US/FR: food

There is definitely a difference.

This is pretty much the diet of CA people for what I saw. I’m almost kidding.

After a couple of months living in LA, here is what strikes me about food.

• Calories

Over nine thousand!!!!!!

It seems like everybody is counting that. Calories. I know what it means from a scientific point of view but when actually eating, knowing how much I need per day, knowing where the calories are.. They are in my belly and I don’t give a shit about these numbers (when I do care a lot for them everywhere else!). I subconsciously know that a waffle is heavy, I don’t need to know how much. People can have conversation on how much thousand calories they are aiming through diets, it’s like Klingon to me. Having the chance to have parents cooking everyday for every meal, doing it myself since forever, it seems like it helps to know what my body needs. My mind is bypassed. Then if I go to a restaurant, I just enjoy, knowing that next days have to be light on food. I feel quite alone on this behavior. Here the Now is strong. Enjoy the Now. And then regret it watching your body getting fat. Whatever. Maple syrup, sodas, peanut butter are almost banned from my diet anyway.

• Vegan

I don’t know what it is, but there’s no meat in it.

My first trip in the US showed me how much vegan food is developed here. From store to restaurants, there’s vegan food almost everywhere in LA. I like it, it’s just that I feel I need to eat more often and being used to the classic three meals per day, sometimes it bothers me to eat four or five times a day. The good thing is when I get back to meat it’s sort of a fiesta for my taste buds. It’s great to have this choice though. And healthier of course (I mean compared to 3.99$ meals with two big macs, fries and a taco) and overall better for the earth.

• Quantity

For one

In restaurants, all meals are heavy. Like, ridiculously heavy. I almost never finished one. Good thing that the doggy bag exists but now I know that if it doesn’t in France, it’s because we don’t need it. Here it’s just an obligation. I always feel bad not finishing my plate so I’m happy to get the leftover home. Still, it’s really too big for me and dare I say, for anybody. I’m not the only one not finishing what I order.

• Waste

Wasteland

There is a lot compared to what I know in France and it’s of course related to quantities of food. As food is pretty cheap, people don’t feel the need to save it as much as we do in Europe I guess. At first it was shocking for me. I try not to focus on it. Sort of America Waste Of Life.

• Bacon

Flickr comment: “My two favorite things in the world.. … ….. with BACON!”

Bacon is a religion here. You just have to watch Jim Gaffigan stand up about bacon to understand what it means to the US culture. It’s everywhere, I even ate some chocolate tablet with bacon. Of course it’s pretty bad for the health to eat that everyday. In a sandwich one time I had four slices of it. Four, between a salad leave and massive bread around. This day I realized I could not eat that more than once a month. If I can escape it.

Other than that, eating in the US is not really different than it is in France. Sure, having a cheese store nearby selling Pont L’évèque and Vouvray helps a lot :)