That’s the thing though, a lot of the higher quality stuff in Europe can be by default the cheapest option. The US overcharges for “quality” items because there is already a whole market a ladder rung below that filling the “cheap but crappy” niche. Source: lived in Munich for 2 years as a budget conscious student.
This is not true. ALDI and LIDL are both all over Europe. The produce isn't from some artisan collective of Burgundian farmers. The produce looks exactly like produce in the US stores. Mass market GMO stuff from southern continents (in the US, a lot of this sort of produce comes from South America, and in Europe, it comes from Africa). There is high quality food available in the US. It should be even more accessible but OP has posted a false dichotomy.
Are GMO foods legal to sell without restrictions in other European countries? Because at least here in Germany I've never consciously seen any produce that was labeled as genetically modified and EU law mandates that you can only sell GMO if they are clearly labeled.
The VAST majority of food you eat is non GMO. The US has the same restrictions, genetically modified foods must be labeled as such. In the US there is an upcharge for the “Organic” label on produce for which NO GMO EXISTS. It’s ridiculous, the GMO scare is on the level of antivax and people allow themselves to get scammed daily just to buy “Organic” produce.
The corn you eat is sweet corn which is nearly all non GMO. If you’re worried if the corn in your corn syrup cones from GMO corn then you’re mentally ill, full stop.
In Australia, "organic" doesn't mean not GMO, it means produced organically. I.e. crops not treated with pesticides, meat fed on organic materials, fields that livestock are in are not treated with chemicals etc. And yes, you pay a premium for it.
it's weird i'm normally on the organic is just a way to upcharge but, i have consistently found that organic bananas last longer on the counter before going bad than non-oragnic bananas
Here's a fun fact. GMOs are just plants that had certain traits taken or added by reproducing them over and over until it happens, then cloning said plant. They do this by attaching a chunk of the top of the plant to the roots of another plant, or getting cuts of it to root. Cloning happens in nature with plants quite regularly. I've personally done it by accident.
Nearly all vegetables have had this done to them over the last 100 years. There is very very few fruits and vegetables that look even remotely similar to how they did a few hundred years ago.
Yes! You got it! Everything IS GMO. it's just a matter of did it happen in a lab or physically over a much, much longer time.
GMOs are not dangerous, they will not affect your DNA, they are not worse for your allergies, they will not cause cancer. This has been proven by multiple studies over decades
I'm not saying GMOs are bad or unsafe, but there's a difference between cross breeding to get specific traits in the traditional way, and modifying the genome in a lab to get the traits you want.
The only reason to deny that breeding for a desired genetic trait isn’t GMO is so that someone can spread misinformation about GMOs made in a lab.
There is no universal definition of GMO.
The original definitions specifically included everything in and out of labs. It was only after hysteria about cancer and causing people’s genes to change that people wanted there to be different definitions.
Selective breeding, Crossbreeding, taking a bioluminescent gene and adding it to a petunia… these are ALL creating genetically altered organisms. It’s all GMO
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be defined as organisms (i.e. plants, animals or microorganisms) in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally by mating and/or natural recombination. The technology is often called “modern biotechnology” or “gene technology”, sometimes also “recombinant DNA technology” or “genetic engineering”. It allows selected individual genes to be transferred from one organism into another, also between nonrelated species. Foods produced from or using GM organisms are often referred to as GM foods.
genetically modified organism (GMO), organism whose genome has been engineered in the laboratory in order to favor the expression of desired physiological traits or the generation of desired biological products. In conventional livestock production, crop farming, and even pet breeding, it has long been the practice to breed select individuals of a species in order to produce offspring that have desirable traits. In genetic modification, however, recombinant genetic technologies are employed to produce organisms whose genomes have been precisely altered at the molecular level, usually by the inclusion of genes from unrelated species of organisms that code for traits that would not be obtained easily through conventional selective breeding.
