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As a European who moved to Canada and spends a fair amount of time in the States, one thing that really surprised me is how hard it is to find healthy food opti

As a European who moved to Canada and spends a fair amount of time in the States, one thing that really surprised me is how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones. Food was a bit of a concern before moving, but I didn't know just how frustrating it would be. Even something as simple as Yogurt is usually insanely sweet / sugary compared to European variants. Ingredients that are banned in Europe are regularly found in products, and something as simple as bread has a ton of preservatives (as the article shows). And I'm vegetarian, I assume for people who eat meat there's the additional concern of antibiotics resistance due to the antibiotics given to livestock.

dkga 1y ago
Exactly my impression. And on top of things I need to keep a strict gluten-free diet. It’s a horrible experience.
colechristensen 1y ago
>I assume for people who eat meat there's the additional concern of antibiotics resistance due to the antibiotics given to livestock. The concern isn't eating meat from an animal treated with antibiotics infecting you with resistant bacteria. The concern is treating animals with antibiotics puts evolutionary pressure towards breeding resistant bacteria that spill into the ecosystem and eventually get back to us. But not through meat consumption, it effects everyone regardless of diet.
- 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
  Specifically: animal waste is sometimes used as fertilizer, and sometimes that waste isn't treated properly to eliminate pathogens. Sometimes you're eating antibiotic-resistant-waste-laden plants, and sometimes those plants are fed to animals that humans then eat. Same for aquatic plants/animals downstream of animal waste. Even drinking water can be contaminated. Antibiotic resistant bacteria isn't the only harmful downstream effect of factory farms of course. Regular-old harmful bacteria are in the runoff, as well as super-high levels of nutrients that harm waterways, plants and animals. Algal blooms, oxygen dead zones, contaminated water table, etc. All because we really like cheap pork, beef and chicken.
  - colechristensen 1y ago
    Not really no. I'm not saying eating a bit of cow poop on your lettuce never gets anyone sick, but that's not the mechanism of concern. One: poop is mostly bacteria, by mass. It isn't infected with ... it is. Some can be "pathogens" but that's what the last stage of digestion is, fermentation with mostly a wide array of bacteria. The concern is these gut bacteria developing antibiotic resistance and bacterial infections in the animal developing resistance. Then infections are spread between animals and across species and the waste is reintroduced into the environment. Resistant bacteria in the environment share. Horizontal gene transfer between species of bacteria can lead to these resistance genes being popular and everywhere. It's not cow poop infecting you, its the genetics getting spread into the environment and eventually ending up in a human pathogen. >animal waste is sometimes used as fertilizer More or less all industrial farmed animal waste ends up as fertilizer. Also a major component of the kinds of soil we grow crops in is bacteria, much of which has been through the digestive system of an animal. Again I don't know what people think soil is. If you want "clean"(?) never been poop growth medium for your plants you have to go completely artificial. And manure isn't sterilized before it goes into fields, it's alive.
nradov 1y ago
Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label. Antibiotic resistance is a concern but the FDA has made progress in that area. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicrobial-resistance https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicr... The EU bans routine antibiotic use for promoting animal growth but antibiotics are still widely used for other purposes. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/first-report-eu-wide-sales-use-antimicrobials-animals https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/first-report-eu-wide-sales...
- 0xbadcafebee 1y ago
  The US still used 6.1 million kilograms of medically important antibiotics for animal farming in 2023. It was only down 2% from the year before. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/antimicrobial-stewardship/fda-report-shows-small-decline-sales-antibiotics-food-producing-animals https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/antimicrobial-stewardship/fda-rep...
  - parineum 1y ago
    That sounds like a lot but what's the comparison to another country adjusted per animal (or weight of meat produced?)?
    - benrutter 1y ago
      This paper[0] (from a UK activist group but well referenced) says: > US farm antibiotic use is 2.6 times higher than the median use in European countries and 60% higher than the average use throughout Europe. [0] https://www.saveourantibiotics.org/media/1830/farm-antibiotic-use-in-the-united-states-2020-a-threat-to-uk-standards.pdf https://www.saveourantibiotics.org/media/1830/farm-antibioti...
- throwway120385 1y ago
  It's marked as "plain" yogurt. You can still find adulterants in it, just not added sugars. For example Trader Joe's "plain yogurt" is a mixture of yogurt and buttermilk.
SirFatty 1y ago
"...how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones." Sure, if you limit your purchases to Dollar General and Casey's. If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true.
- garciasn 1y ago
  Depends on the grocery store. If you shop exclusively at Target, a company that caters primarily to those who ‘prepare’ as opposed to those who ‘cook’ you’ll find less healthy options than actual grocery stores.
  - vel0city 1y ago
