NP. I am definitely less hungry when visiting family in Spain and it’s not the walking. I think it is something in the US food supply.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m French. When we visit our families in Paris, we walk a lot more and don’t snack at all hours. The food is also less processed. So we eat less, and better.

Here, we’re running about, grabbing snacks anytime, and it’s harder to avoid crap food.

I don’t eat snacks all the time just because I’m busy. What a weird thing to say.

New PP. Snacking isn't bad per se; it's what you snack on. Most people aren't reaching for an apple for a snack. I remember going into my relative's pantry once and all I could find was Goldfish crackers and Cheez-Its. No wonder my relative is obese.

Anonymous wrote:I’m French. When we visit our families in Paris, we walk a lot more and don’t snack at all hours. The food is also less processed. So we eat less, and better.

Here, we’re running about, grabbing snacks anytime, and it’s harder to avoid crap food.

I don’t eat snacks all the time just because I’m busy. What a weird thing to say.

Anonymous wrote:The answer is constant vigilance.

I spend 4x as much on food in the US. For staples like pasta, rice, flour, I buy EU imports. I buy bread every other day and pay 8.50 a loaf so it has only flour, yeast, water, and salt.

I make my own baked goods. Never eat anything with sugar added by the manufacturer (no jarred pasta sauce, no cold cuts, no prepared or frozen meals). Only drink coffee and water. Eat fish 2x a week, always wild-caught.

Make mostly traditional recipes: soups, stews, roast meats with vegetables. Live in a relatively walkable place where I can walk to the bakery, coffee shops, grocery store.

Then I go to Europe and eat literally whatever I want and I still lose weight. It's awful but true, to eat well in the States, it's a job.

I’m like you PP to the point that people know me as the bougie food snob in the office and among DH’s relatives. I find it very hard to consume crap like breakfast sausages and doughnuts, like what was offered to me when I was traveling to visit my in-laws. DH wants to do a longer visit next time and I’m opting out because I dread the lack of food options there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The answer is constant vigilance.

I spend 4x as much on food in the US. For staples like pasta, rice, flour, I buy EU imports. I buy bread every other day and pay 8.50 a loaf so it has only flour, yeast, water, and salt.

I make my own baked goods. Never eat anything with sugar added by the manufacturer (no jarred pasta sauce, no cold cuts, no prepared or frozen meals). Only drink coffee and water. Eat fish 2x a week, always wild-caught.

Make mostly traditional recipes: soups, stews, roast meats with vegetables. Live in a relatively walkable place where I can walk to the bakery, coffee shops, grocery store.

Then I go to Europe and eat literally whatever I want and I still lose weight. It's awful but true, to eat well in the States, it's a job.

Where do you grocery shop?

a bunch of places: online grocers bought in bulk, Whole Foods, Safeway, local grocery store, bakery, farm stand in season, farmer's market (although I have a theory that a lot of the produce in farmer's markets is the same as the grocery store, bought from wholesalers). It's basically a part-time job.

Rest assured there are plenty of overweight ppl in Europe, and the numbers are growing--so much more junk food on the shelves than even 10 years ago, and the numbers keep going up. One annoying thing is the EU is requiring large scale food manufacturers to limit the amount of sugar in products, so they're replacing it with fake sugars.

Of course. As I point out in my OP, I never noticed any difference in Germany, both in my eating habits/weight and the size of the people around me. But clearly there is a difference in my behavior when I’m eating certain foods vs others so I’m trying to solve for that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The answer is constant vigilance.

I spend 4x as much on food in the US. For staples like pasta, rice, flour, I buy EU imports. I buy bread every other day and pay 8.50 a loaf so it has only flour, yeast, water, and salt.

I make my own baked goods. Never eat anything with sugar added by the manufacturer (no jarred pasta sauce, no cold cuts, no prepared or frozen meals). Only drink coffee and water. Eat fish 2x a week, always wild-caught.

Make mostly traditional recipes: soups, stews, roast meats with vegetables. Live in a relatively walkable place where I can walk to the bakery, coffee shops, grocery store.

Then I go to Europe and eat literally whatever I want and I still lose weight. It's awful but true, to eat well in the States, it's a job.

Where do you grocery shop?

a bunch of places: online grocers bought in bulk, Whole Foods, Safeway, local grocery store, bakery, farm stand in season, farmer's market (although I have a theory that a lot of the produce in farmer's markets is the same as the grocery store, bought from wholesalers). It's basically a part-time job.

Rest assured there are plenty of overweight ppl in Europe, and the numbers are growing--so much more junk food on the shelves than even 10 years ago, and the numbers keep going up. One annoying thing is the EU is requiring large scale food manufacturers to limit the amount of sugar in products, so they're replacing it with fake sugars.

Anonymous wrote:The answer is constant vigilance.