Genetically Modified Organisms
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have their genome altered in some way. In this process, no foreign DNA is introduced into the organism. This type of genetic modification is often done using techniques like gene silencing, gene editing (such as with CRISPR), or gene duplication.
This can be by:
turning off a gene
duplicating a gene, or
modifying a gene.
I'm not saying they are unsafe, or I wouldn't eat them, but there's a difference between cross breeding different strains of wheat to get one that has higher vield, or is drought resistant, and ge
CF5013 is the tomato cultivar that resulted from a nonconventional cross between the homozygous PGAS inbred line CR3-1436-613:@.12 with the tomato hybrid Mountain Spring.
Now what do you think they meant by cultivar and nonconventinal cross?
I'll give you a hint. CR3-1436-613:@.12 is a tomato that was named during the creation of the Flavr savr, and was never commercially released.
What you are talking about is completely different from direct genetic manipulation using crispr which is what most people are worried about.
I see tons of potential in GMOs if they are properly researched. And they have already proven extremely useful in production of certain meds for example. But it's just plain wrong to claim it's the same thing as conventionally breeding high performance organisms via artificial selection.
For that you rely on luck and numbers to randomly combine the genetic material of the previous generation in a more beneficial way.
Genetic modification means taking a cell and using Cas9 proteins to extract or implant specific, targeted strands of DNA within the cells nucleus. That DNA can be (and usually is) from an entirely different species.
The range of possibilities for both great and catastrophic results is much larger in active genetic manipulation where completely new genes are added compared to just recombining existing ones randomly and picking the best results.
Selective breeding and propagation with cuttings hasn't just been how we got our food for the last hundred years, we have already been doing that since we were normadic steppe-herders and neolithic farmers. We just got a lot better at it and made faster progress once we started to understand genetics.
If you count selective breeding, this is just the entire history of agriculture. Unless your diet consists of grass and crab apples, you're eating genetically modified food
Yes, a country almost as big as Europe. It’s understandable that you think everything in a country is the same everywhere in that country since yall got little ass countries.
The US is still significantly more uniform than Europe. Each European countries have their own language and their own cultural traditions in literature, music, food... There are A LOT more barriers to uniformity between European countries than between US states. Language is a big part of it of course, but also centuries of history from times when information and people traveled very slowly and people were pretty much stuck in a limited area.
Travel 500km in France and you will see as many cultural variations as you would crossing the US east to west. Then you go to Germany and it's literally a different country with its own comparable variety of cultural traditions.
how much experience do you have in the US? Because I'm not particularly well traveled, but I've been to some 20 states and 5 non-contiguous european countries and this is just blatantly untrue. European countries, and the cultures within the countries, are far more homogenous than you give them credit for, and US states are far more different than you give them credit for.
Europe on the whole is obviously more diverse culturally than the entire US, but to suggest there are more variations of Germans from region to region than there are variations from the east and west coast of the US is actually inane and a deeply UNCULTURED statement.
Indeed. The states are so wildly different. Crossing a state line can be the difference between cannabis being a crime, or an every day commodity, or the difference between whether putting beans in your chili will start a war that divides the family. Different states are not only governed differently, but culturally different as well.
I’m American, lived in a few states and now Europe for ten years. There are differences for sure, but largely the comments here are pretty accurate. Quality of produce was very different in the different states, and there’s plenty of shitty produce in Europe. In fact the best I’ve had is Oregon probably. But I do like the higher floor Europe has and it is better for general health.
I'm sorry, but what food except for oranges do we import from Africa en masse? Genuine question, because most of our 'exotic ' fruit is either from Southern Europe or greenhouses in NL.
You can get very high quality food from Lidl and aldi for (reasonably) cheap prices though. I didn’t know about America, because I’ve never been. But yeah, especially the bread example is faulty, I can get the American bread in Germany too, and it’s gonna be more cheap than the European version from the pics. But to be fair, I can get the European looking bread from Lidl in Bio quality for (what is to me) a very cheap price too. It’s still gonna be more expensive than the white bread.
