Edit to the Video: There's a slip-up in the numbers I presented - 2.2% of the American population is (roughly) 7.5 million people, and not 2.5 million people. Although hey! for what it's worth: Chicago is still a great visualization. It is just that instead of the city proper, you can consider the "Chicago Metropolitan Area" for a size comparison. Cheers! ❤

Over a decade ago, my wife was prescribed diuretic medication to control the swelling in her lower extremities. We then visited my folks in Switzerland, where we ate a variety of (local recipe) foods, whatever looked good to us. about 36h after arrival in Switzerland, my wife's swelling subsided, and she no longer needed to take the medication during our 3 weeks stay. 24 hours after arrival back in the Midwest, my wife's swelling came back and she had to go back to take the medication again. Today we buy food at farmers markets / health food stores and local farms (heirloom tomatoes for all kinds of sauces and salsas) meat from Belti Cows (a.k.a. "Orio-Cows). I make my own European style, dark, splintering, full aroma crusty bread, with organic flour from the USA and some from Canada. My wife does no longer need the medication.

I am Polish and I can confirm, that we care about seasonal food. Why would I buy strawberries out of season that taste as if they were washed in a washing machine and are terribly expensive? What’s the point? And there are plenty of different seasonal food that are worth waiting for. There’s a special season even for potatoes here - in the summer we buy only the young potatoes that have completely different taste and texture than the ripe ones in the autumn.

I'm French. I had a school exchange in Florida a few years ago, and I was baffled at how different food culture is in America. Frying bacon is considered cooking skill. Everything tastes bland. Vegetables look like they're grown directly in their plastic bag. Biscuits and cereals are colored so crazy it makes you doubt how safe for consumption it is. And I don't mean to disrespect, I'm just highlighting how alien it looks from a European perspective

I went to Germany in December of 2023. As an American, I was blown away. The food not only tasted better (even McDonald’s was way better), but it had a different effect on the body. I noticed I got satiated faster, ate less, had more energy, and never felt overly stuffed. The lack of overly processed food made a huge difference.

On one of my first trips from the US to northern Germany after meeting my German wife, my mother-in-law was unable to pick us up from the airport and have a meal waiting for us when we arrived. Instead, we went to a greek restaurant nearby after arriving by train and dropping off our luggage. I ordered something that came with a salad and was amazed at how the red bell peppers smelled and tasted. It smelled more like a red pepper than anything I had previously eaten. I asked the waiter/proprietor why the pepper smelled and tasted so good. He explained that he gets up early in the morning three days a week to go to the wholesale market in Hamburg, about 100 miles away. There he buys vegetables that have been only lightly cooled during the entire way from Southern Europe to Hamburg. It turns out that when you cool red peppers (and other vegetables) too much, they loose aroma and flavor. It is important enough for people in Europe to have these aromas and flavors that they take extra effort to handle food in ways to preserve its flavor. (Of course they also keep it safe to eat.) I now live in Karsruhe, at the northern end of the Black Forest, in southern Germany, and have been very satisfied living in Germany for many years. BTW, not everyone cares as much as that restaurant proprietor, but the fact that he was _able_ to get those peppers says volumes.

Oh boy is there a lot to say on this subject. Well done. I’m a chef that has travelled to Italy for 21 years and have now lived in Italy for 10. The cultural priorities and preferences cannot be emphasized enough. As you mentioned, bad ingredients with no flavor and too many preservatives would not be acceptable here. The basic knowledge that so many Italians have about seasonality and what products are local is so often impressive. Italians are also taught more about nutrition and exercise so there is an overall better understanding about how to take care of oneself. (And a desire to do so.) One thing I always notice when I go to the US to visit is the packaging. There is so much plastic. You’ll see pre-prepped vegetables with pictures of cute little veggies with smiley faces all wrapped so perfectly and conveniently with no connection to the earth and where the food comes from. In Italy there is much more natural food available. You’ll see vegetables with their tops attached, dirt and evidence that the product was from the ground. People like knowing exactly where their food is from. You can’t do that when the product was harvested so long before in another country. I often have friends and family tell me that there are food items that make them sick in the US but they can eat them freely here. It’s incredible. When we moved here it was rather shocking at first to see how quickly items went bad. What have I been eating my whole life? Broccoli last only a few days here but weeks in the US? It’s scary. Convenience is definitely the priority in the US. On a visit home I once made my daughter homemade waffles and my husband’s family could not understand why I would bother when there were Eggos in the freezer! The flavor difference and the lack of chemicals in the homemade version meant nothing to them. Another thing I find interesting is that there are convenience foods here but the ingredient lists are so short comparatively and not too bad. High fructose corn syrup for example is banned in the EU. One Italian friend once mentioned a connection between national healthcare and the incentive to take care of oneself and to educate the public so that there is a healthier populace. It taxes the healthcare system less that way. In the US with our for profit healthcare, what incentive to leaders have to educate the public? The health insurance and drug companies are making much more money this way… A sick population gives them higher profits.

I believe that the culture/tradition of cooking your own meals is a factor too. Sometimes when I look up recipes online I'll stumble across an American one. In way too many of these recipes will you find "Add 1 cup of whatever brand name pre-made mix". "Crush 5 oreos", do this, do that with some processed brand name product. Here in Sweden you bake with the basic ingredients, you cook with the basic ingredients. Very seldomly do you use pre-made mixes or processed food in your own cooking/baking.

Tomatoes are an excellent example. The tomatoes I've experienced in Italy, Albania, and Greece are a world apart from the softball sized, bland monstrosities that are the norm in American supermarkets. I remember sitting at a random restaurant in the mountains of Albania and ordering a tomato salad that consisted nothing other than olive oil, tomatoes, and salt, and it tasted so good. In France, I can go to any random supermarket and buy a peach. It's sweet, juicy, and soft. In the US, they are huge, and taste like cardboard, even when it's considered "organic", from Whole Foods.

