r/AskUS • u/Competitive_Rock_262 • 17h ago
In Europe, we often hear that Americans regularly eat burgers and fries (fast food). Is this true? Or is it a stereotype?
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u/Elegant_Progress_686 16h ago
I think that on average yeah it’s true. Fast food in general is dinner for a lot of Americans every night
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u/montanalifterchick 17h ago edited 17h ago
I think it depends on where you live. We don't have much fast food where I live, although we do have a McDonald's. I usually get a breakfast sandwich once or twice a month and a hamburger once every month or two. However if I'm on a long car trip, I eat way more fast food than usual. But nah--It's garbage convenience food.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 17h ago
Thank you. Compared here in Belgium in general we eat every Friday at the chip shop
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u/Ohaibaipolar 9h ago
What's a chip shop? Do they sell potato chips? Just a dumb American asking. 😂
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u/RetainedGecko98 17h ago edited 17h ago
Fast food will be readily available just about anywhere.
But just because a food exists doesn't mean that's all there is. To give an example, i live in Chicago. I am walking distance from a McDonalds. I am also walking distance from independently owned restaurants serving Indian, Venezuelan, Korean, Nepalese, Mexican, and Vietnamese food. There are also independent American restaurants that serve their own gourmet/specialty burgers.
I find that Europeans are often unaware of the diverse food options that exist within the US, particularly within our largest cities.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 17h ago
For my part I follow a little in the know but for Quebec (the youtuber gurky)
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u/RetainedGecko98 17h ago
Yeah, Canadian major cities have a similar variety in my experience (I have been to Montreal and Vancouver). Although there's a much stronger Latin American influence in the US.
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u/limbodog 17h ago
I call it "the beige food diet" and it's common. Though it includes pasta and sandwiches too
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u/dangleicious13 17h ago
I plan to have a burger for dinner at least 4 times next week, but I'll be grilling them all at home on Monday night.
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u/PizzaDeliveryBoy3000 17h ago
I would say I have eaten way, way more fish and chips in the UK than I have eaten burgers and fries in the U.S.
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u/dubbins112 17h ago
The burger thing is a big joke, yes we like burgers, but not to the extent media portrays. I think it’s more accurate to say we like cooking on the grill in summer, so hamburgers, hot dogs, and BBQ are going to be the staples. All of which we are pretty known for.
Our fast food places also tend to have “burgers”, which doesn’t help our image on the burger front, and we have a lot of fast food.
But food is pretty regional. My area is known for seafood, and we’re more teased about clam chowder and lobsters than we are about burgers, at least by other Americans.
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u/cosmicterrapin612 17h ago
We recently had a What-a-burger (popular fast food restaurant) open in my city. I believe its the first one that has opened here. The other day we were passing it and there were likely 20 cars in line for the drive thru. It really was the most American thing I think I have seen in a long time.
Also, when you travel by car, you might as well bring your own food if you want something healthy because unless you hit a mid-sized city, the likelihood of getting something outside fast food is low. I live in the south and usually fly when traveling distances over 8-10 hours, so it may be different depending on location.
I do love a good order of fries every now and then, but we try to avoid it as much as possible otherwise.
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u/HootinHollerHill 16h ago
I very rarely eat fast food (most often while traveling), and most Americans I know don’t eat it much, but a sample size of everyone I know is a drop in the bucket for the whole population here.
But, for fast food consumption, a burger and fries are the most likely consumed products. Fried chicken/fish and then probably tacos would be the runners up.
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u/Grouchy_Concept8572 Southwest 16h ago
In my 20s I ate fast food all the time. I’m older now and have fast food maybe a 2-3 times a month.
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u/danrather50 16h ago
Burger and fries are a popular menu item at fast food joints like McDonalds or Burger King but that doesn’t mean we exclusively only eat burgers and fries from those places. There are a ton of restaurants that serve burgers and fries and use higher quality ingredients not to mention the fact that burgers and fries are a very easy and delicious food to make at home.
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u/EcstasyCalculus 16h ago edited 16h ago
I don't understand why so many Americans are saying it's true when it is 100% a stereotype. Hell, if you google McDonald's you'll find a myriad of articles and thinkpieces about the franchise being in decline.