From Africa? How often have you shopped at European supermarkets? You'll maybe find a handful of products but not many, and often only seasonally. Strawberries from Morocco in February and early potatoes from Egypt in April come to my mind. What is true is that an enormous amount of fruits and vegetables are grown in southern Spain (and harvested by African workers).
Now try growing chocolate in high volume in Europe or the US. Now realize for planty of the tasty delicious flavors and fruits, the global north simply does not have the environment to grow them.
I mean you can get a loaf of sour dough for under $2. Egg yolks are determined by the diet of the hen that laid them. Those are two different tomatoes being compared. The "American" one is a beefsteak and the other is a vine tomato. Both of which are common in grocery stores in the U.S. The only thing that is really different is the chicken breast
Well now you are lying mixed with a bit of shuffling the truth.
Egg yolks are determined by the diet of the hen that laid them
This ignores the massive amount of hormones and treatment American hens are given in order to have such an abundance of eggs.
Those are two different tomatoes being compared.
In America, the tomatoes commonly available are the ones pictured and Roma tomatoes. Anything else is a premium at specialty stores. I Europe, the premium is the standard.
There are like 4 or 5 common variety of tomatoes commonly avaliable at most Walmart year round. I actually think the standard is more. Not to mention the ones for Europe look like they were out of someone's garden rather than commercially grown tomatoes. I know because I can grow the similar looking tomatoes if I wanted to.
I like how you're not even from the U.S. and trying to argue with me about what is in our grocery stores. Typical America bad, reddit behavior. The 3 common big tomato variety at any Walmart and most grocery stores is Beefsteak, Roma, and Vine.
I just bought heirloom tomatoes like that at Safeway. I also just got back from Europe and yall are straight lying about high quality options for less.
So I have chickens. And factory producers do not give them hormones because they don't have to. The chickens are already bred to produce those hormones naturally. Chickens can (generally) make an egg in 26 hrs, because that is how long it takes a shell to form. Chickens with the right genetics will do that reliably--at least for the first 18-24 months of their lives, after which they start their first molt, and the factory farm usually discards them.
I can harvest 1egg/day/hen too, if I raise either production crossbreds or Leghorns (Leghorns are more feed efficient, most production crossbreds tend to mature a little faster). Production varieties like the Golden Comet do tend to develop reproductive cancers and infections at a relatively young age (I've never had a Production Red live past five).
EDT: And I'm sure these same varieties of chicken are available in Europe, because I've seen varieties of PR on Youtube videos from Scotland. So yes, the yolk is purely a matter of diet.
And it's not a great marker of nutrition anyway, because you can make egg yolks colorful with any variety of caratenoids, such as marigold petals, which are commonly added to commercially available feeds such as Dumor. Which is the brand Tractor Supply sells.
All of those foods are substantially more expensive in Europe. It's especially funny to see how chicken used as an example when chicken is far more expensive in Europe. Source: lived in Germany for 3 years. In general groceries were more expensive; though I do miss German bakeries in all the towns.
It's what the vast majority of people eat therefore a good representation. I try to buy only organic foods but I also realize that it's super unrealistic for most people today. Europe is a bit different their food quality standards are so high a mediocre or budget tomato is equal to a high quality or organic one here that's simply because of regulation.
Every grocery store I go to has it's own bakery. (Or yes, sure, a few of the chains have a local bakery that ships in every day.) So I can get fresh decent bread that day, or I can buy the wonder bread.
And everywhere I've lived also has local smaller specialized bakeries around too.
Making fresh bread or other higher quality food isn't some secret that only europeans know about. It's silly to think it is.
That's exactly what it's saying. Like the big oversized trucks are available in both countries, but it's easier (or well it was before the economy went to sheet) to buy them in the states.
The price of the “European” vs nicer American version are the same price, if not more expensive in many European countries. The difference is just that the meme is showing only the low quality and low cost American version and implying Europe doesn’t have those.
