Why are US meal portions so big??

BeachGingerOnTheRocks

Aussies are the funnest people in the world.

Cannot disagree.

BeachIron

Aussies are the funnest people in the world.

I sure have had the pleasure of my share of incredibly fun Australian friends.

I tried to get a job there not so long ago, just to really explore it the way I wanted to, but unfortunately, the economy had already turned by then. Maybe some day . . .

whierd

I knew an Aussie once. I wonder whqt happened to her.

rml_16

So, in terms of distance, an American can still have traveled further than a European who has never left Europe.

In terms of cost - it's prohibitively expensive for the average American to be a prodigious international traveler. It's not like they can just jump on a train and cross 5 international borders in the space of day. It takes me longer than that just to drive to the coast.

I simply can't afford to travel. I have been a single mom since I was 17 and now I have a child in college. Why would I spend $150 on a passport that's going to expire until I can actually use it???

My life's goal is to be in a place where I can live outside of the US for a while and really experience other cultures. In the meantime, I read a lot and drill my expat friends about where they came from. Before passports were necessary, I spent a lot of time in Canada and my parents paid for a cruise to the Bahamas as a college graduation gift.

When I can afford Europe, I will go. And I won't complain about how it's different from the US, because that's the whole point. Why travel if you just want things like they are at home?

The anti-America/Americans bashing makes me very angry. It's not true overall. It's usually based on biases from TV or movies or a small snapshot from a quick trip over here.

People all over the world want Americans to be respectful of their cultures (and we should) but they feel free to bash ours.

jetlag

One thing that I've learned after living in the UK for 27 of my 44 years is that the Brits (as a massive generalization; i dont mean every single person and you know that so unbunch your panties) love to slam everyone. As an American who's lived here for 23 years, it means being pissed off a lot, but you learn not to take it personally, simply because most Brits I meet, who have ever been there, really do enjoy America and Americans. The problem is the image of America we (Brits) get is filtered through lots of people in boardrooms and tailored very carefully to make us (Americans) look stupid to the non US population at large.

Personally, I blame Fox News for making the whole country look bad, because some of the idiocy coming out of that feed is just mind boggling, but then, we only see what British telly moguls think will entertain us, and that, I'm afraid, is whatever will make Brits feel superiour to everyone else.

I've lived here for so long I feel foreign in the US and even I find some things distasteful about American culture that are presented to us. It's too easy to generalize (as even I have done in this post about Brits).

And, quite frankly, the British are the last people who can comment on the behaviour of holidaymakers.

rml_16

One thing that I've learned after living in the UK for 27 of my 44 years is that the Brits Love to slam everyone. As an American who's lived here for 23 years, it means being pissed off a lot.

Personally, I blame Fox News for making the whole country look bad, because that's where most of the idiocacy comes from.

Um, FOX News has been around since the late 1990s/early 2000s. This anti-American attitude has been around a LOT longer than that.

CollieFit

Well for what it's worth the OP of the original thread never "bashed" anyone, merely pondered about her impression of enormous portion sizes when she travelled the US, and the subsequent food waste that this results in. A view which was echoed by plenty of others on the thread.

She was subsequently called a xenophobe and racist by people who were seemingly taking this observation terribly personal and seeing it as an onslaught of all things American.

septembergrrl

People all over the world want Americans to be respectful of their cultures (and we should) but they feel free to bash ours.

Word. I understand where they can get so sick of hearing about us they want to hate on us -- it's kind of like hating McDonalds or Britney Spears. The thing is, insulting America around Americans is kind of like insulting Britney Spears to her cousin. We might not like everything about it, and for the most part we didn't choose it, but it's still ours.

I once explained this to a European friend who found the Snowden thing soooooo funny. She shut up. (Possibly just to make me shut up, but whatever, it kept us friends.)

jetlag

Um, yes it has, particularly since WW2, when rich Americans flashed their chocolate and silk stockings at British girls while Britsih boys were dying in trenches in Europe.

When I moved here in the 80s, it was Ronald Reagan making us look stupid. Just google Ronald Reagan Spitting image puppet for an example. Then we had George Warmonger Bush and that moron Sarah Palin to make US expat lives a real hell, but the current load of brain dead poisonous bile is spilling out of Fox News. The fact that anyone defends that PoS just add fuel to the fire.

sobriquet84

One thing that I've learned after living in the UK for 27 of my 44 years is that the Brits Love to slam everyone. As an American who's lived here for 23 years, it means being pissed off a lot.

