There are a few reasons. One is that soda is marketed extremely heavily by Coke and Pepsi as a very normal drink to have all of the time. The other is that is pushed in restaurants a lot as it has a huge profit margin, similar to alcohol but you can have it as a child; relatedly children get a taste for it as its very sweet and sets people up from child hood. Another is that corn syrup is heavily subsidized, and is in food everywhere here, and very few families have a house wife cooking food from scratch these days. So processed food with sugar additives is normal giving people these addictions and cravings.

You don't need a personal chef to cook non processed food at home, not even a stay at home housewife of 60's. This is the most privileged thing I hear Americans repeating. All the raw ingredients are there at your supermarkets, cheap prices compared to your wages. I've seen it with my own eyes from visiting. It's just laziness and saving time, billions of people around the world cook at home from raw ingredients. They also go to work.

People are lazy and prefer to replace it with netflix which I don't have a problem with until people lie to themselves and others about the reasons.

I agree with this. A combo meal at McDonalds is $8 or $9 per person these days, meanwhile, a (relatively) healthy supermarket meal easily cooked on the stovetop in the time it takes to wait in a drive-thru costs $1 or $2 per person. I don't buy into the idea that Americans eat processed unhealthy foods because of their personal financial situation.

> a (relatively) healthy supermarket meal easily cooked on the stovetop in the time it takes to wait in a drive-thru

Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with your overall point....but what drive-thrus do you use?

A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour. Prep, cooking, eating, cleanup. If it takes less than that, then it's probably a lot of pre-made/processed stuff that isn't particularly healthy in itself.

The only way I've been able to get around it with my work schedule is to meal-prep on weekends. Making stuff in bulk helps, but it's still 3-5 hours of my precious weekend used up.

You're doing it wrong. There's so many ways to cook a quick healthy cheap meal.

I cook 6 chicken breasts at a time, that way I have chicken for today and the next 5 days. It takes less than 5 minutes of your time to put chicken breasts on a sheet pan and then step away for 20 minutes while they bake in the oven. Then one minute to wash the sheet pan when they are done. There's 6 minutes of my time for 6 days of chicken breasts.

Then there's so many ways to use the pre-cooked chicken breasts. One day ill chop one up mix with mayo, and mustard to make chicken salad and apply to some toast. 5 minute chicken salad sandwiches.

Next day I'll chop the chicken Breast up mix with taco seasoning microwave for 1 minute and apply to taco shells with lettuce and tomato. 5 minute tacos.

Next day I'll microwave a chicken breast with some mixed veggies. 5 minute chicken and veggies.

Next day I'll microwave the chicken breast apply to some toast with lettuce,tomato, mayo. 5 minute chicken sandwich.

That was just some things you can do with a chicken breast. There's so many meals you can prepare in less than 5 minutes that is healthier and cheaper than anything you get going out to eat.

I used to cook chicken breasts whole until I discovered that cutting them up and then cooking them turns out way better. You end up cutting them up eventually, whether it's to put in a recipe or eat. But cutting and trimming 6 chicken breasts does take a while. The supermarkets are usually pretty good at removing the fat and icky parts, but there are still sometimes bits of gristle or even occasionally bone fragments. That said, it's well worth the extra effort.

For years I could never figure out how my favorite Thai restaurant makes the chicken in the Basil Chicken dish have such a great texture. Now that I cut the chicken before cooking, I get similar results. Now if I could only get the seasonings right.

But aside from that, your recipe ideas are excellent, and I do a lot of the same kinds of things. Chicken and veggies, usually done as a stir-fry kind of thing (and with a good wok, you don't even need to add oil, although I usually put a little in).

Another item I can't live without is garlic paste. I put that in almost everything, and my wife always gives me a hard time for buying so much of it, but I use it that much. Besides, we've had an agreement for many years: She doesn't like cooking, so I do most of it. And there are few things more satisfying than having your wife just raving about some excellent dish you've prepared (ditto the kids). That alone is enough encouragement for me to keep doing it, but I get to enjoy it as well.