Just a little anecdote. As a Swedish child of the 70s, I have picked strawberries directly in the fields. There used to be those farms where you could just go out in the field and pick as many boxes full of strawberries as you wanted. Once you were done, you would walk over to the farmer and either pay for the number of boxes you'd filled, or by weight. And there was a succession of strawberries that ripened at different times. The first ones were of a type called Precosa, around midsummer, it was deliciously sweet and perfect for immediate consumption, with a little milk and sugar poured over them. A few later came a type called Zephyr, still very sweet, but not as sweet as Precosa. And last, Sengana, an even less sort, mainly suitable for making jam or cooking. I don't know if it still exists, but it has at least become very rare. Cheap labor from Eastern Europe meant the farmers started employing professional berry pickers, that cleared the fields way more systematically than five year old kids and their parents would. The numer of self-pick fields shrank, and the berries were increasingly no longer sold directly at the farm, and you would be clueless about whether it was Precosa, Zephyr, or something else. Also, families wanted more exciting things to do than spending hours picking strawberries. But it was very definitely a very direct connection to the food you ate, one that is now being lost. But Swedes are at least still very excited about strawberry season.

I came across this argument as a guide in France to mostly American tourists. Many tried foods, such as French breads or cheeses, when at home they said they would not eat them. And then told me they had less or no reaction. Which made me really wonder what all is put in American foods. I would take my guests to local French markets and buy something seasonal for them to taste, such as strawberries or raspberries. The comment was always how cute, and small, these fruits were. And then, after tasting, how amazingly flavourful. I appreciated food here in France before, but now even more so. Thank you for your insightful and very well researched video.

When I was about 8, my thrifty (she complained if a loaf of bread was more than 20¢ at the store), widowed mom took me to the area north of Quebec City to ensure I experienced something special. We stopped at a roadside artisanal bakery that used a wood-fired outdoor clay or brick oven. She bought me a slice, a SINGLE SLICE of freshly baked bread with hand churned butter for 25¢! It worked. All these decades later, it's a wonderful memory.

The sad thing is, that most people don't know that the taste of fruits/vegetables, is mainly given by the nutrients they have. tasteless fruits/vegetables, don't have minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients. so buying in season and buying organic, if posible, it's a win win situation. it's healthier, more nutritious, better for the environment, and sometimes even cheaper.

After traveling in the US for a few weeks, I was so happy to finally find a bakery that offered sour dough bread. And the I was very disappointed because the bread tasted so sweet that it resembled a Hefezopf in Germany. This seems to be a general rule - every food item in the US is usually much sweeter than its equivalent in Germany

I live in North Macedonia and pepper season is a cultural phenomenon here, everyone goes out and buys the freshest peppers to make their own ajvar. You can smell roasting peppers everywhere at the end of September.

I'm from Germany, I love Italian food. When the food is cooked and prepared directly by an Italian, everyone in Europe knows that it only contains the best ingredients! the French are similarly meticulous. However, I like the Italian dishes best. Mediterranean. the Italians have a good nose for the best restaurants. If you ever see Italian tourists outside of Italy sitting in a restaurant, you know that this is the best restaurant in the area! If you're on holiday in Italy, it's a holiday for your taste buds!

Greetings from a former part time small (or, in terms of average US farm sizes: microscopic) farmer from Austria growing peaches for about 20 years. On the the average, we sold about 75 to 100 % of the fruits directly from the farm (some people bought 0.5 kg, some 40 to 60 kg and above), sometimes customers waiting for the harvesting, sometimes even strolling through the lines with the trees while we were just harvesting the fruits they were going to buy a few minutes later. And of course my parents were keen that each child who wanted to could fetch his/her own peach from the tree (under guidance to correctly grab this sensitive fruit). Quite romantic view, I know and also not possible if a family's income really depends totally on farming, but nevertheless a time in my life I wouldn't like to have missed.

In the 1980s and 90s, Dutch tomatoes were called Wasserbombe (water bomb) in Germany because they were big and looked very good, but they tasted like water, and the Dutch tomatoes lost their market share because of it.

Just a general remark on the channel: I don't know, how it is possible to put out a high quality video (well researched, well written, well presented, well produced) every single week without a large team behind it. Having seen many big UKposts channels dying in the last year or so, due to total exhaustion of the makers. I hope, this doesn't happen to this one. I'd be totally happy to see it switching to a fortnightly schedule, but Ashton keeping her health.

I am from the Czech Republic. It is quite common here to find trees along roads connecting villages where apples, pears, walnuts, cherries, plums, and even sour cherries grow, and you can pick them completely for free. Not only people without money have access to fresh fruit during the season, but they can even earn some extra income by picking and selling them afterward. We have forests here where you can pick blueberries, wild strawberries, mushrooms. None of what I've mentioned here did I see as an option when I visited the USA (Washington).

In Switzerland there is an organisation called 'Pro Specie Rara'. They are dedicated to protecting and saving old species of produce and livestock. It's so worth partaking if you happen to have space to grow some veggies and fruit yourself. The taste on some of these is incredible..

In much of the US, our food purchasing is car-centered. We drive to the supermarket in our big SUVs once a week, or every two weeks, so food that "keeps well" is important. That's reflected in the size of an "American style" refrigerator referred to in European real estate videos. In Europe, smaller shops within walking distance allow more frequent food purchases, so the bread they buy is more likely to have been baked that day, and the produce is more likely to have been recently picked from more local gardens. They don't need huge refrigerators and freezers. As pointed out here, shelf life is a big deal in the US, and the handful of huge corporations that provide most of our foods favor breads with additives to keep it "fresh" and vegetables that can spend ten days in a freight car and still look good. Taste and nutrition are not important. I once had a supermarket tomato that I bought just as the local ones were becoming available, and it sat forgotten on the counter for over three weeks. It looked exactly the same, though when I sliced it open I saw that its seeds were germinating. What kind of tomato never goes bad? One that tastes like plastic or cardboard, I guess. ;-)

I spent 1 year in south carolina, i dindt regulrly eat at McDonald's or nothing like that but i gained so much weight i went from thin to overweight... when i came back to spain i didnt diet or started excercising but i started loosing weight anyway. I'm positive its because of how much sugar anerican ingredients have

I am from Greece and the farmers market is the way to go for getting quality ingredients for your home kitchen. The prices are better than the Supermarket, the selection is great, you support financially the farmers in a direct way and seasonal products are the King! also, complimentary tasting on the spot is actually encouraged by the farmers, so you never feel that you have to do a blind test for the produce you get. extra bonus all the limited quantity special harvests that you find! Every neighbourhood gets them at least once a week, sometimes 3 times a week is different locations.

