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Mary Daphne:
Hello, Advanced English learners. Welcome back to another conversation. I have Greg here joining me for a very special conversation. And we decided that we would talk about the question, what do Americans eat? All right, let's get to it.

Greg:
All right. I'm excited.

Mary Daphne:
Yeah, this is a great one because I feel like in my personal experience, when I've lived abroad, studied abroad, worked abroad, I've had so many people ask me somewhere along the lines of what do Americans eat? What is typical American food? Is it hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza? And basically, what is traditional American food? So what is your experience with that?

Greg:
Yeah, you're right that most people will jump to something like a pizza burger and they wouldn't be wrong, to be honest, because I happen to love pizza and burgers and I'm American. And most Americans I know do love that type of food. But when you dig a little deeper, there's actually a lot more going on with American cuisine.

Greg:
Also known as food, cuisine and food than meets the eye. Right. Because America has such a diverse blend of cultures. Right. So, you know, if you look at all the popular foods, they actually have origins in other countries. So a burger is more German pizzas. You know, people often think of Italian.

Mary Daphne:
Right.

Greg:
Right. And then you have Mexican food. Right.

Mary Daphne:
Very true.

Greg:
It's a very large Spanish speaking population in the US. And a lot of that comes from South America. Yeah. And Mexico And so you have all of that influence on the cuisine as well. So America ends up being this incredible blend of different types of food Yeah.

Mary Daphne:
And you can basically find any type of food from any country, region, even within the U.S., different variety ideas of cuisine anywhere, basically. I mean, I don't think unless you're in a very, very small town, you might have some difficulty finding, you know, specific cuisines. But I feel like for the most part, you can generally access a pretty wide range, which is awesome.

Greg:
Yeah, there definitely is. Particularly when you get to the bigger cities, you get anything. Anything you want. The other fun thing is because of this hybrid you have funny names for foods, too. So we were talking about Mexican food. Yeah. But you also have Americanized Mexican food.

Mary Daphne:
That's right.

Greg:
Which they call Tex-Mex, right? For Texas. Yeah. And Mexican. Mexican. So obviously, there's a lot of Texas that has a lot of Mexican influence, including the food and so, yeah, you can get Tex-Mex food, which I love. It's delicious. It's fairly Americanized Mexican food.

Mary Daphne:
So let's talk about that for a second. What does it mean for the food to be Americanized? Because we talk about how Chinese food in the U.S. can be Americanized. Mexican food might be Americanized. Turkish food might be Americanized to a certain extent. What does that mean for some type of cuisine to be Americanized? We'll be right back after this short break.

Greg:
Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah. And Americanized is almost not a real word. Yeah. But to be ized is like to transform, to turn into something. Right. So we're saying it's Americanized. It's being transformed into American And this just happens a lot in America. There's a lot of cultural assimilation. Yeah. And so that happens certainly with food.

Greg:
Right. So when an immigrant moved to the U.S. and particularly formed a community there of immigrants from the same country, they start to blend with the American elements. Right. So their original cultural heritage starts to blend with the American heritage. And you get this cool fusion of flavors and spices in the.

Mary Daphne:
Food, right.

Greg:
And so when food becomes Americanized, it typically starts to incorporate some of the aspects that Americans like to have. Often things get more fried. Americans like things fried for sure. Things tend to get sweeter. Americans like sweet food. Yeah. And then they also tend to get bigger.

Mary Daphne:
Yes. Double the portion. I remember when I was in France, and this is not uncommon for people to sort of notice in France, especially if they have gone to the U.S. and visited the U.S. and they come back to France, they notice the portions are doubled in the U.S., sometimes tripled. And what we have sometimes, too, is family size.

Mary Daphne:
So if you go out to eat there might be on the menu family size. And so what that means is, you know, you could have two or three people share it. The idea is to order maybe fewer dishes, but they're really big and you can share them. I always love family size because it's very inclusive. It's very fun.

Mary Daphne:
And obviously you're not going to sit down and eat that by yourself because it's not meant to be a portion for one person. But it is very fun to, you know, order a couple of dishes and then try them out with each other, because that is a nice way of sampling different dishes at that restaurant.

