I think four supermarkets plus some convenience stores within ten minutes walk; none of them have parking; have to go a bit more suburban if you want that (there's a big-ish one with underground parking about 30 mins walk/10 mins on bus away); I'm not sure where the nearest one with non-underground parking would be, but further than that, anyway.

NalNezumi 2y ago

On the extreme opposite of the US stockpiling you have mega cities like Tokyo (Seoul, HK...) where it's not common for many people to have almost empty freezers. Since you can get almost anything, at convenience store open 24/7 that you can find more than one in 500m radius. They usually have a pretty elaborate stockpiling strategy (frequent earthquake) but most of it is done at local municipal level and not individual. During covid, many municipalities had the service to drop off crates of food for people that had to isolate. Mostly because many just didn't keep much around for more than a day or two

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

raxxorraxor 2y ago

It certainly is and I think it is like you said, many people more or less buy supplies on demand. Although this is probably a more recent development of city dwellers and the younger generation. It isn't at all unusual that people still have supplies lasting for a month aside maybe from drinking water. The odd canned vegetables and noodles you never used for cooking can last you for quite a while. That said, to survive 72h you would only need drinking water anyway, even if you might end up hungry. If a real catastrophe hits, a well or access to drinking water would be quite helpful. The rest wouldn't be too acute at first.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago

If you ever have to grab your "go bags", also grab your dirty laundry, because that's the clothes that you actually use. (Source: We sheltered some friends who had to evacuate the California wildfires. They missed those clothes.)

schmookeeg 2y ago
That's brilliant advice.

bgnn 2y ago

I can confirm this, being resided in several European countries. I do my groceries twice daily as the supermarket is 7 mins walking 2 mins cycling distance. Most people do the same. Some people, including my immediate neighbors, do a monthly big grocery shopping to fill up their freezer. I guess I can survive 72 hours, with rice, beans etc at home but sometimes there's not much left. There's often some meat in the freezer for 1-2 meals.