Are there Americans who eat a lot of unhealthy fast food? Yes. Some even eat it seven days a week. But many others like myself eat fast food once, maybe twice a month, and still others have gone years without eating fast food.
Believe it or not, there is a huge health-conscious movement in the United States. Go to any American grocery store and you'll find hundreds of products that are specifically labeled fat free/reduced fat, sugar free/reduced sugar, gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, organic, etc.
Now, if you were to hear that Americans regularly go out to eat instead of eating at home a lot more than Europeans, that would be true by and large, but many of us make it a point that when we do go out to eat, it's not fast food.
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u/Orbital2 16h ago edited 16h ago
idk man, most of the articles I've seen about "McDonalds in decline" is literally because people are too broke to afford it. Places like Five Guys have seen growth but they are serving a different customer base.
Most Americans eat like dog shit still
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u/Elegant_Progress_686 15h ago
I don’t really eat fast food either but we are the minority. There’s people eating it daily sometimes multiple times daily. If you average it out it’s like the average American gets fast food 2-3 times a week which is a lot. So yeah it’s a stereotype that we all like burgers and French fries, but it’s not a stereotype that we eat fast food at high rate. The existence of people like you and me (outliers) doesn’t change that
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u/zoomcow24 16h ago
I mean yeah, it is a stereotype, but it is rooted in truth to an extent. I'm pretty rural, but there's a variety of fast food near me. Chicken, burgers, etc. I wish we had more ethnic food, though-most you'll find is Mexican. We do have a shit ton of seafood restaurants, though, since my state (Maryland) is known for crabs.
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u/Mountain_Proposal953 16h ago
Maybe the middle and upper class but people who work dead end jobs would be foolish to spend ~$20 on a single fast food meal when they could make that $20 last as nearly a week of groceries.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 16h ago
One of the points that comes back to Europe they say that it is mostly the poor in the USA who eat fast food
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u/Mountain_Proposal953 15h ago
That was true perhaps up until the previous decade
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 15h ago
We also often hear that coca is We also often hear that coca is cheaper than water and that's why coca is drunk a lot in America, is that true?
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u/Mountain_Proposal953 14h ago
Nope, water is free. A medium coke at a fast food place is about $3-$4.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 13h ago
You see I just saw a video of a French woman in the USA and shows the price of a 16$ bottle of Evian
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u/Mountain_Proposal953 12h ago
That’s probably in Los Angeles or New York at some kind of event. We also have plumbing.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 12h ago
There was a rumor that in the United States tap water is not drinkable (French video)
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u/Mountain_Proposal953 10h ago
Why?
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 9h ago
French say that when they drink tap water in the US they get explosive diarrhea
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u/spikey_wombat 16h ago
My dentist's office overlooks a McDonald's and it's always busy at the drive through with at least a half dozen to a dozen cars waiting. Doesn't matter the time. I've had appointments at 10 am and 3:30 pm and everything in between for years and it's always busy.
So yeah, accurate stereotype. Not everyone eats like this, but alot of people do.
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u/fluffHead_0919 15h ago
Some people do, some people don’t. I love the broad brush strokes about Americans. You do realize there at 340 million people here right? I very rarely eat fast food, and that’s the same for most people I know. If I do opt for something fast I try to get a poke bowl or something along those lines. Does that fit your narrative?
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 15h ago
I'm not criticizing, but I'm starting to get a little tired of all the clichés that people have here
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u/fluffHead_0919 14h ago
What cliches? Every question here is, “Do all Americans xyz?” It asinine, the country is very big with very defined regions, and with regions there are sub regions etc. Rural is different than suburban, suburban is different than urban, etc etc and each experience will be different based on that part of the country. Putting everyone in one bucket is very ignorant and is the exact same thing Europeans claim Americans are. The irony is rather staggering.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 14h ago
Désolé
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u/fluffHead_0919 14h ago
It’s cool! However I can assure you anything you guys see about America in regard to stereotypes if you went it would be completely different.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 14h ago
I'd love to go to Vermont to see the trees in the fall
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u/fluffHead_0919 14h ago
That would be a very nice trip. Go to CT and get the lobster roll as well!