Greg:
Yeah. And I always remember when I'm traveling abroad, particularly in Asia, where portion sizes I find a little smaller. Yeah. I always remind myself, OK, this is not going to be an American portion. Right. So I have to remember that maybe I'll get two of these maybe.

Mary Daphne:
Three.

Greg:
Maybe three, or maybe we'll get something else to.

Mary Daphne:
Share.

Greg:
Because we're used to eating more. Yeah. And that's not necessarily a good thing, but it is a fact. It is what it is.

Mary Daphne:
Yeah. And the other thing, though, you know, a lot of people, when they go out to restaurants, they'll ask for a doggy bag and that way you can take away maybe half of what you didn't get to finish. And since you're paying for the entire meal, you might as well take what you hadn't finished and you have it the next day for lunch, let's say.

Greg:
Yeah. For takeout. Exactly. Yeah. Or take home, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Takeout would really be if you're ordering it from home. Right. Or you're going to pick it up. Right. Take home would be if you're in the restaurant, you have some extra food left over and you say, oh, boxes, I'll take it home.

Mary Daphne:
You could box it up and take it home or I'll take a doggy bag. And that comes from sort of the tradition of saying that you're not going to eat this the next day. But your dog will have it.

Greg:
Which of course, that's see, I have a different interpretation of doggy bag, which is when you go and take a dog for a walk. Uh huh. You have to bring a little bag with you.

Mary Daphne:
Oh, really? That's interesting.

Greg:
Right? Because you have to clean up anything. They leave. You don't want to leave a trace with your dog. So anything they leave on the ground, you got to put in that little bag.

Mary Daphne:
I think.

Greg:
You put a little bag. Yeah, doggy bag.

Mary Daphne:
That is interesting. I remember reading in French class eons ago that somewhere in France this in the 19th century, this sort of came into fashion, having a doggy bag so you wouldn't finish everything because you didn't want to look like a, you know, so like a glutton. Just like some.

Greg:
American. Yeah. You look like an American.

Mary Daphne:
American on Thanksgiving or at a barbecue. We do love our barbecues. And Thanksgiving.

Greg:
I like your interpretation better. I think that's a much classier interpretation.

Mary Daphne:
I think that's what I remember reading.

Greg:
We'll go with yours.

Mary Daphne:
But I would love for someone to fact check yeah.

Greg:
Anyone can figure out the etymology of doggy bag. That would be great.

Mary Daphne:
Would be awesome. Speaking of Thanksgiving, the other question I sort of get when I'm abroad and I don't know about you, Greg, but people ask, what's the traditional American food? Or oftentimes you will say you don't have traditional American food. And I'll stop and think for a minute, and then definitely something will come to mind. And I'm wondering if you agree with me on this.

Greg:
That America doesn't have a traditional food.

Mary Daphne:
That we do. Well, See, that's a little bit confusing. I don't know that it would be a traditional food per se, but we have traditions around food.

Greg:
Absolutely. Yeah. I would say we have holiday specific food.

Mary Daphne:
Exactly. That's what I was thinking of.

Greg:
The most obvious being Thanksgiving.

Mary Daphne:
100 percent.

Greg:
A Thanksgiving if you ask any American, what's the first thing that comes to mind on Thanksgiving? Guaranteed. They'll say.

Mary Daphne:
Turkey. Turkey. Yeah, of course. And then we'll have specific pies like pumpkin pie, apple pie, generally that pecan, maybe something. Yeah.

Greg:
Exactly.

Mary Daphne:
But we have tradition. We have foods that we definitely eat on that day, or at least technically speaking, a lot of people do. There are some years where people might just opt for a chicken as opposed to a turkey.

Greg:
Yes. Yeah.

Mary Daphne:
For the most part.

Greg:
But it still is a good question. You know, if you are let's say you start a restaurant in Germany. Yeah. Because I brought it up earlier and you're going to start an American restaurant there. What dishes do you serve? What's traditional American?

Mary Daphne:
Right. Exactly. I mean, honestly, put your finger on what comes to mind. And this will kind of perpetuate the stereotype of Americans eating burgers and kids and hotdogs. I mean, the reality is that a lot of people, myself included, like, I'll definitely enjoy a burger if we go out and like we'll have a nice, you know, brioche bun and a, you know, caramelized onions.

