USATourist Community

I received this e-mail from a reader.  It is a good question so I am sharing it with everyone.

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You are absolutely right.  Many foods in the USA contain sugar or some form of sweetener.  High fructose corn syrup is manufactured in the Midwestern parts of the USA, and it is sold to food processors all over the country.  It is included in so many of our foods that it is difficult to find foods that do not contain it.  The giant agro-business corporations have taught us all to accept the taste of sweeteners in our food.  Now, many of our population are addicted to this ubiquitous sweet flavor.  Perhaps, that is why we have so many fat people in the USA. 

 Many foods in the USA also contain quatities of salt.  It is difficult to find foods without salt.  Again, we have all learned to accept this in our food, and we have become addicted to it.

Fortunately, the food labeling laws require all foods to list their ingredients and to state the quantities of the major ingredients.  You can pick up any container of food in the USA and read the contents on the package.  It will tell you how much sugar, salt, calories and various vitamins and minerals are included in the food.  It does not prevent you from eating all of this sugar and salt, but at least it allows you to choose the foods that contain lower quatities of the undesirable ingredients.  I personally, try to avoid some of the worst foods, or at least I feel guilty when I indulge myself in eating them.

From living in various corners of the globe over several decades, I strongly concur that foods here in the US are grossly over-sweetened.

Tart, sour, bitter - those flavors don't exist in foods here.

Yoghurt - refreshingly tart in other parts of the world - is nauseatingly sweetened in the US.  But, it's "no fat"!!!  Who cares?  Get rid of the blasted sugar!  Just this morning I read on the label of a 900 gram container of "no fat" strawberry yoghurt that it contains 124 grams of sugar - that's nothing short of madness!  Quaker granola - 1 kg of which is about 30% sugar!!! 

Commercial desserts (key lime and other pies, birthday cakes etc) are absolutely inedible - massive sugar burn.  Disgusting.

US made chocolate - equally over-sweetened - inedible.

Sweet, sweet, sweet...

The corresponding items sold in Europe and Japan use only subtle amounts of sugar - and have lots of actual FLAVOR.

Finally, yes, this is why the majority of Americans are grossly obese.