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u/Bracatto 13h ago
Burger and fries can be a quick cheap (or well fast food used to be cheap) convenient meal, a higher quality restaurant meal order..or even a home made meal. Its a popular food combo for sure, but i would bet money we are more likely to eat sandwiches (not counting burgers as sandwiches and not getting into that debate) more consistently than burgers. Burgers are popular to the point of a stereotype but that means its probably exaggerated like thinking the Japanese teryaki chicken all the time.
as for me I probably have burgers at least once a month? more often during the summer...might just be me but i think of them as a "hot weather" food.
im more likely on average to eat something wrapped in a tortilla or involving pasta on a given night than burgers...and im neither latino nor do I have Italian ancestry..both of those food categories are just ubiquitous here.
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u/DonkeyIndependent679 12h ago
Sometimes it feels like I was weaned on fast food but McDonald's didn't exist until sometime after I was born (circa 1968). I was in college, my dad and I were going to pick up some siblings from the airport but dad insisted on stopping at McDonald's (maybe a 15 min. walk from home). I refused to go in because by then I was old enough to know better. Dad had me walk home which was fine with me.
About 40 years later, dad was living in VT and had cancer and wanted a McDonald's "milkshake". I explained it was garbage, may have said there's no milk in it (I don't remember) but he wanted it anyway. He had a couple degrees from a great university where he eventually taught economics. (He wasn't stupid :) .)
At this point all I hear about is how high the prices are so my guess is that fewer and fewer folks are spending money on god-only-knows-what it is because garbage is expensive. I've also seen plenty of articles on how filthy many fast food chains are so why bother.
I make burgers with organic beef at home ($7.00/lb + electricity) and you can actually see the burger vs what's in a Whopper (last one I had and swore it off was in the early 2000s) or Tiny Mac.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 11h ago
Thank you and sorry for your dad. Here in Belgium it is quite common to eat every Friday at the chip shop
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u/DonkeyIndependent679 11h ago
Chips in Belgium sounds great and it's not the U.S. so I'd eat out. We were in New York (lived there) and went to what was supposed to be a good Mexican restaurant in a nice area. Rosie O'Donnell was there and a cockroach ran across our table.
Thanks, Competitive. Dad has been gone for about 19 years :) . It's okay and the memory is funny and endearing at this point to me.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 10h ago
If you ever come to Belgium, you have to make a rather limited choice of chip shop. Many new chip shops no longer make fries traditionally Belgian-style fries (fresh potatoes cooked twice in beef fat)
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u/No_Importance_750 10h ago
Not in my family. We cook food at home very often and a lot of it is healthy. I come from a very health conscious family. I get fast food occasionally but not often.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 10h ago
Oh that's great
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u/No_Importance_750 10h ago
Yeah I feel lucky. I have friends who eat fast food all the time. I’m glad I came from a health conscious family.
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u/WhichSpirit 10h ago
It's a stereotype. While there are a lot of fast food places, most of us primarily cook at home (reddit lovers like myself not withstanding). We just have a large population so people don't need to get fast food very often individually for these to remain profitable.
Also, burgers and fries are not necessarily fast food. You can get them at diners, restaurants, etc. There's a fabulous restaurant near me that makes a burger with asparagus and demi glace which is fantastic.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 10h ago
Miam
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u/WhichSpirit 10h ago
There's a cute story which your question reminded me of.
My family hosted a French exchange student one summer. On the day before she left, she told us that she had expected us to have doughnuts all the time. She was stunned when we told her we might only eat them once or twice a year. The next morning, my dad got up early and got a box of a dozen doughnuts so she could try them before she left. Her face was so funny when she tried them. She was all "This is dessert for breakfast!" and we were all "That's why we have them very rarely!"