I recommend a visit to South Louisiana. Not just New Orleans, travel across the southern part of the state, and I think you would really appreciate the local traditions of food in this region of the US.

In Denmark, we rave about the early potatoes. Yes, we have a potato season! Plus the strawberry season.

Excellent video. I live in the States, but generally spend up to six weeks a year in Europe, France mostly. During these trips, I always lose weight. Two factors: I walk more in Europe and the meal portions are somewhat smaller. Smaller they may be, but they are almost always more satisfying than what is on offer here. I think that the entire food supply chain is infused with a sense of pride in the product that is lacking here.

To be fair, by residing in Freiburg, Ashton has probably chosen the most food-oriented region in Germany. With France's Alsace region just across the border, you literally wade in excellent produce of all sorts. It also shows in the restaurant business, with a fairly high density of high class restaurants, and even the "simple" restaurants frequently offering excellent food. Just look at the number of Michelin stars to be found either side of the Rhine within an hour's drive from Freiburg! A gourmet's paradise!

I don't like a ham sandwich. But in France I ate a fresh baguette with local butter and ham .. I nearly wept, it was so good.

My mom was in Cali few years back for like a month or two and she said it was a nightmare to buy groceries there. We are used to cook. Every dayu. I rarely eat out or order. The culture in Europe is HOME COOKING. In my country, Slovakia, local (european) vegetables and fruits are one of the cheapest items in the supermarket. You can get bag full of basic healthy vegetables and pay few €. But everything was super expensive in USA and the only cheap thing was like... almond milk (well, because Cali I guess). No wonder no one cooks there when you can get a "dollar menu" in some fast food garbage chain.

You live in Germany and you already think European food is better. Imagine if you lived in Italy...

I’m old enough (As a kid, Apollo missions were my generation’s fascination) to remember eating food produced by local farms. It did taste good. I still try to buy local produce and even subscribed to a farmers’ co-op for a few years that guaranteed me an assortment of local produce every week. The problem was sometimes I got too much of one product to use. Unfortunately, those farms that I grew up with have all shuttered and their land is now one acre single family lots. In the next town, the last farm was forced to close because the new neighbors that bought these houses didn’t understand one of the documents that stated a working farm was next door and that certain facts of farming had to be anticipated. After several years, the neighborhood decided they were unhappy with the status quo and got the town’s board of health to indirectly shut the farm down by demanding expensive mitigation measures. One of my favorite restaurants has its own pastures and vegetable fields. They subscribe to idea that menus change with the seasons.

I am german, living 10km (6.2miles) from next city. But we have a supermarket 1km apart. The supermarket supports lokal farmers, so despite the industrial (non processed food) there are offered potatoes, salads, fruits and vegetables from lokal farmers right from their fields! Nothing tastes better than these fresh products, and i prefer them ALLWAYS! Pricely they are some few cents above the others, but absolutely affordable. I am glad, the EU has banned these processed foods. Cheese in the US isnt actually Cheese. It's 'Cheese like' if you read the package. I want cheese, not chemicals which assumes to be cheese...

Thanks, Ashton! I am Canadian, spent 15 years in New York City, and am approaching four years living in sunny Valencia, Spain. When we lived in NYC, we enjoyed restaurants that catered to the European philosophy about eating - find the best, freshest ingredients based on the area and the time of year. One place we liked offered different specials based on what was fresh that day or season, and we always enjoyed that. Moving to Spain moved this philosophy to a whole new level! In our geographic area, we grow rice, tomatoes, peppers, olives, artichokes, onions, and many types of seafood. "Jamon" (ham) is everywhere in Spain, too. It's funny that you spent more time talking about tomatoes, but in my experience the foods that have the biggest difference in taste between North America and here are tomatoes, peppers (green and red - not spicy), and olives. One can even enjoy an artichoke beer here! Saffron and paprika are abundant here, too, which adds to many dishes. Hopefully, more areas in the U.S. and Canada can adopt the "zero-km meal" philosophy, even if it is done restaurant by restaurant. Take care!

German here: Watching this video while cutting up local potatoes and in season local broccoli. So yes, seasonal and regional is important to me while buying/cooking/eating food. It is a cost factor as well (seasonal is a lot cheaper) but definately taste too. I don`t buy winter crops in summer when they taste bitter and cost 3 times as much. I do buy a few tomatoes in winter (just cant resist) but pure tomato + mozarella salads are a weekly thing in summer. :) I think we`re lucky in Europe that areas with totally different growing zones are quite close too. E.g. citrus from Southern Europe are just 300-500km away. Same with Olive oil (or french cheese if I would be so inclined.).

Here in Italy smaller tomatoes are often preferred to larger ones. They pack the most flavour most of the times!

When I was 16 years old in the early 80s, visiting the US for the first time, my host parents ordered a whole bucket of chicken wings from KFC. We dined at 'all you can eat' restaurants and paid only 5 dollars for it. For me as a young German it was fascinating and repulsive at the same time.

Ashton, fantastic video! Two observations on American food: 1) American cuisine is normally (much) sweeter. Sugar and / or Corn Syrup makes my brain liking the food. 2) Soo many recipes in the US start from a processed product ("take 1 cup of Ranch Dressing", "crush 5 Oreos", "add 1 package of Pillsbury cookie dough", etc.). When I grew up it was all about 1 cup of sugar, 3 tbsp of cocoa, etc. Oe final comment though - I seldom walk away hungry from an American dinner table 🙂.

We moved from California to Massachusetts a couple of years ago and the first thing the struck us was how much better the produce tasted here. While CA is a huge food producer, there are many more small family farms here and seasonal produce is more defined, like the asparagus season is just a few weeks in the spring and we see the sweet corn as it grows by the side of the road and when it's ready everyone eats it. Thanks for your posting.