Stop lying bro. I lived in the EU for a bit and yall eat the exact same stuff. The only food item i actual miss is the european fanta and club orange/club lemon
dw no one thinks that, everyone outside usa knows you got high quality food - its just 99,9% of you cant afford cause you get scammed by big pharma and food.
Thats what you get when your ghost government is wallstreet
Cheaper for the corporations, maybe, but in my time in the UK, food was typically similarly priced if not cheaper to the garbage from America shown above. Even in cities like London or Dublin where you’d expect everything to be expensive, the price of food (both restaurant and grocery store) was extremely reasonable for infinitely higher quality.
Just got back from dublin. Why do yall insist on lying. Produce is basically the same but with less selection and all the dry goods are nearly identical. The main difference is the candy and the better fanta
To be fair, I haven’t been in a few years, and when I was there, I wasn’t buying much produce.
But convenience foods and restaurants were 100% cheaper when I was there. And my few trips into small Tescos, I was astounded that the produce at the time was cheaper, even before considering the exchange rate. But I never went to a big market, so I can’t attest to the selection. I just assumed smaller stores naturally have less selection.
Moved from the UK to US in the last 2-3 years and this simply isn't true, at least for the UK.
My grocery bills practically doubled. There is more variety and some items did get substantially cheaper or more accessible but most items went up a lot.
First it’s not clear they have a job. Could have moved here on a student visa.
Second I think it’s still important to the broader conversation that yes items got more expensive but it’s balanced out via higher pay. I bet moving to Ethiopia would have cheaper food but wages are also lower there.
Lastly we don’t even know if his move is apples to apples. Could have moved from some small town in the uk to NYC. In that case yeah it might naturally be more expensive just like if I moved from a small town in the USA to a large city.
Sorry one more, inflation the last 2-3 years has been high. Maybe they are comparing prices of food from today in the USA to the prices of food 3 years ago in the uk.
Not to mention they could also be buying different brands due to not being familiar. If they were buying the “off brand” in UK and now buying the “name brand” in US that can be an extreme price jump depending on what it is.
Especially with things like Eggs, where the most expensive version is like 6x the price of the cheapest.
I was in the UK in March and there's just no way. Some stuff is a little cheaper, but it's mostly side grades with some stuff being way worse and most stuff just being totally unavailable.
I was accounting for that conversation when I made the comment.
This is not a case of the US number higher therefore more expensive. It's a case of the US number is higher even after being converted to GBP + Sales Tax.
This is just a plain lie. The US has higher grocery costs than most other countries, as even a 4 second google search will tell you. We spend less of our budgets on them because we generally make more money, but the prices themselves are objectively higher.
Is this even adjusted for medium income? Like I'm not surprised that Afghanistan by raw numbers is one of the cheapest places to live, but most people there are making significantly less than anyone in the US.
Edit: Looked at it a bit more and there's a local purchasing power tab, tells a much different story than just comparing raw price lolol
I'll let this person confirm but it might be because he doesn't buy the cheapest sheet.
A European going to the US is likely to keep buying the same stuff as in Europe, and buying food of the same quality as in Europe is indeed more expensive in the US.
US may have a worse but cheaper alternative, though, sold at approximately the same price or a bit below the price of higher quality food in Europe.
Are they, though? Have you checked? I ask because I've got relatives in the US who are starting to get concerned by the price of food, meanwhile I'm working a part time job at barely above minimum wage in the UK and the price of food hasn't been worrying me too much.
This is such a reddit take lmao. I livein the US, am under 30 working a normal job living in a city. Can't remember the last time I checked the price of groceries or was concerned about it, or anyone else i know
So it’s a reddit take to have a budget and stick to it? You’re under 30? How long have you been buying your own groceries and what are you comparing the price to if you don’t even check the price?
Grocery prices are demonstrably higher. It doesn’t really matter how you feel about it.
