Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 530 posts

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#421

Post by maccard »

realcertify wrote: post #222
DubiousPusher wrote: post #172

I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.) We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting. We got produce…

Yes, but the taste of the veggies, fruits, berries and meat is far worse in supermarkets vs buying directly from growers / butchers.

Disagree here. Seasonal fruit veg and meat is excellent from my local supermarkets.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#422

Post by baisq »

fleetwoodsnack wrote: post #415
baisq wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some who are specialised in finding any possible excuse to bring up global warming in every thread. Can't you see that the majority of people don't care? Leave us alone already.

I want you to know you’re very much alone and only becoming more-so in this disposition.

If I were alone in my not-caring stance, there wouldn't be a problem to begin with. :-)

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#423

Post by wreath »

j7ake wrote: post #351

Comparing grocery stores in USA and Europe (let’s say Italy), one big difference is that USA has a much larger variability in quality of products. In usa, You can buy the cheapest meats to the most expensive. While in italy the lower bound of meat quality is capped: a low end meat in Italy is medium to high end in USA. It makes grocery shopping in Italy much more pleasant than in USA. You go into any grocery store in…

I wouldnt compare meat in the US to all of Europe. No idea about quality of meat in Italy but in German supermarkets even high end beef tastes like shit compared to what you would get (non high end) in the US.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#424

Post by _wldu »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #172

I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.) We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting. We got produce…

IGA is a supermarket chain. Granted, it's like the older, smaller ones (it's not a Walmart Jumbo Center) but it's still a supermarket.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#425

Post by fleetwoodsnack »

baisq wrote: post #422
fleetwoodsnack wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want you to know you’re very much alone and only becoming more-so in this disposition.

If I were alone in my not-caring stance, there wouldn't be a problem to begin with. :-)

> Leave us alone already.

This is the context in which that term is being used.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#426

Post by ginko »

Leherenn wrote: post #417
enos-ape wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hard to find good bread in Germany Must be a different Germany in a different Universe.. Back in Germany anybody who (realy) cares about bread wouldn't even think about buying those mass-baked chemicals from the stores. For bread you go to a craft bakery which you can find everywhere - if you don't just look for around the neighborhood of the big Supermarkets. And in those magical craft bakeries you'll find it hard…

I feel there are two schools of bread in (Western) Europe: the French and German one. The French love bread with a thick, crunchy crust, whereas the classic German dark bread rarely have such a crust.

???

Of course German bread has a thick crispy crust. If anything it's the Anglo box shaped bread which is soft and doesn't have a proper crust.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#427

Post by pmoriarty »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #172

I grew up in Montana so I am probably one of the few millennial Americans that probably recalls what life is like before supermarkets. They were just becoming a thing there as I was growing up. (Very, What's Eating Gilbert Grape.) We had an IGA in the small town I grew up in. The fresh food options there were borderline Soviet. We went to a butcher to get our meat when we didn't have meat from hunting. We got produce…

"When I see people share "fast" recipes on YouTube they involve jarred sauces, spaghettiOs and raisins."

This really depends on the cuisine. I've really been getting in to Indian food recently and the recipes in it are nothing like what you're describing.

Relatedly, one of my main complaints against American supermarkets is that they all seem to be catering towards makings Italian food. Some have "ethnic" food sections, but those tend to be tiny and mostly filled with Chinese/Japanese/Mexican food... And even there have nowhere near the selection of a grocery store specializing in that cuisine.

American supermarkets also tend to be full of meat dishes, with few selections (outside the fresh fruit/vegetable isles) for vegetarians... Though that's been getting a little better in recent years in an some parts of the country.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#428

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #403
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems with Americans and food is that we've been conditioned to have sugar in absolutely everything, and the 80s made it worse because of the low-fat fad (they just increased sugar content to maintain mouthfeel). Ask any Gen Xer and they'll regale you with nightmares of the dominance of oat bran in 80s cuisine. On the one hand, you get a muffin. On the other hand, it tastes like cardboard flavored with…

Most people don't eat enough low-cost, high-availability items like cucumbers and spinach, and they don't manage to learn how to do things like make their own bread, which is far superior fresh from the oven than anything you can get from a supermarket bakery. I don't think that most folks can make their own bread simply because of time constraints. And honestly, we have a long history of folks not making their own b…

The problem isn't that people don't make their own bread. The problem is that bread just isn't a part of the culture in the US in the way it is in Europe.

In most of Europe, high-quality bread is cheap and available everywhere. In the US, high-quality bread is extremely expensive and only available in specialty bakeries. People who are really into bread in the US often make their own. In Europe, where you can buy fresh bread on every street corner, why bother making it yourself?

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#429

Post by maccard »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #306
wikibob wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly strongly disagree. The average produce, meat, cured meat, and seafood in the western EU is vastly superior to the average available in the USA. Bread is especially disgusting in the US compared to EU.

That "average available in the USA" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The USA is larger than Europe, but no one would credibly say that these things are all good across Europe. You can find plenty of terrible bread, meat, and seafood in Europe. To call it "vastly superior" is indefensible on its face. Hence why I referenced the median. It wouldn't make sense to cherry-pick a US city like Seattle, which has amazin…

I agree that the diversity is higher in the median, but disagree that the quality is higher. I live in the UK, but have spent time in the US, and for day to day shopping in the 3 cities I've spent lots of time in (SF, LA and Raleigh NC) the quality at the highest end is good but everything else is a crapshoot. Even at that most of the actual high end ingredients are European ingredients (cheese and butter, cured meats, olives) and cost 4-5x what they do in Europe. Not only that, I don't actually trust when I'm buying DOP parmesan from a us grocery store, but I know what I'm buying here.

The quality of supermarket meat in your average Tesco, or Asda ranges from acceptable to good. The quality in a Target or Walmart ranges from very very poor to good in my experience. As a textbook example the fabled wooded chicken breast is for the most part not a problem here, but was something I experienced on more than one occasion during my last month long trip to SF.

Re: Americans are poorly served by their grocery stores

#430

Post by j7ake »

wreath wrote: post #423
j7ake wrote: post #351

Comparing grocery stores in USA and Europe (let’s say Italy), one big difference is that USA has a much larger variability in quality of products. In usa, You can buy the cheapest meats to the most expensive. While in italy the lower bound of meat quality is capped: a low end meat in Italy is medium to high end in USA. It makes grocery shopping in Italy much more pleasant than in USA. You go into any grocery store in…

I wouldnt compare meat in the US to all of Europe. No idea about quality of meat in Italy but in German supermarkets even high end beef tastes like shit compared to what you would get (non high end) in the US.

Europe splits into the “olive oil / Mediterranean” countries and “butter” countries.

Usually the Mediterranean countries have better grocery stores compared to the butter countries.

Post reply on HN