Regarding fruit / veggies a year around... in Croatia we have that but! You usually buy stuff when in season. As I remember per season: WINTER - nothing obviously, as a kid I remember mostly eating pickled stuff SPRING - kale, and similar greeneries, with apricots, cherries and strawberries coming to full season by the end, best stuff, cheap as well (usually free as a kid from some public orchard in the city I lived in). Still remember the diarrheas I got eating warm cherries directly off a tree in late spring and drinking water afterwards. And strawberries in full season cost like 2E / kilo... and are sold at every street corner. And just to mention wild asparagus season, those are expensive even then but there is like 3 week window those are available and thats it. No more wild ones that year. SUMMER - watermelons and tangerines plus figs and tomatos are in full season, best to eat those then (you dont even have tangerines / watermelons except for wierd imported ones out of season), watermelons in high summer are priced at 30c / kilo. Meaning you can grab a beast of 10 kilo for like 3E. Tangerines come late summer and cost something 1E / kilo when in top season. AUTUMN - you name it, but mostly we crave good grapes, apples and pears which are fresh off the trees as that point and definitely best to eat To make myself clear - these are things I personally crave when I see coming into season. Because its local and infinitely better then crap imported from 10000 km away. You can buy something resembling those products around the year but its not it.

I am italian and my uncle grows crop to feed bulls and get great meat. It is a small business with 200ish animals and he sells them as certified, high quality meat bread and fed locally. Also, I have a small garden where I grow tomatoes and I can confirm that they taste better than the ones I buy at the supermarket. with 12 plants I feed my family tomatoes all summer and autumn long. I also grow hot peppers, green beans, salad, onions, fennel and radicchio depending on the season. Next to me lives an old couple in retirement and he has the passion for gardening and he grows a lot of stuff which he then gives us and others for free. Obviously we (us and the other people he gives vegetables and fruits to) are happy to help when we can when they have problems.

As a child, I looked forward to my way to school every morning, because it led me directly past a small family bakery. The smell of freshly baked bread will stay in my nose forever. Something that you don't know at all in the USA, or can hardly experience. If there's one food I'll never do without, it's fresh German bread straight from the local bakery.

A local, highly seasonal thing I have a strong attachment to - a yeast pastry (drożdżówka) with fresh bilberries. NOT blueberries, BILBERRIES (or, European blueberries). There is a vast difference in taste, colour and aroma. You can get them in late summer, and then all the bakeries, at least in the south of Poland, have a sudden peak of baking folded pastries with bilberries and powdered sugar or crumble on top. Later in the year you can get ones made with jam or berry marmalade, not the same :< August is top time for them.

Having half of family from the USA and half from France, i can definitely say that when i go visit my american family, everything seems to taste sweeter. Traditional meals, fast-food or takeaway all seem to be have this sugar taste. Maybe because of sauces or idk what but it's as if everything had flavor enhancers and mostly thanks to sugar.

Having moved to northern Europe after living in California most of my life, I have mixed feelings. For access to fresh produce from farmers markets and even direct weekly home deliveries from farms, California was an embarrassment of riches. So many people don't realize what an agricultural powerhouse California is (even most folks living in there don't know). But in terms of what I can buy in a grocery market, restaurant, and all sorts of specialty markets... it's no contest. The quality is just so much better here where I live in Europe.

You are spot on!! This is why europeans strongly dislike to huge amount of sauces which is put on the salad and other food in the US. When the produce itself is good and has nice flavor, you really don't need more than just a lit bit of oil, herbs and/or spices.

A very balanced, well-researched piece. Whilst there seem to be major differences between the approach to food between Europe and the US, there are many differences between different parts of Europe and even within countries. I lived for some time in the Ardèche mountains in France. The vast majority of the food we ate was local, either from small suppliers, direct from the producer or small supermarkets which carried local produce. In the village (approximately 200 inhabitants) there was a bakery (subsidised by the state) and a small boucherie/charcuterie, which also functioned as a café/restaurant. The quality of the food was exceptional. It was fresh, full of taste and affordable. The butcher would go to the local livestock farmer, select the animals and slaughter them (apologies to those who don't eat meat). Animals that had been reared in the open air and on grass. There was an abundance of vegetables and a great many people had their own vegetable gardens. French people (in general), have maintained their deep ancestral and cultural links with the countryside and treat food with a passion, one reason being that, compared to somewhere like the UK, the move to vast urban industrialised urban areas occurred much later than elsewhere. The early industrial revolution in the UK saw the growth of the urban poor and, especially in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, food quality was questionable in terms of methods of production and nutrition. It is encouraging that this has changed, more especially in the last 40 years and is, I believe, a result of effective regulation and of the UK adopting many of the attitudes of its European neighbours. Of course, with the disaster that is Brexit, standards are now at risk and there is a worrying rise in food poverty and malnutrition and we are seeing the return of diseases such as rickets and scurvy amongst certain sections of the populace who have to rely on cheap, highly processed, foods. Food production and supply is intimately linked to the health and well-being of the people: it ain't just a business!

I agree to what you observed in europe. Especially things like quality and regional specialties are very important. But in the recent decades the awareness, for example handcrafted cheese or bread, decreased. Most of all, the younger generation ist related to industrial processed food and very often they don't like the very special and somtimes various tastes of handmade products. Because that I'm afraid, we will loose this kind of foodculture. So I'm glad, you're pointing out this topic! Good job 👍

Thanks Good, the French and Italians were founding members of the EU, and have resisted fiercely against neoliberal savage and ignorant market policies. So much for the USA.

Food desert seem like a dreadful concept. But it has to also mean lack of public transportation and lack of bike and walking lanes. Since less that 2 km to closest shop is nothing in a buss or a bike. Love from Finland.

Thanks for yet another thoughtful and researched piece. I really do appreciate that it is not just another "opinion piece" but is considers the detail and gives us facts. There is a UKposts diet problem. Too many videos are light in facts and instead are full of viewpoints. Your videos are much healthier.

Nice vlog! I agree with everything you said. I am Italian and have visited and eaten in almost every European country, from Sweden to Greece. I also lived in California for four years, so I can compare cultures and cuisines. The tomatoes I grow in my small garden, in addition to being plentiful - we give them to family and friends in large quantities - taste much better than those bought in local stores. The same concept applies to eggs from chickens free to eat worms, insects, and other free-range foods. The yolk's red color and flavor are much more intense and make you want never to buy eggs in stores again.