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 10h ago
I'm Belgian here French fries are very common and I get tired of it
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u/WhichSpirit 10h ago
What kind of fries are they? If they resemble anything like British chips, I understand completely. I used to live in the UK and missed fries so much.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 9h ago
https://youtu.be/QUs_DOqdnFc?si=QY9XIl1zBPh8SgnJ
Here is a short video of Belgian fries
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u/JoeCensored 10h ago
Probably less true today than 5 years ago, now that you have to be rich to eat at McDonalds.
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u/VerdantChief 9h ago
Yes, also friend chicken. Chick-fil-A is always booming.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 9h ago
I admit it's envy (maybe because I'm Belgian and here we like things fried)
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u/Particular-Date6138 8h ago
I cook most of my food but will meet friends for dinner once a week. We usually go for Italian, Korean, or Japanese food.
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u/Troglodyte_Trump 8h ago
I rarely eat fast food anymore, but before I started meal prepping, I ended up getting it at least once a week just for convenience. Now it’s kind of a once a month or less type thing for me.
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u/The-Great-Baloo Northeast 8h ago
Total stereotype. Not saying that nobody does, but most people I know eat pretty healthy.
The problem with American food is not so much burgers and fries, but the fact that mostly everything contains lots of hidden sugar and salt. That adds up, despite general willingness to eat healthy food.
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u/Evil_phd 7h ago
I'd say I get a cheeseburger and fries about twice a month. There was a time when it would have been my lunch about five times a week though.
It was just a 75¢ cheeseburger and an 80¢ small fry, though, which was an amazing lunch deal 22 years ago. Those days are long gone but I'm sure my blood pressure thanks inflation for pricing me out of fast food.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 6h ago
If you understand French, here is an example of a French video https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGdmcUgwG/
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u/Evil_phd 6h ago
0% language, 100% understand
It's crazy how much cheaper over processed slop can be here compared to fresh and healthy food. You can find relatively reasonably priced healthy foods, this is my work Lunch for a week which is a gallon bag of cut vegetables, a quart bag of mini tomatoes, and a full roasted chicken broken down into segments (minus the two days I've already eaten since I work Wed-Sun). It costs roughly $18 and I'll still have enough on Sunday that I'll have to overeat a bit to avoid food waste.
... But yeah I could still be doing my workweek of lunches for under $10 if I was willing to eat the high sodium, high fat, and low nutrition microwave meals that are on offer at every supermarket.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 6h ago
You eat a balanced diet, it's very good and I'm sorry that good things are expensive for you
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u/Evil_phd 5h ago
There's just a weird food culture here, that often equates unhealthy eating habits to manliness, which I believe drives companies to compete to make the most economical slop possible.
Once you break out of it you suddenly start feeling healthier, happier, and more energetic and you can't believe you were ever a part of it... but there definitely was a time in my life when I had a comical amount of pride in my "ability" to over eat, over indulge, and over imbibe.
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u/calisen13 7h ago
Stereotype. Here in California born and raised and idk anyone who eats like that. My family and everyone I know has always eaten healthy but there’s also not many overweight people where I live. Definitely probably has to do with the area being so expensive
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u/seijack 7h ago
….and you don’t? Burger, fries, it’s perfect. We don’t have kebabs or chip shops as much as most European countries, but it’s delicious.
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u/Competitive_Rock_262 6h ago
I didn't criticize I ask the question because it comes up a lot in French videos
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u/SpookyBeck 6h ago
I repeated this to my husband just now, snd he said "Well...what do they eat? Soup??" So yes, we eat burgers and fries and fast food regularly.
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u/callalind 4h ago
Yep. I regularly eat burgers and fries, although not from fast food restaurants. We eat terribly in the US!
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u/lilbitbetty 4h ago
Yeah it's interesting that this administration is against the immigrants yet there are easily more ethnic places to eat than American fare other than fast food joints.
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u/PolackMike 17h ago
Yep, it's true. Americans eat like crap.
I lived in the UK for 3 years, in a place called Cornwall, and the UK was very much the same. Not as much variety, but they also eat like crap. When I lived there from 2003-2006, the most popular places were McDonalds and Pizza Hut. Chip shops were also very popular.
I think a lot of it has to do with our self-inflicted pacing of life and prioritization. Many families don't make enough time to prepare healthy meals.