Personally, I blame Fox News for making the whole country look bad, because that's where most of the idiocacy comes from.

Um, FOX News has been around since the late 1990s/early 2000s. This anti-American attitude has been around a LOT longer than that.

plus, i really doubt that people in OTHER COUNTRIES are getting their news from Fox news.

blaming the anti-American attitude on Fox news (or any American media outlet for that matter) would be like blaming our love for American football on Sky Sports Network.

rml_16

Um, yes it has, particularly since WW2, when rich Americans flashed their chocolate and silk stockings at British girls while Britsih boys were dying in trenches in Europe.

When I moved here in the 80s, it was Ronald Reagan making us look stupid. Just google Ronald Reagan Spitting image puppet for an example. Then we had George Warmonger Bush and that moron Sarah Palin to make US expat lives a real hell, but the current load of brain dead poisonous bile is spilling out of Fox News. The fact that anyone defends that PoS just add fuel to the fire.

So we know how you lan politically ...

Not biased at all, are you?

CollieFit

When I moved here in the 80s, it was Ronald Reagan making us look stupid. Just google Ronald Reagan Spitting image puppet for an example.

Spitting Image made EVERYONE look bad. That was the point of spitting image. I don't think Reagan came any worse off than Margaret Thatcher or John Major.

sobriquet84

nationalistic thread is nationalistic.

i know it's popular in Europe to take potshots at the USA whenever and wherever possible, but just because you ate one meal in one restaurant and got a dumb explanation from one friend, does not mean that such an assertion (as found in your thread title) is universally true.

go to an expensive foo-foo restaurant in NYC and you'll find much smaller (and more expensive portions).

go to a pub in rural England and you'll find large portion sizes.

there is no government agency in either country that enforces a mandatory minimum portion size for restaurants. every restaurant and chef is different and has different standards.

this should have been the end of the thread.

BeachIron

Um, yes it has, particularly since WW2, when rich Americans flashed their chocolate and silk stockings at British girls while Britsih boys were dying in trenches in Europe.

When I moved here in the 80s, it was Ronald Reagan making us look stupid. Just google Ronald Reagan Spitting image puppet for an example. Then we had George Warmonger Bush and that moron Sarah Palin to make US expat lives a real hell, but the current load of brain dead poisonous bile is spilling out of Fox News. The fact that anyone defends that PoS just add fuel to the fire.

My grandfather died working to liberate France, his father's home country, from the Nazis while flying out of the U.K.

I think that line of B.S. about American servicemen has been played long enough. Besides, it's not like the British have much room to talk on issues like this, particularly when it comes to colonization.

But that's an entirely different issue, and an entirely different way to fan the xenophobic flames.

ETA: These threads are always lightening rods for these types of xenophobic attitudes, and it's one of many reasons that I have continued to respond. The true colors of some have started to come out.

dbmata

Man, the original post was just dumb.

rml_16

Um, yes it has, particularly since WW2, when rich Americans flashed their chocolate and silk stockings at British girls while Britsih boys were dying in trenches in Europe.

When I moved here in the 80s, it was Ronald Reagan making us look stupid. Just google Ronald Reagan Spitting image puppet for an example. Then we had George Warmonger Bush and that moron Sarah Palin to make US expat lives a real hell, but the current load of brain dead poisonous bile is spilling out of Fox News. The fact that anyone defends that PoS just add fuel to the fire.

My grandfather died working to liberate France, his father's home country, from the Nazis while flying out of the U.K.

I think that line of B.S. about American servicemen has been played long enough. Besides, it's not like the British have much room to talk on issues like this, particularly when it comes to colonization.

But that's an entirely different issue, and an entirely different way to fan the xenophobic flames.

ETA: These threads are always lightening rods for these types of xenophobic attitudes, and it's one of many reasons that I have continued to respond. The true colors of some have started to come out.

I was unaware of the WWII reference. I assumed she was talking about before the US sent in troops. Though there were many Americans who chose to fight for the British before the US entered the war. I don't know, but maybe that should count for something?

And who cares what "rich Americans" were doing? What perecentage of the population does this even account for?