Chicken breast is my go-to for easy meals, but lately I've also been using tilapia filets a lot. They're relatively inexpensive... for fish... and very easy to prepare. For a treat I'll use salmon filets or tuna steaks. I love both, but my wife really prefers the tuna.

I have a number of similar dishes based on ground beef, too, (like chili) but since that's been going up in price more than chicken, I've been using it a bit less these days.

Pork loins and chops are another good protein that's easy to cook, and not too expensive, but chicken often wins because it's the cheapest of all.

FWIW, I don't go out to eat that often. I don't cook much either, except for weekend prep as mentioned. When I don't have something prepped, it's usually wraps with tortillas, baby spinach, and some sort of meat and cheese.

(Long story but I live in a complicated environment with a bunch of people who never clean up after themselves, so the kitchen is basically unusable since I refuse to clean their messes.)

Also, "some mixed veggies". Do you use frozen? I like frozen veggies, but they take a lot longer than five minutes to cook unless I'm just microwaving a steamer bag (and they never taste that good prepped that way). I much prefer fresh (and they're normally cheaper, monetarily, though obviously they take much longer to prep).

I eat 1 ~7oz chicken breast 6 days in a row. I'm currently working out daily and gaining lean muscle. Chicken is high in protein and low in fat. So yes, I consider that healthy. You don't?

The average American is eating corn, beef, french fries, and cheese for nearly every meal every single day.

have you ever heared of antibiotics?

> A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour.

It's not hard to optimize for speed. White rice, beans and frozen veggies boil in 10-15 minutes and don't even require attention for the full timespan. Cleanup consists of putting things in the dishwasher. And I don't know why you would factor in eating, going to McD won't teleport it into your stomach. Time can be further amortized by making several servings, putting them in the fridge and warming them up in the microwave later.

We're comparing to fastfood here, not a high end restaurant course.

Get an instant pot (a relatively new "smart" pressure cooker). I've been introducing my in-laws to their instant pot and it's hard for them to comprehend how fast it cooks. Mashed potatoes, steel cuts oats, lentils, all in about 10 minutes. The pot cooks everything.

My go-to lazy meal is 1 1/2 cups of rice and beans, a few cups of stock, a cup of salsa, extra flavoring as desired, whatever veggies and protein I have around, all thrown in the pot for 25 minutes. Then I take out the pot and put it in the fridge. That will last two people a few days. Very little prep for a massive amount of food.

You can also make yogurt overnight for maybe a 75% savings over store-bought.

The other tip with the instant pot I’ve found is to put your food in a glass bowl on the steamer tray in the instant pot. This way you can add exactly the amount of water, and you don’t make a mess of the pot.

Cleanup for me definitely doesn't consist only of the dishwasher; my knives, wok, cast iron stuff to start definitely don't get put in there.

I have optimized what I do quite well, or at least I'm much faster than I used to be. But for example this last weekend, I made some stir fry in a large batch for this week's meals. By the time I left my parents' house (long story but I basically can't cook at the house I live in), I had used up three hours. That was prepping four bell peppers, an onion, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, and chicken, cooking them, and cleaning up afterward.

I'm sure I can speed my prep up even more, mostly with knife skills. But at this point, that's how it is.

I factor in eating because I clean up after I eat. Most of the stuff I make is best fresh out of the frying pan with very minimal resting time.

But anyway, I'm not here to argue. If cooking at home works for you in 15 minutes, fantastic! I can't do that, it never works that quickly. I was mostly wondering how the parent poster's drive-thrus were so slow that they could cook faster because where I live, I never spend more than five minutes in one.

Cooking time heavily depends on the dish. There are recipes optimized for time consumption - if time is a priority, you could use those. Sometimes we just put potatoes in the pressure cooker, peel afterwards, and season with some oil and spice - takes 10m max. That’s the healthier alternative to fries from McD. A keto meal will take longer, but at least in my area there‘s no takeout option for keto anyway.

>there‘s no takeout option for keto anyway.

Big Mac, no bun, extra mac sauce. /s

I feel like this doesn’t optimize for enjoyment. Like shit this is what I ate when I was a broke in college. Are y’all not miserable eating this? At that point in my life getting taken by my parents out to somewhere mediocre like Olive Garden was heaven.