    That depends a lot on the Target. One location around me only has a very small produce section for their groceries with everything else pretty much being prepackaged products. Another location has quite a large produce section along with a deli, a butcher counter, and a bakery.
    - garciasn 1y ago
      I was speaking about SuperTargets, not standard Targets. And I’m not sure why folks are downvoting this; objectively, Target has limited and terrible selection compared to standalone grocers.
      - vel0city 1y ago
        In my travels I've found even the size and quality of the produce sections of SuperTargets can be quite variable. But yes, I do agree their range of choices for fresh food products is usually more limited compared to good, actual grocers. But that applies to their packaged goods as well, they often don't have as many choices of lots of things. I might find almost a dozen brands of pasta at an actual grocer but only have three or four brands at Target. To me it seems the ratio is about the same, its just the scale is different. And to be honest, its the same story for practically all the stuff at Target. They don't have the widest supply of craft supplies compared to craft stores like Michael's and Hobby Lobby. They don't have the widest selection of bicycles compared to the bike store. They don't have nearly as many toys as what Toys R Us did. The book section is smaller than a Barnes & Noble. What else is new.
jeffbee 1y ago
I've lived in various American cities and in all of them there is some place that sells real food, but often it's not the obvious one with the bright sign and the galaxy-scale parking lot.
- asdff 1y ago
  You don't think a place like Kroger sells real food? Come on. Enough with the tired hyperbole.
at-fates-hands 1y ago
My weekly routine now consists of going to local farmer's market and buying stuff from farms I trust. Going to local butchers to get grass fed, naturally raised meats. Then off to the local grocery store to get whatever else I need that week for the stuff I prepare at home. If you want to eat healthy, you certainly can, but takes quite a bit of effort and some additional cost. Processed and ultraprocessed food has just made us lazy - like eating at fast food restaurants became easier than going home and preparing something from scratch. COVID and the huge surge in prices that have yet to come down essentially forced my hand to find a better, healthier way to eat. It sucks, but at the end of the day, I know myself and my family are eating healthier regardless of the effort it takes.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  I don't know why farmers markets are given such a benefit of trust. They are largely unregulated and uninspected. And you'll pay $8 for a head of lettuce.
  - at-fates-hands 1y ago
    This is why I only buy from the farms I know and trust. There's two families I know who sell at smaller markets in the city and one farm that is close enough to my house I go directly to their farm where they have a small setup where a lot of other locals go. You're right though there are a lot of unsavory people who claim to be from local farms but very clearly are not. People who are selling sweet corn in May/June claiming their local. Sweet corn isn't normally harvested until late Summer, early Fall.
- gruez 1y ago
  >My weekly routine now consists of going to local farmer's market and buying stuff from farms I trust. Going to local butchers to get grass fed, naturally raised meats. Then off to the local grocery store to get whatever else I need that week for the stuff I prepare at home. >If you want to eat healthy, you certainly can, but takes quite a bit of effort and some additional cost. It does, but you really don't need to go to farmers markets and buy grass fed beef from a dedicated butcher to "eat healthy". You can get 95-100% of the benefits of your routine by going to a regular supermarket and buying non-ultraprocessed foods.
jjtheblunt 1y ago
just as a datapoint: we learn to carefully (compulsively perhaps) read labels stateside, for all the reasons you mention. i.e., these same revelations and frustrations are shared by a huge swath of people born in the States (probably Canada too), and it is indeed a pain in the neck being continually paranoid about what nutritional rubbish is included in ingredient lists.
- jay_kyburz 1y ago
  Food labels in the US and Canada suck as well compared to the UK and Australia. How big is a serve, who's percent daily value? Those numbers just aren't useful. Here in Australia we have a column for grams per 100g by weight. It makes it much easier to compare foods.
  - hvb2 1y ago
    Units in the US make comparisons hard... Same problem in recipes...
    - jay_kyburz 1y ago
      You could just have percentage per weight. ie. This product is 30% sugar. Instead you have than x% of your recommended daily amount, if you are an average size American, eating an average size serving according to the FDA. How are you supposed to do anything with that.
  - jjtheblunt 1y ago
    that sounds actually useful!
  - tpmoney 1y ago
    The RDV is based on a 2000 Calorie / day diet as noted on the same labels.
Simulacra 1y ago
My conspiracy theory is at healthier foods are deliberately made more expensive, to push people into the cheaper ultra processed foods. It's kind of like cigarettes, push them into the more addictive, cheaper products to hook them.
- gruez 1y ago
  No need to invoke conspiracies here when the ultraprocessing makes food last longer, more delicious, and allows manufacturers to skimp on more expensive ingredients (eg. "ice cream" that use thickeners rather than actual cream).
- Guid_NewGuid 1y ago
  It's exactly like cigarettes because it is the same companies. https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/news-events/all-news/faculty-news/many-of-today-s-unhealthy-foods-were-brought-to-you-by-big-tobac.html https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/news-events/all-news/faculty-new...