Both of my grandfathers fought in that war. Luckily, both came home. My father's father was on his way to Japan when they dropped the bombs. I probably would never have been born if that hadn't happened.

But, yes, let's use a 70-year-old horrible event to judge everyone.

RGv2

PS and even IF the ship had coped with 300 million Americans for aguments sake.... only 30% actually have passports....

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/02/04/americans.travel.domestically/index.html

You do understand this is mostly because we can travel freely from state to state without a passport, correct? You do understand that the square mileage of Europe is approx. the same as the US. So a person who drives across Europe needs a passport as they can easily drive across many countries. A person could leave one coast of the US driving to the other and arrive approx. the same time as someone who would drive across Europe. The difference would be, you'll need your passport a handful of times in Europe to travel the same distance.

BeachIron

Um, yes it has, particularly since WW2, when rich Americans flashed their chocolate and silk stockings at British girls while Britsih boys were dying in trenches in Europe.

When I moved here in the 80s, it was Ronald Reagan making us look stupid. Just google Ronald Reagan Spitting image puppet for an example. Then we had George Warmonger Bush and that moron Sarah Palin to make US expat lives a real hell, but the current load of brain dead poisonous bile is spilling out of Fox News. The fact that anyone defends that PoS just add fuel to the fire.

My grandfather died working to liberate France, his father's home country, from the Nazis while flying out of the U.K.

I think that line of B.S. about American servicemen has been played long enough. Besides, it's not like the British have much room to talk on issues like this, particularly when it comes to colonization.

But that's an entirely different issue, and an entirely different way to fan the xenophobic flames.

ETA: These threads are always lightening rods for these types of xenophobic attitudes, and it's one of many reasons that I have continued to respond. The true colors of some have started to come out.

I was unaware of the WWII reference. I assumed she was talking about before the US sent in troops. Though there were many Americans who chose to fight for the British before the US entered the war. I don't know, but maybe that should count for something?

And who cares what "rich Americans" were doing? What perecentage of the population does this even account for?

Both of my grandfathers fought in that war. Luckily, both came home. My father's father was on his way to Japan when they dropped the bombs. I probably would never have been born if that hadn't happened.

But, yes, let's use a 70-year-old horrible event to judge everyone.

Yep. People look for excuses to hate, and they will always find one.

RGv2

Um, yes it has, particularly since WW2, when rich Americans flashed their chocolate and silk stockings at British girls while Britsih boys were dying in trenches in Europe.

When I moved here in the 80s, it was Ronald Reagan making us look stupid. Just google Ronald Reagan Spitting image puppet for an example. Then we had George Warmonger Bush and that moron Sarah Palin to make US expat lives a real hell, but the current load of brain dead poisonous bile is spilling out of Fox News. The fact that anyone defends that PoS just add fuel to the fire.

My grandfather died working to liberate France, his father's home country, from the Nazis while flying out of the U.K.

I think that line of B.S. about American servicemen has been played long enough. Besides, it's not like the British have much room to talk on issues like this, particularly when it comes to colonization.

But that's an entirely different issue, and an entirely different way to fan the xenophobic flames.

ETA: These threads are always lightening rods for these types of xenophobic attitudes, and it's one of many reasons that I have continued to respond. The true colors of some have started to come out.

I was unaware of the WWII reference. I assumed she was talking about before the US sent in troops. Though there were many Americans who chose to fight for the British before the US entered the war. I don't know, but maybe that should count for something?

And who cares what "rich Americans" were doing? What perecentage of the population does this even account for?

Both of my grandfathers fought in that war. Luckily, both came home. My father's father was on his way to Japan when they dropped the bombs. I probably would never have been born if that hadn't happened.

But, yes, let's use a 70-year-old horrible event to judge everyone.

My great uncle liberated multiple concentration camps, and "took" Hitler's bunker in Bavaria, but ya.....he was actually just hanging out.

As a serviceman when I was in Germany, I found that the "older" generation was much nicer to us than the "younger" generation. I 100 out of 100 times would rather hit a hole in the wall bar over there than be on the strip.

dbmata

ETA: These threads are always lightening rods for these types of xenophobic attitudes, and it's one of many reasons that I have continued to respond. The true colors of some have started to come out.

Because you want to look xenophobic?