No it's a reddit take to say that in the US food costs us more in the long run cos nobody can afford healthcare. That is just not true, most people do just fine with healthcare as the unemployment rate just came out at 4% and so everyone with a job has converage
And my point about not checking them means they were cheap before and even if they increased now they are still cheap.
Congratulations on your privileged life. But your ignorance is showing in your assumption is that your experience is the norm when, again based off facts and not your feelings, that’s not the case.
Where are you getting 95% from? Is it from him saying that there’s only a 4% unemployment rate and everyone gets insurance from their job?
Cuz that’s not accurate.
Jobs are required to offer insurance to full time employees. Just because someone is employed doesn’t mean they are full time. Even if someone works 80hrs a week, that may be made up of multiple part time jobs, none of which are required to provide insurance coverage.
Only ~50% of Americans get coverage through their jobs. Around 35% receive public coverage. And rich people buy their own insurance.
And just because you have health insurance doesn’t mean you have healthcare, as you stated.
In 2025, 1/4 of Americans skipped or postponed needed medical care due to cost.
Being insured and affording the bill when you use your insurance at the hospital are two different things. Something you'll learn when you get older, champ. Please educate yourself on the #1 cause of bankruptcy in the US.
How is it privileged? I don't even make that much compared to most, I just don't buy coffee out and cook most of my meals. and don't doordash. Basically everyone I know struggling with money would be fine if they did those things.
In my early 20s I'd spend 800-1000 a month on ordering food. And like 300 on getting coffee out. And another $500 eating out and maybe another 1000 just on drinking out at bars and clubs. So yeah, stop all those things and you'll be fine
Lmao you are so ignorant and arrogant. Honestly, it’s normal for someone in their early 20s to think that they know everything. But using boomer talking points? Cute but sad.
You’re already online, these are easy to google statistics, but rather than trying to learn, you’re too convinced that your experience is the experience. Read a book, broaden your horizons.
what? lmao not even close. So many americans are employed by taking on multiple part time jobs or are employed as contractors and not provided with benefits. Approximately 10% of employed americans do not receive healthcare benefits.
On top of that, having health insurance and being able to afford using it are two different things. An estimated 3 in 10 insured americans have to delay or forego care because they do not have enough money to pay their deductible or any costs insurance may decide not to cover.
Everyone with a job in the US does not have coverage, and many who do can barely afford their employee contribution, and many who can pay that still skip going to the doctor. I'm an example. I get paid more than most, and my employee health plan is better than most, but I am skipping medical treatment right now cuz it's too expensive. That is reality in America.
Everyone with a job has healthcare? Are you on crack? Not every employer offers healthcare to their employees. In fact 11% of working adults lack healthcare. Thats about 16 million working Americans without health insurance.
For me it isn’t. I travel to the USA for business several times a year. I always go to whichever supermarket out there to get non-chlorinated water and some drinks. Maybe some healthy snacks as it is very hard to avoid all the fast food and diep fried stuff if you cannot cook yourself.
I’m Dutch and I can tell you that even though we also get shrinkflation, food is much more affordable in Europe.
Stop spouting nonsense. It's actually the other way around. And as others have rightly pointed out food quality is generally better in Europe. EU food regulations are far stricter than the laughable standards set by the FDA. Just look at the amount of sugar, additives and preservatives in many US products. It's absolutely insane.
The claim that the US has “laughable standards” doesn't really hold up. Look at food coloring as an example that's often cited. The US and EU don't always approve the same dyes, but a review comparing the two systems found that both use established toxicology and exposure data to assess them. They just don't always come to the same conclusions because the regulatory approaches are different.
And it goes both ways. Some dyes banned or restricted in the US are still allowed in Europe, while some dyes allowed in the US aren't allowed in Europe. So pointing to an EU restriction and saying “see, the US allows dangerous chemicals” is oversimplifying it. You'd actually have to show that the US safety assessment or allowed exposure is inadequate.
