I have seen several YouTube videos about how upper-class Americans eat, middle-class Americans eat, and poverty-class Americans eat. Although upper-class and middle-class Americans certainly eat better and healthier than poverty-class Americans, a general pattern in the food and eating habits seems to remain constant. Here are my observations of the American diet, many of which are based on the fact that America is the land of affluence and prosperity.
1. Meat (The Good Kind!) is the Centerpiece of the Dish
Many mainstream American meals are not only heavy in meats and animal products, but also they are centered around animal products. The animal products are not the bony cuts or organs of the animal either. They are usually the muscle. Examples include steak, bacon and scrambled eggs, Thanksgiving turkey, etc. Taking a look at frozen entrées at the supermarket, you can see that many ready-made frozen meals are centered around meat or contain meat, unless the package is marked vegan. Muscle meats are traditionally regarded as higher in quality than organ meats in many different societies of the Old World. Consuming them suggests wealth and social status.
As a personal anecdote, I explain my family's consumption of meat. I spent my preschool years in China in the early 1990s. At that time, China was just becoming more prosperous. My parents earned a higher-than-average income. They were wealthy enough to purchase meat regularly, if they wanted to. But they decided to save up the money instead. On one occasion, my parents took me to a restaurant and ordered a chicken foot. My mother gave me the chicken foot and told my father to sit across from me, watching me enjoy the meal. When my parents and I immigrated to the United States, my parents were astounded at the prices and huge quantities of muscle meats. They were as cheap as fruits and vegetables! My parents grew up with eating a pound of rationed meat per family. Both my mother and father came from a household of six people. So, each person likely could only consume 1/6 of a pound per month, but meat distribution per person was a bit skewed towards younger family members.
Apparently, meat during the Middle Ages was primarily eaten by the wealthy.
America is unique, because she takes a traditional luxury product -- meat -- and cheapens the value through government subsidies.
2. Sugar, Sugar-Like Sweeteners, and the Sweet Tooth Palate
Many Americans have a sweet tooth. This preference for sweet things is pretty obvious, when you consider its influence on American Chinese cuisine and what Americans eat for breakfast and dessert. Early Chinese immigrants in the 19th century arrived in California to mine for gold. They faced numerous threats and discrimination, forcing them to become unemployed in every industry. They needed some way to survive, so many Chinese families turned to the culinary trade and started restaurants. They dispersed throughout the country, hoping to find a place to start a restaurant business and to distance themselves from other Chinese competitors. As a business, they had to adapt to American tastes, which meant sweetening the dishes and choosing bland-tasting but exotic-looking vegetables. Hence the development of General Tso's chicken. General Tso's chicken is an authentic American Chinese dish, because it was developed in America.
For breakfast, Americans may consume a piece of bread (bagel) with jam or cream cheese (sometimes fruit-flavored too), toast with jam, some kind of sweetened beverage, or some kind of sweet candy bar (granola bar). For dessert, Americans may consume sweet pastries or some kind of frozen, sweetened dessert that requires extensive preparation (for convenience, ice cream and frozen yogurt are usually store-bought). As a friendly gesture, Americans may serve coffee with added sugar and cream on the side at many public places.
The preference for sweet things, the ability to purchase them in great quantities, and the different kinds of sugars in store-bought products (like tomato sauce) are expressions of wealth and social status. The fact that America can manufacture so many processed foods suggests industry, and the fact that America has talented food scientists who can engineer artificial sweeteners and other food additives suggests innovation and competitiveness.
3. Ingredients are Carefully Measured Out and Fit into Strict Recipes
This method of food preparation is not intrinsically good or bad. The advantage is that it is more likely to replicate the same dish as many times as you like, whenever you like, as long as you follow the recipe closely. The disadvantage is that this method of cooking is extremely inflexible, when it comes to making very elaborate dishes. A family has to afford all the ingredients in order to make a specific recipe. If one ingredient is missing or too expensive, then the dish cannot be made. So, a poor family may seek cheaper alternatives, like store-bought frozen meals, to create the illusion of eating luxuriously.
In my experience, my Asian parents never measured the ingredients for traditional Chinese meals. They merely bought cheap fruits and vegetables whenever the fresh produce was on sale and made something out of them. Vegetables were usually stir-fried, but may be steamed or boiled in soups. Rarely, they would be baked or grilled. Fruits were usually consumed as a snack or dessert. The advantage of this food preparation method is that it is very economical and versatile. The disadvantage of this food preparation method is that it is nearly impossible to replicate the exact same dish by a different person. Everything must be learned by experience. More recently, my mother became fascinated by European-American cuisine and introduced measuring spoons and cups in the kitchen. She would carefully measure the ingredients to make cakes, cupcakes, and muffins. However, she would only do this for European-American recipes, not her native Chinese recipes that may vary by proportion and ingredient.