- nebula8804 1y ago
  Its more a matter of whats subsidized. All that corn grown thanks to the corn and soy bills passed to support midwestern farmers are used for things such as plumping up cows/pigs/etc, used for a inefficient form of fuel (biodiesel, E85), and finally pumped into all the foods as HFCS among other things. The farmers can keep growing unproductive crops and stay in business (so politicians won't be hearing from them), the government can ensure the farmland processes will be available during wartime and they can check off their requirements of ensuring all citizens have a minimal required number of "calories". Its a symptom of same thing that is messing up the US in all other areas. Poor governance caused by layers of people all along the stack taking their cut and not caring about the overall picture.
wenc 1y ago
As a Canadian living in the US, I’d say your sentiment depends on where you live and what you’re willing to pay. In the Seattle area there are overpriced grocery stores like PCC and Met Market that sell healthy food at a premium. There is also Whole Foods. Even normal grocery stores like Safeway and Kroger have a ton of healthy foods — you just have to read the label. The one thing you have to know if that American grocery stores are giant — they carry way more SKUs than the average European grocery store. It’s on the shopper to find what they want. It’s usually there.
- hvb2 1y ago
  > they carry way more SKUs Not compared to France :) you can buy a dishwasher a tv and stuff for your car all in the same supermarket... Don't ask me why, just stating a fact
  - spogbiper 1y ago
    this sounds like a "super" walmart or target in the US. everything from garden furniture to broccoli to laptops
  - wenc 1y ago
    Those are the larger format stores in France. In the US they are called Fred Meyer, Meijer, etc.
  - Atomic_Torrfisk 1y ago
    The quality of food (and price) of grocery stores in France make grocery stores in Norway feel like a cruel joke. I visited a carrefour(?) in France and I swear the fruit and vegetables were so fresh they looked like wax stage food... honestly it was a highlight of my trip and selection of cheese made me feel a little unkultured.
thinkingtoilet 1y ago
I buy unsweetened yogurt then sweeten it myself with a very small amount of actual syrup from a tree (yes, there is fake syrup).
orochimaaru 1y ago
Just get plain unsweetened full fat yogurt. Every store has that. Yeah - the sweetened/flavored variety are more but the basic unsweetened is also easily available. Bread is a bit of a shit show. Stick to something like sourdough for 0 adde sugars. Hormones are banned for meat and poultry. I’m not sure how antibiotics are treated. Fwiw - with vegetarian food you also run the risk of pesticide contamination. Either way, my point is that there’s a lot of options but do your research before you hit the store and in general try to limit highly processed food
- portaouflop 1y ago
  In my experience the store has 10000 different kinds of sweetened yoghurt and exactly one that is “real” yogurt - often doesn’t have full fat yogurt at all. Completely impossible to get normal bread unless you go to some hipster store that charges an insane amount for it. It’s just really really hard to get decent food in America, which is crazy because the land is so rich in resources and nature.
  - orochimaaru 1y ago
    Depends on where you shop. But I think even Walmart has organic options these days.
  - volkl48 1y ago
    Loaves of fresh bread are generally in the bakery section of the grocery store. If you're looking for a loaf of bread (often unsliced) that was baked that morning, has a much shorter ingredients list that's often solely the basic traditional ones, doesn't necessarily have any sugar added, and will not keep for anywhere near as long, that's where it is. I'm not promising it'll live up to your standards, of course. The bread aisle is pretty much for sliced sandwich bread (+ buns + similar things) that has preservatives to last for at least a week, and was usually not baked on site. ------ I think the secondary point to note is that you're also just running into cultural differences: Americans don't really eat that much bread. And it's not a staple of meals besides 2 slices if you want a sandwich for lunch. Hard data is shaky but most sources I can find put American per-capita bread consumption at a small fraction of the consumption of somewhere like France. Having far fewer standalone bakeries and far less "good bread" is not so much that people are eating a bunch of worse bread instead - no one's serving sandwich bread with dinner, they're often just not eating that much bread at all.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
asdff 1y ago
It isn't hard if you buy the actual raw ingredients and cook for yourself. Produce is fine. Cuts of meat are fine. You can get plain old beans just fine for your vegetarian needs. It is just people in this country have forgotten how to cook. Grandmother made her own mayonnaise. Mom bought kraft. To you making mayonnaise is a black art since mom never did it, so you also buy kraft. Extend that to most other food products.
ksec 1y ago
I am starting to think if there are any business opportunities to brand "European Standard" Food as Healthy Options in the US.
robocat 1y ago
All the milk I've seen in New Orleans is ultra-pasteurised) to increase its shelflife (in fridge), even expensive organic stuff. I haven't yet looked in speciality groceries. I've just given up on milk while I'm here, because it tastes disgusting (reminds me of " UHT long-life milk sold uncooled in tetrabrick within New Zealand). Apparently normal pasteurised is available from local dairy brands, but I haven't seen any yet. Quality foods in general seem hard to find here - although some of that is because of unfamiliarity - and it isn't cheaper either. I'm looking forward to getting home to better food.