Mary Daphne:
Like there's a thing in the U.S. called a gourmet burger. Yeah, those are great. Or, you know, like a barbecue also comes to mind.

Greg:
Barbecue is good. One That's right. Yeah. Particularly in Texas. Texas is most famous for it. But throughout the South, you have barbecue as a centerpiece of anyone's house. Right? Right. And their regular diet and barbecue is just basically you get a grill or a smoker and a bunch of meat and veggies and you throw it all on the grill.

Greg:
Yeah. I mean, get out this. And they have barbecues everywhere in the world these days. Yeah. But I do think of barbecue, American Texas style barbecue as something that's uniquely American.

Mary Daphne:
Yeah. And the sauce is also so good. I particularly really like it. And if you go into it very much, you'll notice, like, if you start digging deep, you'll see that there are different varieties of barbecue sauce. There's not just one barbecue sauce. There's so many different types. Yeah. Barbecue sauce. Yeah.

Greg:
And so I think going back to that restaurant example, if what you're going to do, you would have to sort of designate what type of American food. So if it's traditional American comfort food, then you're going to see burgers on there.

Mary Daphne:
Fried chicken, you're going.

Greg:
To see fried chicken. Some of these staples, probably mac and cheese.

Mary Daphne:
Yeah, right.

Greg:
Mac and cheese, which is macaroni pasta with cheese. Creamy and delicious. Yeah. You're going to see those mashed potatoes, corn bread. Right. These are all sort of American staples. And then you could also do something more like you could say upscale, modern American cuisine. Yeah. Right. And that would be more refined, more delicate flavors. Probably a lot of farm fresh, you know, ingredients.

Greg:
Yeah. Borrowing, probably from other cultures that have sort of made their way into the U.S. and stuff that you might not expect to be on an American menu.

Mary Daphne:
That's right. And there's also the fusion element, which is what you were alluding to earlier with different influences from different places. And that's different from something being Americanized. For example, if Thai food is Americanized. I just remember being in Thailand and it was so delicious, but it wasn't as sweet, which I actually preferred. I didn't want it to be sweet, just like the Pad Thai, for example, that I had ordered or that coconut soup that I love.

Mary Daphne:
I forget the name.

Greg:
But yeah, I had the same experience with Chinese food, right? So I lived in China for several years.

Mary Daphne:
Right.

Greg:
And the Chinese food there, I mean, first of all, China is a huge country. So in different parts of China, you get very different types of food in the US. If you go to a Chinese food restaurant, anywhere in the country, anywhere in the U.S., you're going to have the same offerings and they're going to taste most of them in a taste quite different from China.

Greg:
That would be Americanized.

Mary Daphne:
That's right. That's right. It's pretty.

Greg:
And you're contrasting that with fusion food.

Mary Daphne:
Right? So the fusion food would be more of you're adding an element of another culture's cuisine or influence into another one. So it could be I remember I went to a sushi restaurant years ago. It was Cuban mixed with Japanese, which was really cool. So they did some unique you know, they had a unique taste, a twist on their sushi, for example.

Mary Daphne:
I just remember there being a really cool fusion that I hadn't even thought about. You know, you might be French and American fusion. So fusion is when you combine two different cuisines and you bring in elements of both and that's really.

Greg:
Yes, I like that. Yeah.

Mary Daphne:
Yeah. We'll be right back after this short break. So I wanted to sort of dove into a little bit about the standard American diet, because that's another question that I get a lot when I'm abroad. And it's related to this idea of what do Americans eat typically? Typically, it's not that great. It tends to be on the sweeter side, carb heavy, you know, lacking fiber and nutrients and vegetables.

Greg:
Yeah, there's ah we have a doctor we like to listen to Peter Attia, and he has a funny acronym for the Standard American Diet. Yeah. Which the acronym is as a right standard American Diet, which of course spells sad. And from a health perspective, the standard American diet is a little sad because, you know, if you look at obesity charts, America's definitely at the top among the countries in the world.

Greg:
Right. Where we're very high up there. Yeah. That has a lot to do. With the standard American diet, which, as you said, is very carbohydrate intensive, a lot of sugar. And of course, diet gets combined with lifestyle. Yes. Which is increasingly sedentary. You have to be more proactive about being active.