Boiled veggies are disgustingly bland.

We season and bake our veggies. It adds to cost, but doesn't make me want to toss my food in the trash.

If you don't boil them too much, they're plenty flavourful.

It's just that it's the flavour of the vegetable, which isn't full of sugar, salt, or msg unlike the very optimized processed foods

I blanch broccoli for two minutes and it turns out just fine. The days of boiling all vegetables until they turn grey are long gone.

And I don't find any need to put butter or other stuff on the broccoli. Usually just a smidge of Tony Chachere and garlic powder.

No we're not miserable. In fact having home cooked healthy meals daily makes me feel better than ever. When I go eat fast food now I feel noticeably worse than I normally do.

You are what you eat. Eat garbage fast food, and you will feel like garbage. And your body slowly accumulates all that garbage.

Traditional dine in restaurants are usually just as unhealthy as eating fast food as well.

It's actually shocking to me that garbage food has been normalized to the point where eating healthy is "what I ate when I was a broke in college." and that we must be miserable eating healthy.

Wow that's crazy.

I don't think they are necessarily saying that fast food is healthier, just that you aren't going to get too many people excited by claiming that cooking for yourself from scratch is easy and doesn't take much time. Then you go on to describe a meal that consists of white rice and boiled vegetables.

You're right. Cooking takes a lot of time, and cooking good healthy food that isn't boring can be expensive. I'm sorry, I can't live on vegetables and be happy. I cook plenty of chicken, fish and red meat as well. Although my appreciation for vegetables have gone up considerably in the past couple decades. The first lesson I learned is that canned vegetables are awful. Frozen is much better. Now I feel that frozen is awful (well, for things like spinach, broccoli, carrots and cauliflower anyway, corn and beans are fine). Now I only like fresh veggies (except for corn, frozen corn is fine). But fresh veggies don't keep long. There's a Lotte about 20 minutes away that has about twice as many different kinds of produce as most markets, and at about half the price, but that's a long way to go for every day shopping. I'll get fresh veggies at Giant or Target, but I don't like paying so much more.

I happen to love cooking, so to me it's relaxing. My wife doesn't like to cook, so I do most of it. But even still, as much as I like doing it, there are definitely days when I don't feel like all the work. And if I'm going to put the effort into making stuff, I want to make something good, and often something new, and that takes a lot of time.

And while brown rice is much better than white rice. If you want white rice, go with basmati. It tastes much better, cooks faster, and is hard to screw up. I don't understand why people use any other white rice. There are tons of other kinds of rice that are worth exploring too. They all have much more interesting flavors and textures than plain old generic long-grain white rice.

No, we’re not miserable. That’s just the media environment playing mind tricks on you to get you to buy things you don’t need so you don’t miss out on the montage of joyous people and half-naked bodies playing and frolicking on the sunny ocean beach with refreshing, ice-cold, bubbly, intensely colored sugar water.

Yo that’s super depressing if you’re buying your time back just to watch TV. Do you just assume that people don’t have friends, hobbies, side projects?

Sure, people have those. Friends to go out with to spend money, because that’s the way to socialize. Hobbies that require buying more non-essential things, and places to keep them in. Larger apartments to accommodate everything. Side projects to keep you busy while the world goes to shit.

So are you saying you don't have friends, you don't go out to socialize, you don't have hobbies, you don't do any work besides what your regular job pays you for, and you stay home in a small apartment and eat mostly white rice and boiled vegetables?

I don't believe your assessment of most peoples' priorities in life is helping you very much in convincing them to adopt your worldview and way of life.

That’s their problem, not mine.

Didn't optimizing for enjoyment get the US into this obesity thing in the first place? Maybe let's not do that so much? Like just season stuff well, even boiled veggies

Unless we are talking about the kind of restaurants that are difficult to get a reservation for, then I think you are confused about what creates status in American culture.

Going through the drive through at McDonalds certainly will not raise your status in America.

Rice = carbs Beans = carbs Veggies = carbs?

