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Organic Consumers latest newsletter included this article: Who Loves Junk Food the Most: U.K., USA, or Canada?
From the newsletter:
44 percent of Americans agreed with the statement while only 19 percent of the French agreed.
And taking the grand prize (from the article):
Forty five percent of UK respondents agreed with the statement ‘I like the taste of fast food too much to give it up’.
Wow! 44% and 45% respectively! That is an unreal percentage of people that cannot give up fast food due to the taste. It’s even more amazing to me because fast food isn’t all that tasty. It’s mainly a combination of salt, sugar, and a crispy texture - very one-dimensional food. It hits the spot if you’re so hungry, you’re going to gnaw your arm (or someone else’s arm) off, but I certainly wouldn’t consider it “tasty food”.
So congratulations Britain. You have unseated the USA as the most fast food loving nation, though only by a small percentage. Notice that the French don’t appreciate fast food quite as much, though it’s still 1 in 5. I suppose that’s the result of a rich food tradition that the United States doesn’t have.
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Filed in Restaurants and Fast Food 6 Comments so far
Lemur on 03 Feb 2008 at 2:50 pm #
“I suppose that’s the result of a rich food tradition that the United States doesn’t have.”
That statement got my attention. I had never really thought about it before, but it would seem that fast food IS our food tradition, something commonly shared by everyone in the country. No matter where you live, chances are you know exactly how a chicken nugget tastes. Fast food is a truly American creation, one of the only “styles” of food that doesn’t borrow from other cultures. Perhaps because it doesn’t actually have “food” in it…
Where is this century’s Upton Sinclair? =(
LabRat on 03 Feb 2008 at 5:32 pm #
I’m not shocked. Cooking is a tradition that never had a strong hold in either the U.S. or the U.K., and as I’ve settled into life in an adulthood that revolves around quality food, I’ve realized just how many people truly don’t know what good food even tastes like, let alone how to get it.
When I was a kid, my mother, a half-hearted cook to begin with, gave up cooking at home altogether. From that time until my little internal foodie revolution (which moving to New Orleans, an American city with a powerful food tradition), I would have answered that survey the same way.
Dan on 04 Feb 2008 at 3:15 am #
“Cooking is a tradition that never had a strong hold in either the U.S. or the U.K.”
I completely disagree with this statement. There is a very strong and very old tradition of good cooking at home in the UK but conversely a very weak tradition of eating out. It seems to me that in the UK over the past two, maybe three decades this relationship has been inverted - people eat out far more, are more discerning and have higher expectations, but they spend far less time cooking at home. And people use takeaways and pizza services far more. There has always been good household cooking in Britain but - like anywhere else - what you get will depend on the personal ability of the individual slaving over the stove.
I’m not qualified to speak about household cooking in the US.
Scott Kustes on 04 Feb 2008 at 9:46 am #
I’m sure early US citizens also had a food tradition brought with them from their home countries. But it seems that the overriding theme of US cooking has become quick and commoditized. A good deal of home dinners are even cooked with microwaved or pre-packaged foods. Few people actually know how to make their own tomato sauce or how to use herbs and spices to create rich, dynamic dishes.
The more systematic things can be made, the better. The more perfect things can be made (perfect in the sense that a Big Mac is a Big Mac is a Big Mac), the better. We want cheap, quick, and decently tasty food that we can carry with us. I suppose it’s all part of our “work your life away” culture…we’re busy running and going and doing, not “worrying” about the things we shovel mindlessly down our gullets. Having never been to the UK, I can’t speak to that.
Cheers
Scott
Dan on 05 Feb 2008 at 11:17 am #
“Few people actually know how to make their own tomato sauce or how to use herbs and spices to create rich, dynamic dishes.”
It still amazes me how often one sees a recipe on the internet with an ingredient list that includes something like “1 1lb Jar of Ben’s Best Pasta Sauce”. Moreover, these often have directions that read something like “add ingredients x, y and z to Ben’s Best Pasta Sauce, heat through and serve”. People genuinely think that’s cooking. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Mark’s Daily Apple » Blog Archive » Carl’s Jr. Can’t Be Stopped!!! on 18 Feb 2008 at 6:43 pm #
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