Mary Daphne:
100 percent

Greg:
And a lot of people are busy and they don't get around to it yet. So you couple that with the kind of, you know, large portions of food that can ultimately, you know, lead to metabolic imbalances. You end up with a situation where you have a lot of obesity and, you know, blood sugar dysregulation.

Mary Daphne:
Right. But on the flip side, now that we're sort of being even more aware, I'm thinking generally as American people in terms of the standard American diet and how that might not be the best diet, which definitely is not the best diet to sort of follow or eating patterns to have now there's these trends of these wellness trends where people are really into looking after themselves, getting daily movement getting their veggies and getting their fiber and that kind of thing.

Greg:
So yeah, there's definitely a trend toward improving that. I mean, America tries hard, right? For sure. It's tough, right? Americans are very science oriented. They really like science. Yeah. The problem is nutritional science is such a difficult topic. So the standard American diet, it's not just Americans who choose to eat that way. We've been told by the government that this is the healthy way to eat.

Greg:
There's the food pyramid at the bottom are carbohydrates, right?

Mary Daphne:
Remember that?

Greg:
And you know, fats are at the top, eat no fat, eat lots of carbohydrates.

Mary Daphne:
So when you think of a pyramid, right? This is what they would teach us in school when we had a nutrition class where the bottom would be the ingredients for foods that you should eat the most, the.

Greg:
Bottom being the largest.

Mary Daphne:
Right as a pyramid, it moves up the triangle, right. The base is the largest portion. And you should have I remember there being bread, rice, grains. Yes.

Greg:
All the stuff that makes you fat.

Mary Daphne:
Right. And then at the top is the healthy fats, maybe the butter and this and that. But what we realize now is that we're supposed to invert that triangle.

Greg:
To some extent. And the point is we got the order wrong, right? Or we don't really know what the answer is. What we can say for sure is that if you look at the statistics our weight has increased over time. Right. And our other metabolic, you know, biomarkers have gotten worse. So whatever it is we're doing, it's not, it's not working.

Greg:
And so there is, as you said, a trend toward more conscious eating, a more thoughtful eating, right.

Mary Daphne:
Mindful eating, mindful eating.

Greg:
And, you know, whether or not any specific fad is accurate or effective is less important than the fact that, you know, we're at least trying. We have it's a real focus for Americans now. And I think, you know, most people now try and think more carefully about what it is or eating and hopefully over time, we start to hone in on some of the healthier, healthier habits that other countries have.

Mary Daphne:
100%. And I think it's you know, it's about sort of taking in the information and seeing what works for you and your lifestyle and your personal preferences, too, because you might love that, you know, latte that's loaded with sugar, but maybe you keep that and you swap something else out that you are OK to swap out, or maybe you eliminate it altogether.

Mary Daphne:
Right? So it's really interesting when we get asked that question because it gives me pause and it you know, it causes me to think a little bit and sort of I mean, I know for a fact for me, I mean, I don't eat burgers and hamburgers and burgers and hamburgers at the same thing, but, you know, burgers, pizza fries with any regularity.
Mary Daphne:
I mean, I might have that once a year, maybe twice a year. You know, it's a special occasion.

Greg:
Yeah. The traditional American food is best had sparingly. Yeah. You know, but at the same time, there are also ways to make traditional American food.

Mary Daphne:
Healthier.

Greg:
More healthy. Right. So a pizza, for example, right? That's a lot of bread. Yeah. And bread is definitely going to spike your blood glucose. It's definitely to produce a lot of calories and negative effects, metabolic effects. So maybe replace the standard bread in a pizza dough with something that's, you know, less caloric, less hypoglycemic. Right. So you could use cauliflower so you can get cauliflower crust.

Greg:
Yeah.

Mary Daphne:
I've made it. It's actually really fun to make. I've made cauliflower pizza. And, you know, it takes a little bit. It's a little bit involved there, a couple of steps, but it's fun. You know, it's a fun thing to do.

Greg:
You can use cassava flour so there's many different ways that you can sort of modify. So yeah, pasta right. Passes another very carb intensive food. But one of the passages we love is a red lentil pasta. It's really so they make it, you know, a taste. It has the texture of pasta. It has almost the flavor.

