Hacker News Reader

Comment by thorin | Hacker News Reader

I've spent a bit of time in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia. I agree with what you're saying, but I bet the locals eat less meat and better quality meat than the average American. They're also active and outside a lot.

View on HN

The meat quality disparity is definitely true.

I can tell when I'm eating American beef because it stinks. As in there's literally a hint of feces in the smell and flavor. Pork also has an indescribably foul taste. I was born and raised in America and avoided mammal meat quite a bit because I couldn't stand the foulness. It wasn't until I moved out of the country that I realized beef and pork don't have to taste awful.

I can still tell immediately when I'm eating an imported piece of US beef. People I know who've traveled to American and find out that I'm American often mention the foulness of US meat whenever the topic of US food comes up (without me mentioning it).

Some people probably don't notice it or they're so acclimated to it that it tastes good. But when I see "finest US beef" on a menu, I'm ordering local chicken. And definitely not US chicken since that stuff is pumped full of saline and "flavor enhancers" to the point it looks like a breast implant.

I strongly doubt that. I am in Europe right now the meat is the exact same quality if not slightly worse than what I am used to in America barring fast food.

In the UK at least virtually every town has the option to buy locally farmed possibly organic meat direct from the farm which is almost always fantastic. It might cost twice as much as supermarket meat (which is also ok at times), but at least you have a choice. UK / Europe also have several small private butcher shops in each town some of which give great quality and can provide exactly what you want, suggest cuts and recipes, same goes for fruit and veg - often cheaper than supermarkets. I didn't see much of these kind of options in the US.

Yeah, nah. Once I saw the sacks of red powder to dye the meat in the back room, I was out when it comes to UK butchers. Jesus Christ. And I quote, "you have to dye it or you'd never sell any, it can be all sorts of colours, including green".

Where you are in Europe makes a HUGE difference here.

i lived in new york for years, tried all the wholefood, american wagyu whatever grassfed. some of the meats were good but costed me like 65$ a kilo.

in Paris you get better quality meat for 30-35$. and if you put 65$ you get something out of this world.

I agree, I've been all over Europe and never saw any significant difference in the quality of raw meat and poultry. I do know there is a lot of misinformation about US meats over there though, like the "chlorinated chicken" nonsense you hear all the time from the brits which is thinly veiled protectionist propaganda by the domestic meat industries (who have no problem importing their poultry from Brazil!).

For clarity as I'm in shock: the UK imports poultry from Brazil? Wtf.

Yes, millions of birds every year. About a fifth of it has salmonella, unsurprisingly. But US chicken is still banned for very dubious reasons.

I don't eat meat in the UK for similar reasons. It's fucking awful. Partner is half-American and even she agrees that the meat is terrible quality.

Yes, meat consumption in the USA is huge. But I think the greatest difference between the 2 countries is our distrust towards food processing. Italy is a country very resilient to innovations which can be sometimes a sin, but some other times a blessing. But we are losing that too. When I was a kid mcDonalds could barely survive here. Nowadays new ones are popping everywhere, and young people completely lost this culture we had about genuine foods.

McDonalds in Cagliari closed recently ( I'm talking about the most popular one, the one next to the train and bus stations )

I never tried any American meat, but I grew up in Sardinian and worked in UK and Lithuania. Quality of meat in Sardinia is vastly superior to the UK one but also more expensive, also we in Sardinia is almost impossible to find dry aged meat, I didn't knew aged meat existed until I did go out of the island ( we have Salami etc..., I'm talking about an aged steak ).

The problem with the US diet is not the meat. The problem is the carbs. Leading directly to insulin resistance.

> eat less meat and better quality meat

Both of these are probably true but the latter is more likely the significant margin.

Also may be worth noting the type of meat: e.g. the Sicilian staple I'm most familiar with myself is spleen.

My favorite spread as a kid (and still now) is basically mashed chicken liver: https://memoriediangelina.com/2014/11/21/crostini-di-fegatin...

As someone raised in India I didn't get the American dislike for organ meats. I love the liver, the tongue, the brain, and pretty much all the parts of the animal in their various forms. Most American meat preparations taste bland and uniform with really minor variations.

What are you considering as "American meat preparations" though? It's not all salt/pepper/butter/lemon here. Not even considering immigrant cuisines (which is doing a disservice because that's our entire thing, like ) there are hundreds of local meat preparation styles from southern barbecue variations to cajun food to native tex-mex and southwest styles and beyond.

> [...] but the latter is more likely the significant margin.

No, it really isn't.

Well we've got a thread here discussing why the former might not be a significant factor - care to elaborate on why you think otherwise?

Because all high-quality scientific evidence points to eating less meat making a big difference, and there being no evidence that different quality meat makes any significant difference whatsoever.

Well we've got a thread here discussing why the former might not be a significant factor - care to elaborate on why you think otherwise?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com