The first time going to Italy can be so eye opening. They don’t do anything too differently, but their ingredients are all highly local and of the highest quality. The range in taste you can get out of a few slices of tomato, mozzarella, basil and a bit of olive oil is incredible, even if you don’t change the „cooking“ process at all. My feeling is America likes to experiment with the cooking, while Europe likes to experiment with the ingredients

Thank you Ashton for another video about cliché versus statistics. Some counterintuitive things (I’ve heard somewhere in tv reports and can’t give you the source of): Tomatoes. Germans are among the most picky tomato consumers in Europe. They have to look perfect and Germans are prepared to pay high prices for tasty premium tomatoes. The Holland-Tomate, tomatoes produced in green houses in the Netherlands, had gotten a terrible reputation a few decades ago: tasteless, hard and watery. Instead consumers were looking for tomatoes from Italy and Spain. The Dutch producers reacted to this. Researchers found that the taste did not depend so much on growing conditions, greenhouse vs open field, as to the tomato variety. There is also a trade off between hard texture, good for durability, and flavor. The softer the tissue the more easily the aromatic compounds can reach from your mouth to your nose. Dutch producers then did prioritize flavor in tomatoes varieties. Nowadays the situation is almost flipped. Spanish produce has a bad reputation for using durable but tasteless varieties. The growing conditions in Spain are famous for pesticides and a sea of plastic tunnels that get carried away by the wind and pollute the environment. The workers are often exploited immigrants with unsafe legal status that amounts to modern slavery. Strawberries: The first strawberries of the season come from Spain. They look great but are usually hard and tasteless. That’s why we don’t buy Spanish strawberries but wait a little longer for regional ones. Then again you can get snobbish here in Freiburg and debate if the strawberries from the big producers like Wassmer are any good…

I’m currently watching this in the U.S. while eating a hot dog and french fries. 😮 I think you’re spot on that Europeans care more about the taste and quality of the food they’re consuming. I’ve had some of the most incredible meals at the humblest of roadside cafes in rural France where you could tell the proprietors really cared about the food they were serving their patrons. Hard to find a bad meal in Spain or Italy as well. I’m lucky enough to live in a region of the U.S. where fresh produce is grown locally and there are tons of farmers markets and small specialty stores where you can buy the highest quality ingredients. But I really don’t have the time or energy to go shopping at three or four stores at a time so I end up at the local mega mart buying bland mushy tomatoes and overly sweet highly processed orange juice. But with even just a little effort I could go to Trader Joe’s (shout out to Aldi’s Nord) and get fresh squeezed orange juice in a bottle and heirloom tomatoes. So it’s not that quality food is not available, I’m just a little too busy and can’t be bothered to go seek it out.

You did a fantastic job on this video, Ashton. One of my horticulture professors said back around 1984, "Europeans buy fruit with their tongues, Americans buy with their eyes."

we of course also have incredibly tasteless strawberries for example available in the supermarkets here in germany, but having some Strawberry plants in the garden, I also know what they can taste like, it is a world of difference. but yeah in season you can also get the good tasting strawberries in the supermarkets

I often hear Americans or Asians say that European and especially German food tastes "bland". But overuse of (hot) spices and MSG doesn't make it better, it just makes everything taste similar. I like our "bland" cuisines where the ingredients can show their genuine taste.

I was expecting a basic funny clickbait video but I thank you sincerely for your work. This video is a top quality educational piece of work. As a french person who has never stepped a foot in the US, I cannot judge the US. But I've been in several European countries (UK, Germany, Ireland, Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Greece,... - I probably forget some places I visited ) well in Europe from what I've seen : food is important everywhere. it's not just "gasoline/energy" for the body. The family eating around a table, talking about your day and sharing a meal is a good moment and memories for the future. We also like fast food restaurants sometimes but in my opinion, it's when we have to eat quickly before an appointment or for some reason. Not every day at all. The best meal we Europeans, enjoy is home cooked because luckily it's cheaper and tastes better than fast food restaurants.

In our repeated trips to Ireland, we always notice their food is awesome, and usually for one obvious reason. They do smaller portions but better quality, more farm/boat to fork.

Thank you for your deep diving and always very well researched videos on the United States and Europe. When it comes to my country Germany, unfortunately I see the same development as you describe it for the U. S. When I was a university student 40 years ago, alone in my tiny street there were three independent baker shops. They all had their own workshops and ovens and they all made the bread every day fresh from the dough. It was not always perfect. They only had six or seven types of rolls and five types of bread and some cake. The husband was working in the workshop in the basement and the wife was selling the items above. In the afternoon, most items were sold out and when the wife was in the hospital (no bad news, a very merry event) the husband had to run the business alone and he was really struggling counting the coins and wrapping the cake. But it was authentic. Now all these individual bakers and butchers have vanished and are replaced by chain stores which have a central factory and in the shops they do only selling.

I'm Italian, from Emilia-Romagna, a region in which "food" is a Religion. Or at least it was... Understand me, it still is, but people isn't "practicing" it as much as we used to. Yet, we still value a LOT all the things you say in your video, and taste and flavour are above everything else. Now, this leads me to a point that I find sad. I wrote that people doesn't "practice" the food religion as much as in the past. This, I believe, has to do with the fact that, as we use to say, "quality has a price", and people 1) doesn't have the money to really go after high quality stuff, and 2) doesn't have the TIME either, so that 3) we're losing the CULTURE of quality. I know people who can't tell a buffalo mozzarella from a fiordilatte or a normal one... 🤦🏼‍♂ Yet, the "food religion" still exists and holds ground. But without being EXPOSED to quality food, without knowing how to TELL "good" from "average" from "mediocre" from "bad", one doesn't develop either the taste for it or the "skills" required to UNDERSTAND it, and gets a habit for not-so-good food (or anything else, for that matter). The cuisine of my region requires "slow food" mentality, which is not to just "eating slowly", but also "COOKING slowly", many times... Or "PREPARING slowly". An example... You can cook "tortellini in brodo" in 2 minutes. But to prepare the broth in which you cook them takes hours, and to make the "tortellini" themselves may take a whole day. People doesn't have that amount of time anymore. I prepare vegetable soups that take 2 to 3 hours to be made. I prepare meat stews that MUST cook slowly for at least three hours. I still remember my mother preparing "stracotto" that would cooking as slowly as it gets for 6-7 hours. I myself kinda master the "porceddu", a little pig who, traditionally, should have eaten only milk in its life, which traditionally is cooked at the heat of embers "at a distance where you can still keep a hand, but not easily"... Which means you start cooking at 7:30 AM to eat the meat at dinner. These foods are slowly fading away... And it's awfully sad.