dkga 1y ago

Exactly my impression. And on top of things I need to keep a strict gluten-free diet. It’s a horrible experience.

colechristensen 1y ago

>I assume for people who eat meat there's the additional concern of antibiotics resistance due to the antibiotics given to livestock. The concern isn't eating meat from an animal treated with antibiotics infecting you with resistant bacteria. The concern is treating animals with antibiotics puts evolutionary pressure towards breeding resistant bacteria that spill into the ecosystem and eventually get back to us. But not through meat consumption, it effects everyone regardless of diet.

0xbadcafebee 1y ago
Specifically: animal waste is sometimes used as fertilizer, and sometimes that waste isn't treated properly to eliminate pathogens. Sometimes you're eating antibiotic-resistant-waste-laden plants, and sometimes those plants are fed to animals that humans then eat. Same for aquatic plants/animals downstream of animal waste. Even drinking water can be contaminated. Antibiotic resistant bacteria isn't the only harmful downstream effect of factory farms of course. Regular-old harmful bacteria are in the runoff, as well as super-high levels of nutrients that harm waterways, plants and animals. Algal blooms, oxygen dead zones, contaminated water table, etc. All because we really like cheap pork, beef and chicken.
- colechristensen 1y ago
  Not really no. I'm not saying eating a bit of cow poop on your lettuce never gets anyone sick, but that's not the mechanism of concern. One: poop is mostly bacteria, by mass. It isn't infected with ... it is. Some can be "pathogens" but that's what the last stage of digestion is, fermentation with mostly a wide array of bacteria. The concern is these gut bacteria developing antibiotic resistance and bacterial infections in the animal developing resistance. Then infections are spread between animals and across species and the waste is reintroduced into the environment. Resistant bacteria in the environment share. Horizontal gene transfer between species of bacteria can lead to these resistance genes being popular and everywhere. It's not cow poop infecting you, its the genetics getting spread into the environment and eventually ending up in a human pathogen. >animal waste is sometimes used as fertilizer More or less all industrial farmed animal waste ends up as fertilizer. Also a major component of the kinds of soil we grow crops in is bacteria, much of which has been through the digestive system of an animal. Again I don't know what people think soil is. If you want "clean"(?) never been poop growth medium for your plants you have to go completely artificial. And manure isn't sterilized before it goes into fields, it's alive.

