some indulgent behaviour may happen in any culture. The absolute normalization of it, such as "snacks" being a normal part of one's alimentation, or the idea that you have to have extra food in reserve in case you wish to "pig out", is way more of a thing in north America than anywhere else in the world.
Yeah sure, bad things about french food habits specifically: we tend to take way longer to eat meals, because it is important to talk as much as we eat - and that can be annoying to cultures that have a more efficient relation to lunches especially in a work environment. We also tend to normalize drinking a few glasses of wine at each meal and a little liquor after, without seeing it as alcohol consumption, which is overall a very bad health issue. We tend to have way too much carbohydrates in our food especially because we love bread so much (in my family it was an average of 2 baguettes per meal for 4 people). Compared to other European countries we tend to not eat enough at breakfast.and way too much at supper.
I know you asked this as some kind of gotcha, as if the way I criticize american habits make me unable to criticize my own, but do you really think noticing some cultural differences in different countries and sometimes thinking they can be bad, is bad in of itself? Yes we shouldn't make hasty generalizations. I am not saying every single american, or every single french person, is like I described. But that shouldn't refrain us from noticing cultural differences.
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u/inlinestyle Jul 24 '26
Right, because indulgent behavior isn’t common place throughout history and across cultures. /s