I work for a large food distribution company that supplies the catering industry in the UK and the Designated Origin rules can be quite interesting. We used to have own brand Cornish Pasties sourced from a local supplier in Yorkshire, but when the Cornish Pasty was given protected status we had to rename ours to simply D Shaped Pasties. It's the same product, made in the same way it just isn't made in Cornwall. We do also supply several different brands of Cornish Pasties made in Cornwall as well as having our own brand of Cornish Pasties made by one of the big suppliers too, the Yorkshire made D Shaped Pasties we still supply and they are cheaper than the genuine article. Regarding food deserts they do still exist in the UK, mainly in very rural areas though. The village I live in is semi rural, but is still only 11 miles from the nearest small city and 18 miles from a major city. I am lucky in that within two miles I have three small supermarkets and within 4 miles is a medium sized Tesco too. There are also several small local stores all within a five or ten minute walk, all of which have a decent if small range of fresh produce. Public transport is a big issue in the US too, for me all of these supermarkets as well as the nearest cities are also easily reachable by frequent regular bus services and train services too. I think that makes a huge difference to people in the UK who don't drive.

Freshness is so inportant for the tast. I was in south america and tasted papayas there. It was like eating a something different. So try to get your stuff regional and seasonal :)

I really like your videos. The amount of research, you spent, do create your videos, is impressing me. What I do miss, is the kind of videos, you made in the past. This videos, where you showed me (German potato) the best places in Germany / Europe. For example, you made me going to Ravennaschlucht. Such an incredible, magical Christmas market. I would have never found without your advice. Is there a chance, to get from time to time this kind of an video. I would appreciate that. If not, I still will follow your videos. 👍

Thanks for another well researched and produced video, Ashton! Since 1974, I have been trying to offer healthy, ecologically grown food to my family in Europe. Until about the 90s, I was one of the odd folks who was constantly on the look-out for "bio" products and very short supply chains (e.g. eggs from the local chickens and flour from the mill, in which yard the chickens picked). Then - seemingly parallel to the wider development of industrial farming also in Europe - the "bio-movement" gained traction. I now live about 400 meters from the outlet of our local organic truck-garden that has its own store (not a supermarket) and supplies a stand that appears on farmers' markets across our county. You can also buy organic everything from most of the supermarkets in our town, and most people could even afford to do so, if that is what they want. I think what it boils down to is keeping the food supply close to the earth and as free as possible from laboratories and long-distance shipping. Yes, we do invest somewhat more of our money in what comes onto the table and therefore cannot fly to Timbuktu regularly, but we think our choices are worth a bit more cost and are better for the land, water and air - and they also taste a heck of a lot better.

Thanks for your respectful perspective on our food. As an Italian, I couldn't say in a better way our relationship with food and tradition. A big hug!🤗

My go-to example for seasonal food is strawberries. In May/June, when they're coming fresh from the field we'll buy some almost daily. But once strawberry season is over and all you can get are the ones imported from spain we simply don't eat them anymore. Sometimes, when we're visiting my mother she'll have some of those and we'll eat them but they taste so bland in comparison.

The first thing that I noticed when coming to live in Germany 6 years ago was that everything has less sugar than in my country (Chile). Now I find it normal. I was probably intoxicated with the amount of sugar I used to eat without realizing it

Excellent vid. So well documented and relatable. Thanks.

I so appreciated this video! After trips to Scotland and Europe in the last couple of years, my entire family agrees the quality in European food surpasses what we have in the US. The thing that stands out in my mind may sound silly but the apples I ate in Scotland were the most juicy and flavorful I’ve ever had! I ate an apple every day from the local supermarket and couldn’t get enough. Also, my non celiac gluten allergy didn’t seem to be a problem there. I could eat anything and feel fine so coming home was very difficult since eating out in America is so hard with gluten sensitivity. I do know that in the UK, much of their food is grown locally and much less is imported so I attribute that, at least in part, to the better tasting food. In Germany, Austria and Italy, we had similar experiences with food quality. We have family in Europe and food quality is a serious contributor to our plans to try and move there! It’s something we highly value. I appreciate your insights into this important topic!

thank you Ashton! Intelligent, smartl and thorough thinking thru and presentation of issues that are of interest for people with 2 passports (I-m Argentinian-German) or travelers! Keep it going! Good job

Gday Ashton, thank you for another great video . Love your work! I love to eat fresh , home grown produce. It just tastes better and I’m sure more nutritious as well. Food bought at the Supermarket definitely is changing in flavour from when I was a young person, even here in Australia. The food here is still top quality, don’t get me wrong, but I’m noticing the flavour is being lost gradually. When I was young we had our own fruit trees, lemons, apples, plums, apricots, figs, rhubarb and home grown veggies. They had so much flavour. Anything we couldn’t grow we would buy mostly from outdoor markets. These days with the convenience of big supermarkets, mass production, freezing of foods between seasons, well it’s just not the same. Farmers markets are popping up more regularly and are a popular choice as people look for more home grown organic produce. All the additives, chemicals, and modifiers that are used to make food appear bigger, better and more perfect just makes me cringe. I found food quality in Europe was alright while holidaying but it was good to come back to the quality and price of food in Aus. 🤩

A big part of that is what you mentioned in passing. We have locals who are passionate about "their" product. That keeps the quality alive. People will keep growing good tomatoes and make good cheese, untill they die, even if the world around them switches to eating capsules. Others mentioned the plastic, water filled dutch tomatoes, we had in the past. Or more recently spanish veggies grown on landfills. There was a market for those, but they never pushed the good stuff out of the market. So, when the general public got fed up with the bad veggies, they could find better quality ones, still. In the US, quite often when the market pushes something out, it stays out. (local exceptions do apply, but generally, I think that is true.) When all supermarkets were selling dutch plastic tomatoes here in Germany, you could still go to a local kurdish, russian, polish, turkish or persian shop and buy the good stuff, or go to the bi-weekly farmer's market. It helps that the EU stance on additives is: guilty untill proven otherwise. While the US stace is: proven beyond a reasonable doubt, that it kills enough people, or we allow it.

