In the US, eating out used to be seen as a luxury. Your parents would hire a babysitter and then go get a steak dinner with a baked potato and a dessert. This ritual might happen 3-5 times per year (anniversary, birthdays, and maybe Valentines). You also needed to drive into the city from your suburban town which added time and complexity.
Eating like this a few times a year is fine and not really an issue for our metabolism. Most people probably wouldn't even notice.
As America developed into the 21st century, the restaurant experience was transformed into a solution for the working class, but the core product did not change. So now they have crazy high calorie meals with the price and convenience of the snacks at your local European cafe.
Since I moved to to the EU from the US, this is just blatantly obvious. Eating out here is expensive (at least in NL) so when I do go out to eat, I don't really care about nutrition macros. I'm usually there to celebrate and enjoy myself.
We're starting to see a shift in the past decade of restaurants realizing that they have an obligation to their customers to provide a "healthy" meal while struggling internally to balance that with the obvious; if stuff tastes really good (ie more fat and sugar) then people will want to come back.
Surprisingly, Taco Bell has been a leader in this movement and is slowly changing their menu to be more healthy and accessible to alternate diets while still maintaining loyalty with their customer base.
As inflation continues and entry-level restaurant workers continue to push for higher and higher wages, it will be interesting to see how the market reacts. Americans only eat out so much because it's (somewhat) affordable. Take that away and watch how these businesses transform again to cater to new customer demands.
Yea but most people don’t exclusively eat there. I lived in a major metro area with a great food scene. But even then, 90% of those restaurants were competing with big chains on price anyway. Maybe they were 10% more in some cases, but it’s not like every restaurant in NYC has a Michelin star.
Eating like this a few times a year is fine and not really an issue for our metabolism. Most people probably wouldn't even notice.
As America developed into the 21st century, the restaurant experience was transformed into a solution for the working class, but the core product did not change. So now they have crazy high calorie meals with the price and convenience of the snacks at your local European cafe.
Since I moved to to the EU from the US, this is just blatantly obvious. Eating out here is expensive (at least in NL) so when I do go out to eat, I don't really care about nutrition macros. I'm usually there to celebrate and enjoy myself.
We're starting to see a shift in the past decade of restaurants realizing that they have an obligation to their customers to provide a "healthy" meal while struggling internally to balance that with the obvious; if stuff tastes really good (ie more fat and sugar) then people will want to come back.
Surprisingly, Taco Bell has been a leader in this movement and is slowly changing their menu to be more healthy and accessible to alternate diets while still maintaining loyalty with their customer base.
As inflation continues and entry-level restaurant workers continue to push for higher and higher wages, it will be interesting to see how the market reacts. Americans only eat out so much because it's (somewhat) affordable. Take that away and watch how these businesses transform again to cater to new customer demands.