nradov 1y ago

Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label. Antibiotic resistance is a concern but the FDA has made progress in that area. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicrobial-resistance https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicr... The EU bans routine antibiotic use for promoting animal growth but antibiotics are still widely used for other purposes. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/first-report-eu-wide-sales-use-antimicrobials-animals https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/first-report-eu-wide-sales...

0xbadcafebee 1y ago
The US still used 6.1 million kilograms of medically important antibiotics for animal farming in 2023. It was only down 2% from the year before. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/antimicrobial-stewardship/fda-report-shows-small-decline-sales-antibiotics-food-producing-animals https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/antimicrobial-stewardship/fda-rep...
- parineum 1y ago
  That sounds like a lot but what's the comparison to another country adjusted per animal (or weight of meat produced?)?
  - benrutter 1y ago
    This paper[0] (from a UK activist group but well referenced) says: > US farm antibiotic use is 2.6 times higher than the median use in European countries and 60% higher than the average use throughout Europe. [0] https://www.saveourantibiotics.org/media/1830/farm-antibiotic-use-in-the-united-states-2020-a-threat-to-uk-standards.pdf https://www.saveourantibiotics.org/media/1830/farm-antibioti...
throwway120385 1y ago
It's marked as "plain" yogurt. You can still find adulterants in it, just not added sugars. For example Trader Joe's "plain yogurt" is a mixture of yogurt and buttermilk.

SirFatty 1y ago

"...how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones." Sure, if you limit your purchases to Dollar General and Casey's. If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true.

garciasn 1y ago
Depends on the grocery store. If you shop exclusively at Target, a company that caters primarily to those who ‘prepare’ as opposed to those who ‘cook’ you’ll find less healthy options than actual grocery stores.
- vel0city 1y ago
  That depends a lot on the Target. One location around me only has a very small produce section for their groceries with everything else pretty much being prepackaged products. Another location has quite a large produce section along with a deli, a butcher counter, and a bakery.
  - garciasn 1y ago
    I was speaking about SuperTargets, not standard Targets. And I’m not sure why folks are downvoting this; objectively, Target has limited and terrible selection compared to standalone grocers.
    - vel0city 1y ago
      In my travels I've found even the size and quality of the produce sections of SuperTargets can be quite variable. But yes, I do agree their range of choices for fresh food products is usually more limited compared to good, actual grocers. But that applies to their packaged goods as well, they often don't have as many choices of lots of things. I might find almost a dozen brands of pasta at an actual grocer but only have three or four brands at Target. To me it seems the ratio is about the same, its just the scale is different. And to be honest, its the same story for practically all the stuff at Target. They don't have the widest supply of craft supplies compared to craft stores like Michael's and Hobby Lobby. They don't have the widest selection of bicycles compared to the bike store. They don't have nearly as many toys as what Toys R Us did. The book section is smaller than a Barnes & Noble. What else is new.

jeffbee 1y ago

I've lived in various American cities and in all of them there is some place that sells real food, but often it's not the obvious one with the bright sign and the galaxy-scale parking lot.

asdff 1y ago
You don't think a place like Kroger sells real food? Come on. Enough with the tired hyperbole.

at-fates-hands 1y ago

My weekly routine now consists of going to local farmer's market and buying stuff from farms I trust. Going to local butchers to get grass fed, naturally raised meats. Then off to the local grocery store to get whatever else I need that week for the stuff I prepare at home. If you want to eat healthy, you certainly can, but takes quite a bit of effort and some additional cost. Processed and ultraprocessed food has just made us lazy - like eating at fast food restaurants became easier than going home and preparing something from scratch. COVID and the huge surge in prices that have yet to come down essentially forced my hand to find a better, healthier way to eat. It sucks, but at the end of the day, I know myself and my family are eating healthier regardless of the effort it takes.