Mary Daphne:
Oh, yeah, I prefer it.

Greg:
But there's no wheat in there. Instead, they're using red lentil flour, which is higher in fiber, and it's not going to spike your blood glucose.

Mary Daphne:
Yeah. And it tastes really good. I mean, I remember when these sort of I think chickpea pasta was the first to come to the market. Come on to the market. And I remember trying that maybe six or seven years ago. Yeah. And the like, oh, this is amazing. This is, you know, one of the greatest inventions ever created and trying it.

Mary Daphne:
And I remember it being a little bit like granular. You could tell that it wasn't smooth. It definitely felt like you were not eating pasta, but I didn't mind it. I actually enjoyed the texture, but it's so remarkable to see that they've really honed it over the years. And now it's like you can't even tell the difference, really, especially when you put all the ingredients.

Mary Daphne:
Yeah. You put the pasta sauce and the veggies and whatever you want to put in there, you can't tell the difference honestly.

Greg:
So that's one approach. And then the other approaches, you know, eat whatever you want, but just really control the portion size. Yeah, so, you know, instead of the American portion size, have a Japanese portion size, which I know from my experience in Japan is much smaller and so that way you can still eat these dense caloric items so you're having less of it.

Greg:
And so. Right.

Mary Daphne:
And I think the big takeaway with that is satiety. So in order like the feeling of fullness and feeling like you're fine, you're not going to eat any more after your meal, you feel satisfied with your meal. The biggest thing with that is the processed food. And so if you're not eating processed food and you make your own burger, you'll feel way fuller with that because the idea is that you've used whole ingredients, you know, you know what's going into the burger that you're making or the bread that's in there because the processed food is not going to keep you full.

Mary Daphne:
I mean, you can look into it. There have been many studies about how the brain, the signal that our brains get is not I'm done eating, I'm full and the hunger hormone we call it, it's ghrelin. We're not going to get into all the science of it, but you can definitely look into it. And it's really remarkable.

Greg:
Yeah, it tricks your brain. So things like sugar and processed foods often have hidden sugar. You don't even if it doesn't taste sweet, but there's sugar in there to affect the flavor and sodium, right? They can trick your brain into you know, thinking it's not even eating anything. And so you're saying.

Mary Daphne:
So that's the big one. I think processed food and there is a lot of that in America. But being cognizant of it, being aware of that, you can definitely, like you said, make those healthy swaps, make it at home and you can still enjoy typical American fare but, you know, healthier and you can do it with your.

Mary Daphne:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So all right. So I think we covered more or less the idea of what do Americans eat? I think that there's a lot to unpack here. And I think that we definitely touched upon different elements and we got into the standard American diet, the new wellness culture trends and how Americans in general are trying to make more of an effort now that we have new research and more information, which is always important, right?

Mary Daphne:
Being able to get our hands on that information that we can apply to our own lives and make the decisions that are best for us and our families.

Greg:
Yeah. And to keep an open mind about it and to remember that, you know, on the one hand, it's important to protect traditions and to enjoy life and all the delicious things that come with that.

Mary Daphne:
Right.

Greg:
And on the other hand, moderating that in a way where you can also enjoy life being healthy and happy about that. So finding that balance and coming to yeah, a nice sort of middle equilibrium is the optimal way that we all sort of aspire to find.

Mary Daphne:
And say, I love it. That's a wonderful outlook on it for sure. All right. Advanced English learners. That is the end of this conversation. I'm so happy that Greg joined us for it. Feel free to leave us a comment down below for other topics that you would love for us to discuss here on Advanced English. All right. Be sure to subscribe. Check out our podcast, leave a nice review and share this channel with your friends and family.

Greg:
See you next time.

About the Author and the Explearning Academy:

Mary Daphne is an expert in communication, executive skills and professional development. She is the founder of the Explearning Academy, a platform dedicated to helping individuals enhance their social fluency, boost their careers, and elevate their social game. Through immersive group coaching programs like the Executive Communication Lab and self-guided journeys, participants gain the social superpowers and career catapults they've been searching for. If you're ready to take your negotiation skills to the next level and connect with like-minded individuals, visit academy.explearning.co and explore the various plans available. Join the Explearning Academy community and unlock your full potential.

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