I lived in Germany for 3 years and fell in love their foods and culture. About a year ago, I started ordering food from Germany and Britain, and some from France and Scotland. It's not expensive as one would think. And it's soooo good. And we've started shopping at some of the Ukrainian stores that have opened here. They have a lot of imported foods from Europe that are really good too.

Again German here, I grw up picking strawbberries myslf in the fields because it is custom for strawberry farmers to set up signs in the picking season for selfpicking. You just go thre, pick the amount you want and pay for it at a cheaper price than at the supermarket. We did that every straberry season. Picking your food yourself is xost efficient and you have very fresh food, you also do not need to store it m just go and pick moree when you need it. They are fresh on the plants. Also, many of us have gardens and ultivate our own fruits and vegetables. Thus we exchange fresh fruits from our gardens with neighbours and value the flavours and varieties of flavours. Anothr season is grünkohl season. We even go on grünkohl tours ie excursions together just to eat this cabbage variety. In autumn we all harvest fruits and make cakes and jam and concentrated juice. Expecially with holunderbeeren we use this concentrated juice for vitamins throughout the winter. By early summer the last bottle was finished, one glass every day to keep us healthy.

2.2 percent of the United States is about 7.3 million people. Despite the minor error, this is a fantastic video on a very important topic.

Thank you for your presentation .Here in the USA, I am a home baker, grind my own wheat, and use sourdough. I have heard that Europeans worship bread and have local bakeries. Please, tell me more. 🌻

Thanks, Ashton, for yet another eye-opener on differences between the Old an the New World. European (or Chinese or Indian or any other Asian) cuisine is regional, developed in a certain area and according to the particular climate and agricultural conditions found there. Hence both the diversity and adherence to seasonal changes. I personally experienced only two such cuisines in the US: southwestern US-Mexican food (often confusingly called Tex-Mex) in NM and AZ, basically places that became US after 1846, and Cajun cooking in LA, the names of these dishes being known through the 'shrimp-litany' in Forrest Gump or the song 'Oh Jambalaya, catfish pie, fillet Gumbo'. There may be or perhaps have been (cf. Moby-Dick, ch. 15 'Chowder') more regional variations (I sometimes to ask Americans if they know Kohlrabi; if they do, they're either from the Midwest or certain places in TX). Americans move a lot. They tend not to stay in particular places. (That urge to go where things are or at least seem to be brought them to the New World in the first place, didn't it?) Now, if you don't find your favourite ingredient for your most beloved dish at your new place, what do you do - go experimenting with some possible replacement at the risk of loosing your pot or stick to some other things that you recognise and that would do just as well? Ashton, 40 to 30 years ago, you would have found even the very good German cuisine in Badenia rather dull after the fifth 'always the same' round-the-year circle. It is due to the migration and mingling for all the peoples of Europe and adjacent areas like Turkey, who all brought their cooking traditions with them, that today we have that enormous variety in choice of tastes. It is one of the outstanding achievements of the European Union to guarantee via universally applicable regulations for food in all shapes and sizes that everybody can get all of their particular food stuff in a safe way everywhere in the EU (not any more in the UK, of course). 09 June 2024 is the date of the next elections to the European Parliament in Germany. Go vote!

I liked the way you qualified generalizations about food quality at the beginning. You're right about produce in the US becoming more bland over time due to the breeding of new strains that enhance shelf life. The sweet corn and strawberries I ate as a child are very different from what you can find here today, even at farmer's markets. Overall, the opinions you expressed in this video were spot on.

I wonder if there is anything like a „Schrebergarten“ culture in the US. Growing your own food in a Schrebergarten has a long tradition in Germany.

Hi Ashton, excellent video. Last year I grew chilli peppers. My garden is north facing, so not ideal. But I have a large front room, south facing, big windows. You have inspired me, so this year I’m going to grow tomatoes (to-maah-toes!) 😊 I’m in the UK

When I was growing up in Canada, the food was locally grown and totally unsubsidized. Then in the 1990s because of "free trade," the Canadian government began to pay farmers to compete with U.S. producers by growing similar products. Now the food is the same low quality as the U.S. and like the U.S. is 20% subsidized. I buy my meat from a butcher, never buy farmed fish, and buy fruit and vegetables from a green grocer.

In poland one often sees seasonal fruit/veg stalls po up just outside supermarkets (and some other odd places many ppl walk by), from the begginning of strawberry season up till late summer/early autumn. I get the feeling they're closer to a small local greengrocers than farmers market stalls , but they are a very convenient way to buy fresher and more perishable products than the ones usually available in supermarkets

I lived in NC for quite a while and wanted to cook for my family. Fresh ingredients like peppers, tomatoes, etc were really expensive. I was planning on making a tomato, carrot, herb soup, followed by homemade pasta with homemade meatballs. The ground beef, even though I picked a more expensive one, had small punctures in a pattern all over the surface. I later found out why: Water was leaking out. My brother-in-law then showed me on how it is legal to inject water into meat since it's considered a natural ingredient. The beef had an unnatural red color and when opened it, it didn't even turn a little brown when oxydizing. The Tiramisu I made was close to what it would taste in Europe. I just couldn't find biscuit sticks. In Europe they are already sweat with the sugar coating but they even put more sugar into the biscuit sticks (the dough) itself. It was soooo sweat. I noticed it beforehand and used a darker coffee and no Amaretto. Instead I used a Grappa to avoid making it somehow sweater. I really had to adept over the next couple of months and even though the stores were huge, I had trouble finding affordable fresh ingredients. How can fresh oranges in NC cost more than in northern Europe? The frustration often took over and we went to a Sonics, Chilli's, Panera Bread, or Bojangles. Almost forgot Cr. Barrel. We went straight into the fast food loop. I wouldn't even consider the latter restaurants. They were food chains with no individual feeling. On the other hand: To our trip to the ocean and later on our trips to the Smokys we found some places run by locals. I tried to talk to them about running a restaurant and they said it's difficult but once established customers come by, it keeps running. The owners were interested in where I come from and we talked about food they were pretty hesitant when I asked them where I could get good meat so I can cook BBQ and dinner. Somehow almost all of them didn't mention fresh ingredients. A couple knew a butcher but they said it's expensive and only special customers taste the difference between meat from the butcher and the one from the supermarket. When I asked if I was a special customer who got meat from the butcher, they smiled and said of course. I wasn't sure since it didn't stood out and was chewy. The said if I come back, I'll be a special customer for sure. Sadly we didn't went back. Would love to have tried the different meat. It was a great experience living there but I'm glad I'm back in Europe. Back with affordable food without having and ingredients list for "cheese".