All these carbs can and probably will be bad for your health, regardless of where you get them.

The easy things to fix tend to also be less healthy for you. And the less time and money you have, you tend to lean into this trap even more.

Brans are extremely high in protein, and when combined with rice you get all of the essential amino acids. Plants are more than just "carbs"

Life isn't quite that simple

Beans*

This hits home for me. I really enjoy cooking but I’ve basically given up on weeknight meals that aren’t either leftovers from when I cook for fun or something prepared.

Like it is genuinely the most out of touch privileged statement but I have the money and am absolutely willing to buy the time. $30-70/wk (less the cost of groceries) to gain 8ish hours of leisure time and more variety than I would ever bother with is a no brainer experience at this point in my life.

I agree with this if your single, but if your a family every meal outside is 4 times the price and the time to prep the meal at home stays almost the same.

How much time do you spend driving to the drive-through, queueing up at a drive-through, making your order at the drive-through, waiting for your order at the drive-through, receiving the order from the drive-through, and then taking the order from the drive-through home before you eat it?

Add up that time over the course of a week and see how much time you waste on convenience.

You can cook a lot of inexpensive and healthy food in less than an hour. Protein, veg, complex carbs. Get a wok and do some stir fry - you can make a meal in literally 5 minutes then.

> Get a wok and do some stir fry - you can make a meal in literally 5 minutes then.

I own a wok and stir fry is my go to meal- I can’t make meals in 5 minutes. I take the time to cut vegetables/protein, then clean up afterwards. And if you’re going from pre-cut frozen it takes more than 5 minutes to thaw???

I agree that stir fry is a fast easy meal but I really disagree with this exaggeration of its speed. It makes the argument disingenuous.

It's similar to saying fast food is fast because you get served in 5 minutes, but don't count the time you spend in your car on the journey there and back.

People pick up fast food on their way home from work. The time that takes is only the difference in travel vs the most direct route (could be negligible) plus the time spent waiting in the drive thru. On the other hand, a lot of recipes online or in cookbooks completely ignore the time it takes to wash and cut vegetables, meats, and clean up after the meal. Recipes quoted to take 15 minutes can easily take over an hour. Lots of people also don’t know how to sharpen and use a kitchen knife properly so they take even longer for simple prep tasks. It’s fine to say “well they’ll get better if they take the time to learn” but they may not have time between multiple jobs and looking after kids.

I love to cook, and I make home-made meals from fresh ingredients regularly, and it does take a lot of time. I will often spend 3-5 hours on the weekend cooking meals for the family as well, but since I find it relaxing and fun, I don't feel like I'm "losing" that time. Well, usually. I do keep some frozen meals or other similar stuff around because I don't always have the time or sometimes don't feel like making something fancy.

On Wednesday, I made a stir-fry with boneless chicken breast , broccoli, poblano peppers, canned mandarin oranges, canned pineapple, garlic and ginger paste. It took a little more than an hour for this "quick" meal. I should have chopped a couple of onions, but I was getting lazy.

After reading your post, I'm realizing that I spend a _lot_ of time chopping vegetables. I have a food processor from 25+ years ago, but I can't find all the parts to it. I think it's time to find those, or just replace it.

> A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour

Cut some onions and garlic, some cabbage and perhaps some dried sausage, fry it while your rice is cooking. Dinner done in 20 minutes. Cleanup is done with a dishwasher, because I don't live in a swamp. Forgoing rice, it can be done far faster.

I personally compare cooking time to time to go out end-to-end. Even with fast food, you have to drive to the pickup window, wait for the food, etc. It’s easily 10 minutes and you have to do it 1-2 times a day, so 2-3 hours a week. I’ve had fast food joints take 20 minutes to make the food, too.

I don’t think most people analyze the cost like this and they probably like restaurant food more.

It’s like spending “just 10 minutes” on HN everyday, adding up to something significant by the end of the week.

Yeah cooking is really boring to me and extremely unrewarding as I live alone.

I wish I could simply but healthy meals for a few bucks. I mean I can outsource my laundry for 7€ a bag and get it washed, dried and folded the next day. Why doesn't it work like that with food?