SoftTalker 1y ago
I don't know why farmers markets are given such a benefit of trust. They are largely unregulated and uninspected. And you'll pay $8 for a head of lettuce.
- at-fates-hands 1y ago
  This is why I only buy from the farms I know and trust. There's two families I know who sell at smaller markets in the city and one farm that is close enough to my house I go directly to their farm where they have a small setup where a lot of other locals go. You're right though there are a lot of unsavory people who claim to be from local farms but very clearly are not. People who are selling sweet corn in May/June claiming their local. Sweet corn isn't normally harvested until late Summer, early Fall.
gruez 1y ago
>My weekly routine now consists of going to local farmer's market and buying stuff from farms I trust. Going to local butchers to get grass fed, naturally raised meats. Then off to the local grocery store to get whatever else I need that week for the stuff I prepare at home. >If you want to eat healthy, you certainly can, but takes quite a bit of effort and some additional cost. It does, but you really don't need to go to farmers markets and buy grass fed beef from a dedicated butcher to "eat healthy". You can get 95-100% of the benefits of your routine by going to a regular supermarket and buying non-ultraprocessed foods.

jjtheblunt 1y ago

just as a datapoint: we learn to carefully (compulsively perhaps) read labels stateside, for all the reasons you mention. i.e., these same revelations and frustrations are shared by a huge swath of people born in the States (probably Canada too), and it is indeed a pain in the neck being continually paranoid about what nutritional rubbish is included in ingredient lists.

jay_kyburz 1y ago
Food labels in the US and Canada suck as well compared to the UK and Australia. How big is a serve, who's percent daily value? Those numbers just aren't useful. Here in Australia we have a column for grams per 100g by weight. It makes it much easier to compare foods.
- hvb2 1y ago
  Units in the US make comparisons hard... Same problem in recipes...
  - jay_kyburz 1y ago
    You could just have percentage per weight. ie. This product is 30% sugar. Instead you have than x% of your recommended daily amount, if you are an average size American, eating an average size serving according to the FDA. How are you supposed to do anything with that.
- jjtheblunt 1y ago
  that sounds actually useful!
- tpmoney 1y ago
  The RDV is based on a 2000 Calorie / day diet as noted on the same labels.

Simulacra 1y ago

My conspiracy theory is at healthier foods are deliberately made more expensive, to push people into the cheaper ultra processed foods. It's kind of like cigarettes, push them into the more addictive, cheaper products to hook them.

gruez 1y ago
No need to invoke conspiracies here when the ultraprocessing makes food last longer, more delicious, and allows manufacturers to skimp on more expensive ingredients (eg. "ice cream" that use thickeners rather than actual cream).
Guid_NewGuid 1y ago
It's exactly like cigarettes because it is the same companies. https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/news-events/all-news/faculty-news/many-of-today-s-unhealthy-foods-were-brought-to-you-by-big-tobac.html https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/news-events/all-news/faculty-new...
nebula8804 1y ago
Its more a matter of whats subsidized. All that corn grown thanks to the corn and soy bills passed to support midwestern farmers are used for things such as plumping up cows/pigs/etc, used for a inefficient form of fuel (biodiesel, E85), and finally pumped into all the foods as HFCS among other things. The farmers can keep growing unproductive crops and stay in business (so politicians won't be hearing from them), the government can ensure the farmland processes will be available during wartime and they can check off their requirements of ensuring all citizens have a minimal required number of "calories". Its a symptom of same thing that is messing up the US in all other areas. Poor governance caused by layers of people all along the stack taking their cut and not caring about the overall picture.

wenc 1y ago

As a Canadian living in the US, I’d say your sentiment depends on where you live and what you’re willing to pay. In the Seattle area there are overpriced grocery stores like PCC and Met Market that sell healthy food at a premium. There is also Whole Foods. Even normal grocery stores like Safeway and Kroger have a ton of healthy foods — you just have to read the label. The one thing you have to know if that American grocery stores are giant — they carry way more SKUs than the average European grocery store. It’s on the shopper to find what they want. It’s usually there.