I spend 4x as much on food in the US. For staples like pasta, rice, flour, I buy EU imports. I buy bread every other day and pay 8.50 a loaf so it has only flour, yeast, water, and salt.

I make my own baked goods. Never eat anything with sugar added by the manufacturer (no jarred pasta sauce, no cold cuts, no prepared or frozen meals). Only drink coffee and water. Eat fish 2x a week, always wild-caught.

Make mostly traditional recipes: soups, stews, roast meats with vegetables. Live in a relatively walkable place where I can walk to the bakery, coffee shops, grocery store.

Then I go to Europe and eat literally whatever I want and I still lose weight. It's awful but true, to eat well in the States, it's a job.

Where do you grocery shop?

Anonymous wrote:I’m French. When we visit our families in Paris, we walk a lot more and don’t snack at all hours. The food is also less processed. So we eat less, and better.

Here, we’re running about, grabbing snacks anytime, and it’s harder to avoid crap food.

I did notice the lack of snacking culture. There are vending machines with garbage snacks in the Metro, but I didn’t catch anyone eating them. When my tween daughter was finishing her breakfast in public, she got several baffled/judgmental looks.

The answer is constant vigilance.

I spend 4x as much on food in the US. For staples like pasta, rice, flour, I buy EU imports. I buy bread every other day and pay 8.50 a loaf so it has only flour, yeast, water, and salt.

I make my own baked goods. Never eat anything with sugar added by the manufacturer (no jarred pasta sauce, no cold cuts, no prepared or frozen meals). Only drink coffee and water. Eat fish 2x a week, always wild-caught.

Make mostly traditional recipes: soups, stews, roast meats with vegetables. Live in a relatively walkable place where I can walk to the bakery, coffee shops, grocery store.

Then I go to Europe and eat literally whatever I want and I still lose weight. It's awful but true, to eat well in the States, it's a job.

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s the walking and not the food.

I thought that too when reading the other threads, but I don’t think that anymore. While I absolutely did walk a ton more, that doesn’t explain why I didn’t finish my croissants.

I’m French. When we visit our families in Paris, we walk a lot more and don’t snack at all hours. The food is also less processed. So we eat less, and better.

Here, we’re running about, grabbing snacks anytime, and it’s harder to avoid crap food.

A lot of American foods, especially snack food and junk/fast food is designed with flavors that instigate a short-lived pleasure response. It’s all the sugar but also high levels of sodium and often carefully crafted flavors (like designed by food scientists) to provoke a jolt of pleasure. Like a drug. Once it’s over you want it again.

This is why it’s hard to stop eating many popular American foods. French fries, potato chips, cookies, soda, American-style pizza (think Papa John’s or Dominos, not Neopolitan), the sorts of snack-y foods you’d be likely to find at a Cheesecake Factory.

Traditionally, in Europe, people eat less processed foods. Flavors are less complex and less likely to have that addictive blend of sweet and salty in high concentrations. The food is designed to sate appetites, not incite addictive behavior. I’ve met many Americans who find European food too simultaneously mild and heavy.

In contrast, food in many Asian countries does tend to have more complex flavor, and more heat. However, unlike in the US, the flavors are delivered in a diet heavy in fish, while grains, and vegetables. And you still rarely find that specific blend of salty-sweet. Asian cuisine embraces a wider variety of savory flavors — tangy, sour, nutty, classic umami. But rarely combines salty and sweet and has lower sugar content in general.

American food is what happens when a culture turns its cuisine over to corporations whose goal is to sell more. The goal is not to sate, it’s to induce more eating.

People speculate about the potential impact of the chemicals and additives in American food on health, like there is some nefarious but unknown effect. And maybe there is. But the KNOWN effect is nefarious— these additives are designed to get you to want to eat more.

I'm about to go home again to North Eastern Europe and I'm simply full after eating a little. Food does no make me thing about food. Most of the vegetables are from mom's garden.
I eat, I get full fast and I can go on doing thing. My brain and stomach don't think of food like it does in US.
In US I think of my next meal while I'm eating this one.
I also hear this 'I'm starving' more in Europe than here. By the time they get home from doing thing, they are starving. There was also little less snacking.

I think it’s the walking and not the food.

I followed the thread(s) about European foods with some skepticism, because I lived for a long time in Germany, and found it no easier to lose weight there than the US. But recently I spent a longish time in France and had a totally different experience. The biggest difference is that I simply found it easier to stop eating when I was done/full. In the US I find it pretty hard to not just automatically clean my plate. In France I found myself abandoning even delicious meals because I just felt done. And it’s NOT fat content alone. I’ve tried high fat/keto living in the US and that was definitely my biggest diet failure.

So if you’re one of the people who had similar experiences living/traveling in Europe, is there anything you have done to translate it to living home again? Any ingredients you especially avoid or add?