There's takeaway of course but those aren't the healthiest of options. It's more a luxury special thing. I wish I could get a meal service like some old people get :)

Fwiw I do meal prep. The downside to it is refrigerated or frozen cooked food that you eat the same dish of for an entire week. The upside is that I get to cook and eat all kinds of world cuisine (some quite labor intensive), while still being quite alright on time spent cooking. So even though its microwaved leftovers, the very different flavor profiles that I get to snack on every week makes it up for me.

> A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour. Prep, cooking, eating, cleanup

As you cook more at home, you get much faster at it. Especially for recipes you familiarize yourself with. It also becomes less of a chore as it requires less focus and you can do other stuff (listen to music/podcast, chat with your SO/roomates) while cooking.

Cooking and cleaning up from even a simple meal takes at a minimum 10x the amount of time that a 3 minute drive through a fast food place costs.

Are you kidding me? No it absolutely does not. I make every single one of my meals in less than 15 minutes including cleanup time. I have been doing this for 10+ years.

It would be at least a 15 minute round trip to the drive thru from my house and would cost 5x as much and be 10x less healthy.

Making simple meals takes just a few minutes.

My most common lunch is a salad that takes all of 5 minutes to chop the vegetables. My most common dinner is a bowl of steamed vegetables that takes seconds to throw in the microwave, and a baked potato that takes seconds to put in the toaster oven a half-hour ahead of time. Oatmeal or eggs for breakfast take five minutes or less too.

Unless you really work incredible hours, like a 16 to 24 hour medical shift or something, citing time as a reason not to prepare food is either looking for an excuse or way overshooting on the complexity needed.

Time is valuable whether you work 16 hour days or 2 hour days.

Wasting it on mindless things like chopping vegetables or washing pots and pans is of course a choice you are free to make, but it is a foolish one in my view.

It's usually about 2x the time to clean up after a meal than it is to actually prepare it, in my experience. The cooking is easy, but cooking makes a mess of the stove, of the pots and pans, of the utensils, et c.

I‘ve never cleaned up longer than 5 minutes after a meal, and I‘m cooking 1-2x a day for a family of four. Cook just one dish, ideally in a single pan/pot or in the oven. Get a pressure cooker for one-pot-dishes, ideally a smart one with auto-shutdown. Get machine-washable utensils. Get a self-cleaning stove (who cares about the mess anyway). Coated pans can just be rinsed with a soft brush and dried immediately (only smelly stuff like fish needs to be soaked).

Privileged, certainly. I take exception to the "laziness" accusation though.

We all have a finite amount of time on this planet, and replacing menial tasks with things that are interesting or enriching should be considered one of the more positive things one can do for their own life. It's like what they say about being rich/wealthy. Many people (I blame media mostly) think about the luxury items and lifestyle that one can purchase, but the real win is that fact that you don't have to anything you don't want to do ever again. You can choose exactly how you are going to live your life.

I don't personally believe life has a purpose or meaning, and I've become content to just wander the world finding interesting things until the end of it.

Since the edit timer has passed, I didn't intend to imply that cooking is only ever a menial activity.

The word came to mind thinking about coming home from a rough day at work and needing to put something, anything together to eat when you'd rather be doing literally anything else.

I'm not talking about a planned meal where some actual planning and effort went into a meal that the cook is hoping you'll enjoy, I'm talking about the results of "i'm tired and hungry and I need to make something and I'm hating the entire process" kind of meals.

The kind of cooking where you mechanically put something together without much thought because you're at the end of your rope for the day.

Obviously such a concept expands well beyond "cooking". Replace that with car maintenance, lawn care, programming, writing, etc. People enjoy different things, and would prefer to replace those activities they don't enjoy with something else.

Being able to is privilege, but I (personally) draw a hard line at calling that laziness.

Optimizing your time so that you can live your life the way you want to is a great idea. I daydream of having a personal chef so I can spend more time reading, studying, or any other activity that brings meaning to my life. But let's be honest, most of that time that people are freeing up with Uber Eats is spent scrolling through social media or watching Netflix.