The YouTube presenters satirize Western and Asian cooking. For the most part, I can relate to the Asian cooking style, except the addition of monosodium glutamate. I prefer natural flavor enhancers, like jalapeno peppers or ginger.
4. Variety At Mealtimes
Because America is a developed nation without major famine outbreaks, Americans are not so reliant on staple food as the primary source of energy. Although Americans do consume many wheat-based things, they tend to recognize wheat-based things by recipe, not by individual constituent. A pizza is recognized as a pizza, not a piece of flat dough with toppings. Spaghetti is recognized as a pasta dish, not as noodles with toppings. Health-conscious people may recognize the wheat in pizza or spaghetti as "carbohydrates" instead of "staple food", and they may count the consumption of carbs as a way to decrease calorie intake, whereas a person from a developing country may use staple food to increase calorie intake and prevent starvation.
The absence of staple food may contribute to the expectation of having a variety of different meals at mealtimes. Eating store-bought ready-made meals fulfills the expectation. People don't have to cook food, if they don't want to. They can just buy prepared meals and eat on the go. It's simple and fast. Many popular American dishes are wheat-based, and making wheat-based dough takes more time and energy than eating a daily dose of rice. American dishes tend to be very sophisticated and elaborate, so mass-produced food products make lives so much easier. People can eat the foods that their grandmas made when they were little, without knowing the cooking process.
When Americans try to mass-produce American-Chinese cuisine, the ingredients must be perfectly proportioned, so that the products would be exactly the same all the time. Even if Americans try to make a stir-fry dish at home, they carefully measure out in exact proportions and buy all or most of the necessary ingredients to make a specific dish, like beef and broccoli. Then, they would add rice as a side dish of the meal, and they may complete the "exotic Asian experience" by eating with chopsticks.
In Mandarin, "eating rice" is synonymous with "eating a meal". That said, I believe that shapes my perception of food. I look at the rice as the main course and staple food and the vegetables and meats as toppings. The purpose of the staple food is to add calories; the purpose of the vegetables and meats is to add nutrients. I use chopsticks, because I find them more useful and efficient at bringing the food from the plate to my mouth than metallic or plastic silverware. I think many Americans would find the traditional Chinese diet very boring, because it is essentially a pattern of the same thing every day. There may be changes in ingredients, but the overall appearance looks the same and is a combination of soups, stir-fry platters, and steamed things.
5. Meal Presentation Matters
American consumers generally want the food to look good, smell good, and taste good. Granted, many vegetables by themselves taste bland or bitter. So, Americans do not typically make vegetables part of the main course, unless they are vegan/vegetarian, and when they do make vegetables the main course, they add a lot of seasoning (salad dressing, salt, pepper, spices) to mask the natural flavors. I think the emphasis of meal presentation stems from the fact that America is a developed country, and her people have many food choices. When people have the choice of eating tasty junk food and bland nutritious food, they will choose the tasty junk food.
The emphasis on meal presentation may also explain why Americans tend to measure ingredients to make sure that the dish comes out perfectly as expected.
Fortunately, some health-conscious Americans know how to make very nutritious and presentable dishes. Both my parents cook. My mother does it more often than my father. The only time when they would make the dish look gorgeous is when they are serving to guests. Most of the time, the stir-fry platters look like a hodge-podge of vegetables. When my father was younger, his mother would boil rice with cabbages. My father hated the smell of rice and cabbages, but he ate them anyway. It was better than nothing and going to bed with an empty stomach.
6. Big Portion Sizes
Americans tend to have big portion sizes. I think the big portion size is a product of wealth and consumer demand. When portion sizes are so big, people can easily eat more than they need, because they have a habit of eating everything on their plate. To break the habit, Americans focus on portion-control as a way to lose weight. Many middle-class Americans have no trouble with obtaining food. They just go to the supermarket and buy whatever they want or whatever they can afford. Quantity discounts give people the economic incentive to buy more products and thus consume more products. I think these economic incentives play a significant role in food choice and quantity.
