American food sucks

Ella Windsor says that if you don’t like pigging out, you won’t much enjoy eating in the US, where The Cheesecake Factory serves portions big enough to kill an ox

My American friends in England never stop complaining about the food here. It’s all ‘gloopy’, they say, and they bitch about the warm beer, grey curries and unidentifiable soups. Sometimes their longing for US comfort food — beefburgers, hotdogs, cookies, tacos and dairy queen ice cream — becomes so strong that some of them even resort to a company called the Food Ferry, a British Internet site that delivers Skippy Peanut Butter, beef jerky and Oreo cookies.

My solution is a little different. I tell them that American food is overrated, unhealthy and revolting, and the sooner they wean themselves off it, the better they will feel.

American food seems pretty impressive at first sight, but during a four-year stint in the US I realised that it is basically a con trick: bigger isn’t necessarily better; brighter colours don’t mean more intense flavours; sugar tastes good, but leaves you feeling depressed, sick and still hungry.