Assumption: cooking isn't interesting or enriching.

I think you could replace HN time with cooking, and it would be both more interesting and saving money definitely makes it more enriching

All I'm seeing from your comment is insulting OP's desire to not spend time cooking, and shaming it as being lazy. You don't even bother to back up your claim that it's not menial. Is shame really all you have to bring to the conversation?

By the same token, OP was being insulting to people who choose to cook, and shaming it as being uninteresting.

I don't think it's the most charitable interpretation in either case.

I think they just meant it's uninteresting to them. I know how that feels. I really hate cooking myself. It's just so hard getting regular healthy meals another way

That's what I meant. The "menial" adjective was more describing something that is uninteresting to a person that is either basic and mechanical in the simplest form. As someone who loves good food, I am well aware that good cooking takes skill and effort. The meal made when I get home from a rough day at work and would rather be doing anything else is rarely an example of that.

I made some seasoned rice, a cucumber salad, and some sesame seed encrusted seared Ahi the other day. It was delicious and healthy, but it took 2 hours to put together, eat, and clean up after. That's not something I'm going to have the desire to do every day.

OP was (at worst) saying that cooking is menial. Not a comment about a person, and not a particularly negative descriptor. The person I replied to then indirectly called him lazy and made an insulting bad-faith assumption about how OP spends his time. The reply is pretty clearly an ad hominem.

I did not imply anything about how OP spends their time. I was referring to how I used to spend my time, which is much more clearly implied in that I refer to my own history of bad habits.

The evidence is massive and drastic that the eating habits of the majority of Americans are killing us. Maybe approaching 50 is making me care less about insulting sensitive internet randos than with helping people understand the consequences of poor eating habits and the fairly simple way one can change. Sorry for caring.

Not being willing to feed your sole human body properly is the definition of lazy in my opinion. It's purely an opinion, as is the opinion that doing so is menial, so there's no "backing up the claim". If someone is insulted by my belief that humans should be willing to spend time feeding themselves, so be it. My point is to encourage healthy behavior, not to insult.

Some meals are so easy to cook that you could actually watch the TV while cooking, only looking away for a few moments, usually while cutting ingredients. (Then there are other meals where such approach would most likely result in burning the meal.)

Yep. I often listen to audiobooks while cooking - ideal for shutting down after work.

It kind of comes down to wealth and the average American is significantly wealthier than the average Indian (or average a lot of countries). Wealth affords you time for things that you care to pursue rather than things you have to. For an American this translates to a lot of people not spending much time in the kitchen.

It could perhaps be perceived as laziness when you deride whatever replacement someone chooses over basic chores they’re no longer responsible for but really this is you conflating leisurely activities as lazy.

I personally enjoy cooking but not everyone does and them choosing to pay to not have to do that is their choice.

Yeah that's just coping. America is fat and lazy and it makes us superior to those untermensch who try to feed their kids responsibly.

You know it's okay to criticize the environment you grow up in right? It's how society improves.

"Privilege" is an interesting word. If I were Indian or Chinese, I would feel privileged to have been raised in one the world's greatest food cultures instead of eating spaghetti and mac 'n' cheese like an American my whole life.

Kids don't choose what their parents feed them, and that's how culture is imparted to the next generation.

I had a friend from Thailand who was an au pair in a very wealthy American family. She was genuinely sorry for them because they never ate fresh food.

That being said, junk food isn't the privilege of Americans. Even countries with a "food culture" like France eat a lot of junk food.

This is a very broad statement. It's likely true in some cases, but access to food is wildly different depending on where you live and how much you make.

Consider these individuals (not meant as an exhaustive list of archetypes):

1. A high-income American who lives in a large city, owns a car and/or can afford grocery delivery

2. A middle-income American who lives in the suburbs and has access to a grocery store, but is price-sensitive when it comes to food

3. A low-income American without access to a car, who lives in a "food desert" in a large city and does most of their shopping at a bodega/corner market

4. An American who lives in a rural area without a grocery store for several miles

The way these people engage with food is wildly different, and only those in the first group could be rationally considered "lazy" if they chose processed food.