7. Individualized Eating
This may be a casual observation of mine, but in the countless YouTube videos I watched, I notice that many families would individualize meal plans. If one family member is on a special diet (gluten-free diet, Atkins diet, NutriSystem diet), then the special diet puts additional strain on the budget, as the family has to pay for specific food just for that family member.
In contrast, Asians are notorious communal eaters. The disadvantage is the spreading of germs. However, that problem can easily be fixed by the use of public utensils. The advantage of communal eating is that it is a form of portion control. One person alone probably cannot consume a whole platter of tofu and bok choy, because his jealous siblings would probably bicker and fight for it. Therefore, the consumption of soy products in the East Asian diet is low enough to not cause health problems. In addition, sibling rivalry is turned into competition for the "good portions", or older siblings may allow younger siblings to eat more because giving the better portions is a kind, nurturing gesture. If the siblings were each given their own share of food, a whole platter of tofu and bok choy, each sibling will definitely consume more food than what he/she needs. It would also take considerably more effort and time on the parent to make enough individual platters for everyone.
8. Meat can be Undercooked and be Done
Meat can be eaten thoroughly cooked, medium rare, or rare. Redness in meat is acceptable. Even TV commercials would showcase a piece of beef steak that looks like it's leaking with blood.
9. Ginger is Not Used to Mask the Blood Odor
My mother would always slide in sliced ginger with the meat. It doesn't matter if the meat is in soup or stir-fried. Ginger must be used. My mother would tell me ginger is a necessary ingredient, because it "masks the blood odor". That certainly makes sense, given that ginger is a strong aromatic spice. In the West, I think ginger is replaced by basil. In Italian cuisine, basil leaves are used very liberally in sauces and meats.
10. Reading Labels and Brand Names
When Americans do their grocery shopping, they are very observant of the labels and brand names. They may have brand loyalty to a specific kind of product, because they trust that the manufacturer will always produce high-quality goods. They may read the big and bold labels on the front cover and then purchase the product based on presumptive nutritional benefits. More health-conscious and informed Americans would read the Nutrition Facts labels and Ingredients.
In contrast, my non-native-English-speaking parents never bother with reading the labels in an all-English supermarket. I suppose reading the English labels puts a heavy mental strain on them. So, they have a preference of going to Asian supermarkets, which have the dual benefit of labelling everything in Chinese characters and providing familiar food products. In a mainstream American supermarket, not being able to understand the labels forces them to be very conservative in purchasing products. So, they tend to stick with whole fruits and vegetables, because whole fruits and vegetables are universal food products, whereas many processed foods are placed into strange containers and made beyond recognition.
Why All of This Matters
America is the fattest country in the world. The people are fat because of a combination of factors. Meat and sugar are abundant and cheap. Recipes are very elaborate, strict, and inflexible. There is no staple food, which means no expectation of consistency throughout the day. Meal presentation is regarded as important as or even more important than nutrition. Economic incentives and social class play a big role in food choice and quantity. People tend to eat individually rather than communally, so the responsibility of portion control falls on the individual instead of the group. All these points are signs of luxurious living, but because many Americans are living this kind of lifestyle across social classes, fatness is not associated with the upper class, but instead with poverty and malnutrition. In America, luxury products are not meat and sugar; they are fruits and vegetables, especially the organic kind, that only the affluent can afford and enjoy regularly, because the affluent can easily access them in supermarkets whenever they want. And whatever foods they eat reinforce the connection between social class and physical appearance.
I reject that people should strive for beauty over health. Beauty standards are subjective. Good health promotes longevity and happiness. It would be nice to see more overlap in beauty and good health and an acceptance for a greater range of healthy faces, because that may give people more incentives to eat their fruits and vegetables regularly and be comfortable with how they look naturally.
I also reject that people should avoid eating fruits and vegetables because they are costly. In fact, I believe that people can take advantage of the costly fruits and vegetables to limit their intake. I have watched a food documentary, called Food Inc., in which a relatively poor family has to work to feed four mouths. Somehow, they can easily access $11.00 worth of McDonalds Dollar Menu meals for everybody, including soda pop, but they can barely find the time and money to buy fresh produce and make healthier dishes. First of all, the family could save a few dollars by ditching the soda and drinking only water. When contemplating about the fresh produce, the family would stare at the prices and weigh each item by the pound. The family would also stop at one supermarket or grocery store instead of sampling a variety of stores and remembering the average prices.
I close this myTake with a comment that the American lifestyle is certainly making people fat, but the fatness is ironically associated with poverty and malnutrition instead of affluence and prestige.
Most Helpful Opinions