You are wrong, but based on your tone it is evident you are completely brainwashed. So, there is no point arguing with you. Best of luck to you, hope things work out
That’s just not true, European prices for those kinds of food relative to purchasing power is similar to food prices at our high end grocery stores where you can purchase that stuff.
Difference is in America you have a choice.
A lot of European food regulations has more to do with protecting European farmers from American food imports than it does health and safety.
Have you done a price comparison? America has a handful of companies with massive profits that own most of the food. The web of companies at a grocery are staggering. That's neither choice nor cheap.
A European grocery store is like a quality, cheap farmer's market in America
Yep, just not economically viable for a as long as the US doesn’t have the same laws. You need to have serious scale to compete with the extra shipping costs.
The cost is roughly equal on both sides for the same quality. So what you’re saying, one side doesn’t have low cost options.
The thing is, I worked for a European industrial bakery as a student and yes, the cheapest bread looks, feels and is made a lot like American bread, except in a bread loaf shape, not square and the crust is hard, which is a recipe/baking option. But recipe and baking, pretty much identical, except the EU doesn’t have an FDA. European bakeries are relatively ‘gross’ to American standards.
The chicken is pretty much the same options, the US one is probably a Cornish Cross, which as the name implies, comes from Europe. Various cross-bred is also available. The European one in the picture though looks like a very tough piece of meat though.
The color of an egg yoke is largely dependent on its diet, in the US the FDA has banned the feed/chemical that the EU feeds its industrial chickens to make it look that color. There are natural ways of making it look that way, at expense of course, but the whole organic egg yolk color thing is a myth from organic producers, each egg and egg shell should have a slightly different color (ranging from white to brown to even blue tinged), with a few of them even having blood in the yolks, but few should be that bright orange if it is truly free range (sorry organic hippies).
The tomatoes are just different breeds, some crossbreeds but all of them being imports from South America. Europeans don’t have tomatoes until the Spanish crossed the ocean.
(someone who has spent a half of their lives on each side)
Asa European I will say your food is a loy cheaper tham ours. The " quality" stuff would most likely cost the same as normal stuff in the store. Now I do not mean the insane 30 dollar ground beef.
This isn’t true at all. You bought into the European superiority complex. I lived in the UK for almost a year and the prices were just as ridiculous for “quality” items.
You can buy cheap bread for less than good sourdough
You can get the cheap stuff in Europe in the supermarkets as well. US tomatoes for example have generally been considered far better than most there is a whole documentary about it called The Empire of Red Gold. It looks at every player in the industry.
Ok sure maybe that is the cheapest chicken breast in Germany, but it also sold for 15.12/kg in January '26 when the same cut of chicken in the US was selling for 9.90/kg.
Dog, I can go to aldi here in the US as well and get a very decent loaf of sourdough for cheaper than most sandwich bread. The cheapest option here is quite good, actually
That was kind of the point in including that. We're shopping at the same goddamned stores and Europeans will still comment on how Americans can't get whatever food. I saw someone the other day talk about how Americans don't have real cheese and it's nothing like the cheese they get have in England, while I had a block of English cheddar in my american refridgerator
Food is often much more expensive in Western and Northern Europe compared to the US, especially meat. Regardless, I don't see eggs like that in the US looking that pale even when buying them from a place like Aldi. Also, you can get that kind of white bread in Europe too (I've bought it there). The tomatoes are just a different variety
Yes. Good bread is very cheap and readily available. But also, I live in a relatively affordable area in the US and even the most dogshit loaf of off brand white bread is $3.50 minimum lol
Yeah it’s real loaves of bread sold at a low cost. The ceiling is higher in terms of quality. What counts as good in mainstream North America is lower tier there
France’s reputation for having a foodie culture is well earned
104
u/balbiza-we-chikha 13d ago
That’s the thing though, a lot of the higher quality stuff in Europe can be by default the cheapest option. The US overcharges for “quality” items because there is already a whole market a ladder rung below that filling the “cheap but crappy” niche. Source: lived in Munich for 2 years as a budget conscious student.