When I make salad, I use just (sometimes) salt, balsamic vinegar and pumpkinseed oil and sometimes olive oil ... and some herbs. For potato salad I use also red onions. Potato salad with pumkin oil doesn`t look great maybe ... but the taste is delightful 😃. Greetings from Austria.

I'm American but bought an apartment in Spain for a few years and will attest that the fresh fruits and veggies in Spain were far superior to what is common in American grocery stores in taste and I believe also the health benefits. You can find some healthier options in the USA but you have to go to stores that have better and higher priced vegetables. Most American restaurants have terrible food and I avoid them for the most part.

Ashton - just fantastic stuff. You have taken your channel to a whole new level and I'm liking it even more as a result. Please keep it coming. You are doing a great job x

I've never been to the US but I agree on the highly seasonal approach to food we have here. I visited Taiwan a while back and there they make fun about Europe when it comes to fresh food and taste. There I experienced in some places an even higher appreciation for quality fresh and seasonal food. What's maybe a particularly odd thing here in Switzerland (or at least in Berne, where I live) is that all kids learn how to cook in school (7./8. grade) and they learn about seasonality and nutritional value systematically. When I was a kid, this was always fun and we prepared also quite sophisticated dishes where you had to know your skills. We learnt how you can turn simple and inexpensive ingredients into a great meal, just with skill and a bit of effort. If you put effort into cooking yourself, you also tend to not waste anything, as it took a bit of labor and time to prepare.

Roquefort tends to be a bit expensive (depends where you live),. And there are other very good blue cheeses without getting precious about provenance. But boy is it outrageously good. Some of that, good bread, olive oil and a glass of wine; your body and soul are fed.

The thing that really stuck out for me when visiting France years ago was how fresh everything tasted. More regulations in the EU regarding preservatives i believe was the cited cause... even bottled sodas were tastier, although they did stale faster after opening.

I've been to the US only a couple of times, both for work and as a tourist. Accordingly my insight may be superficial. But my impression was, that the average quality of food (i.e. what is available in your average super market around the corner) is even worse than in the Scandinavian countries or parts of Eastern Europe. But as the mention of Scandinavia or Eastern Europe suggests: There are also considerable differences within Europe. In the immediate vicinity of our holiday home in Spain there are at least four rather small supermarkets that offer fresh fish. Two of them even regularly offer fresh oysters (which I like to eat) for little money (while the cost for food in Spain in general is higher than in Germany). Here in Germany I have to drive something like 15 km to get to the next fish counter. And this is only b/c we are living in Berlin, it's much worse in other parts of Germany. In summary: There are big differences in the food culture in Europe, which are reflected in what is available to the average person in the supermarket around the corner. France and Italy are probably at the top. But countries like Spain, Portugal or Greece also provide the masses with access to enjoyable and healthy food. Luckily, our home country Germany has adapted a lot of food culture from the Mediterranean and Asia. But we are still years behind. In my opinion, the USA is even decades behind in this regard, which further negatively affects the quality of life in the USA, along with other things such as the appalling crime rate and widespread drug abuse.

consider the Slow Food Movement here in Europe. they sum up what good and high quality food in the European tradition is all about.

ALmost 50 years ago, as a newly arrived Ami in Switzerland, I took my new wife to California to show off the US. We stopped in the Central Valley and I was raving about the terrific fruit. I'd been living a couple of years in Switzerland, so had forgotten exactly what California fruit was all about. time and time again, we bought great looking fruit in California, be it from a roadside stand or a supermarket, and were disappoint, that they were huge, beautiful and ... tasteless. Then we had my mother's cooking. Sorry, but you can't really have great cooked food if the ingrediants are relatively tasteless.

Hi Ashton, reagarding tomatoes you are absolutly right. In Germany prices must be low. Most tomatoes come from the Netherlands. We often complain about the dutch tomatoes (just water, no flavor). On this questions the dutch answer "you can get flavorful tomatoes but for a higher price." And due to high taxes and the fact the we prefer expencive cars instead of high quality food (nevertheless our food is substantialy better than american food), grocery companies buy watery dutch tomatoes.

I recently retired from my job as a surveyor for the Commerce Department and I often did the yearly survey known as the Food Supplement that revealed the statistic you cited showing how many Americans run out of food at least once a year. Though I am unhappy that this number is so high, I am pleased and proud to have worked for so long to help get the numbers out that shed light on the truth.

I lived in the US for 3,5 years. I did my bachelor studies there. I went there with the dream of living permanently on that country but many factors led me to decide to move back to Europe. One of them was definitely the access to quality flavourful products. We eat 3-5 times per day so of course it is not a small part of our lives that we can simply ignore. It is easy to not realise this if you grew up there but coming from Greece, it was an extremely hard transition.

when I was in Florida, I think I saw the most aesthetically beautiful fruit... and the worst in terms of taste. If you tasted an apricot or plum blindfolded, you always received the same taste: sugar water... Greetings from Italy, one of the european countries with a very high quality of food.

I visited the US a long time ago and the hardest thing for me was getting used to the food. I remember flying there, they served us food on the plane, and the vegetables were sweet as cake and the brownies were like a sugar bomb, I was so hungry I had to swallow it like pills, and I remember thinking I´m going to starve there if all the food is this bad! Partly it is because I am not used to such food, but also the groceries were either tasteless or too expensive and difficult to find if you wanted good quality. Milk, unsalty cheese, coffee, tomatoes and overly processed food were a particular problem for me. Long story short, I lived on salads and broccoli soup, which was great for losing weight.

I am Italian. I lived most the time in Ravenna, north Italy, a place with wonderful food. Bad at 10 years ago i moved to Brindisi, Puglia. Each year I fond something new that I didn't know existed. I ciliege ferrovia, Mele fragola, Cachi vaniglia. And I didn't know that fresh zucchine can be sweet.