hvb2 1y ago
> they carry way more SKUs Not compared to France :) you can buy a dishwasher a tv and stuff for your car all in the same supermarket... Don't ask me why, just stating a fact
- spogbiper 1y ago
  this sounds like a "super" walmart or target in the US. everything from garden furniture to broccoli to laptops
- wenc 1y ago
  Those are the larger format stores in France. In the US they are called Fred Meyer, Meijer, etc.
- Atomic_Torrfisk 1y ago
  The quality of food (and price) of grocery stores in France make grocery stores in Norway feel like a cruel joke. I visited a carrefour(?) in France and I swear the fruit and vegetables were so fresh they looked like wax stage food... honestly it was a highlight of my trip and selection of cheese made me feel a little unkultured.

thinkingtoilet 1y ago

I buy unsweetened yogurt then sweeten it myself with a very small amount of actual syrup from a tree (yes, there is fake syrup).

orochimaaru 1y ago

Just get plain unsweetened full fat yogurt. Every store has that. Yeah - the sweetened/flavored variety are more but the basic unsweetened is also easily available. Bread is a bit of a shit show. Stick to something like sourdough for 0 adde sugars. Hormones are banned for meat and poultry. I’m not sure how antibiotics are treated. Fwiw - with vegetarian food you also run the risk of pesticide contamination. Either way, my point is that there’s a lot of options but do your research before you hit the store and in general try to limit highly processed food

portaouflop 1y ago
In my experience the store has 10000 different kinds of sweetened yoghurt and exactly one that is “real” yogurt - often doesn’t have full fat yogurt at all. Completely impossible to get normal bread unless you go to some hipster store that charges an insane amount for it. It’s just really really hard to get decent food in America, which is crazy because the land is so rich in resources and nature.
- orochimaaru 1y ago
  Depends on where you shop. But I think even Walmart has organic options these days.
- volkl48 1y ago
  Loaves of fresh bread are generally in the bakery section of the grocery store. If you're looking for a loaf of bread (often unsliced) that was baked that morning, has a much shorter ingredients list that's often solely the basic traditional ones, doesn't necessarily have any sugar added, and will not keep for anywhere near as long, that's where it is. I'm not promising it'll live up to your standards, of course. The bread aisle is pretty much for sliced sandwich bread (+ buns + similar things) that has preservatives to last for at least a week, and was usually not baked on site. ------ I think the secondary point to note is that you're also just running into cultural differences: Americans don't really eat that much bread. And it's not a staple of meals besides 2 slices if you want a sandwich for lunch. Hard data is shaky but most sources I can find put American per-capita bread consumption at a small fraction of the consumption of somewhere like France. Having far fewer standalone bakeries and far less "good bread" is not so much that people are eating a bunch of worse bread instead - no one's serving sandwich bread with dinner, they're often just not eating that much bread at all.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

asdff 1y ago

It isn't hard if you buy the actual raw ingredients and cook for yourself. Produce is fine. Cuts of meat are fine. You can get plain old beans just fine for your vegetarian needs. It is just people in this country have forgotten how to cook. Grandmother made her own mayonnaise. Mom bought kraft. To you making mayonnaise is a black art since mom never did it, so you also buy kraft. Extend that to most other food products.

ksec 1y ago

I am starting to think if there are any business opportunities to brand "European Standard" Food as Healthy Options in the US.

robocat 1y ago

All the milk I've seen in New Orleans is ultra-pasteurised) to increase its shelflife (in fridge), even expensive organic stuff. I haven't yet looked in speciality groceries. I've just given up on milk while I'm here, because it tastes disgusting (reminds me of " UHT long-life milk sold uncooled in tetrabrick within New Zealand). Apparently normal pasteurised is available from local dairy brands, but I haven't seen any yet. Quality foods in general seem hard to find here - although some of that is because of unfamiliarity - and it isn't cheaper either. I'm looking forward to getting home to better food.