If your goal is simply to feed yourself and your family, you're likely going to optimize more for calories-per-dollar than you are than for freshness. When compared to processed food, fresh produce is actually incredibly expensive.

>You don't need s personal chef to cook non processed food at home, not even a stay at home housewife of 60's. This is the most privileged thing I hear Americans repeating

I think you are manufacturing your own argument here - no one said that they had to eat at a restaurant, have a personal chef, or a 60s housewife to eat well?

I think you've misread something, the parent post specifically mentioned personal chefs. Not trying to manufacture anything here and I give you the benefit of doubt.

The hours that you save not cooking meals add up. One hour a day spent cooking all three means (conservative estimate) is a lot when you have roughly 5 hours outside of work and sleep (likely less if you have a long commute). With access to outside food also cheap, there are other priorities to focus on. I don't live in the US, but cooking for myself only made sense after I started meal prepping.

Americans don't know how to cook, and don't have somebody to teach them the basics.

The bar to entry gets high when your parents can't cook

My mom had a job. When she came home she still cooked a meal for her family. With vegetables.

The real truth is that a majority of Americans are now overweight. Unhealthy lifestyle has been normalised to a point when non fat kids who don't eat pizza for lunch will be bullied.

Not sure what a google search for "2021 High School America" is supposed to prove. Its just a collection of photo's of beauty pagent winners and athletes...

Then we are getting localized results differences. I spent a few seconds scrolling down those links and there are dozens of group shot photos of dozens of American school children. It’s anecdotal evidence showing that the majority of American children are not obese which you can see in those photos with your own eyes. If you don’t like anecdotes it’s followed up with the actual population level statistics from an authoritative source.

Idk if “cooking from scratch” is something of privilege but my entire extended family and my wife’s entire extended family all cook “from scratch” most of the time unless we’re dining out. Anecdotal but I’ve known very few people/families who rely solely on take out/prepared meals for their sustenance.

> and very few families have a house wife cooking food from scratch these days

is that sexist or are you stupid? I have news for you then - guys can cook, too - no kidding

A ton of fast food to fast casual places offer it with meals so people just drink it. I usually get unsweet tea instead (no it’s not the tea you are thinking of). Mexico consumes the most Sodas and beats the US despite having a much smaller population.

Most people I know who actually buy soda and bring it to their home either don’t drink alcohol or coffee. Plenty of Indian’s drink tea and there are probably street vendors who sell sugar cane juice or fresh squeezed fruit.

Everyone has their vices. Lots of people chew Paan and betel leaf but you’d never hear about it in the US.

In Mexico, there's also the fact that soda is often the most easily available source of clean water. When I was in rural Chiapas and Guatemala ca 1992, I think I drank very little that wasn't soda during that time.¹

1. Because the glass bottles were fairly precious by local economic standards, soda would be served "to go" in a plastic bag with a straw and a rubber band to keep it closed.

Yes I’ve had the bag method in Costa Rica. They wouldn’t even let me touch the bottle.

I don't like the blandness of water, if you want a first-person perspective. I consume a lot of diet soda, probably 8-10 cans a day. I'm always drinking something; if it's not soda, it's green tea, or gatorade, or coffee. I always need to be drinking something and diet soda is... well, something.

It's not much of a decision point, I don't really think about it in terms of expected value or return on my choice, diet soda is simply the answer to the question of, "What are you drinking?"

And despite articles like the submission, there's no real observed downside to this choice (I'm not obese, and have never been obese, so this article doesn't really apply to me), other than potentially what the carbonation could be doing to my teeth, and as long as my dentist doesn't seem to have any concerns (she doesn't), I persist.

No judgment is meant here - I am always so curious about people who think water is bland. When I'm thirsty, cold ice water is the best tasting thing on the planet to me.

I enjoy the taste of diet pop, but I also find myself reaching for it sometimes out of sheer boredom rather than thirst. If I drink some water and I find it bland, to me that's a sign I wasn't actually thirsty.

I don't think there's anything unusual about reaching for a soda as a treat for its taste. But in terms of pure thirst-quenching - damn does water hit the spot.

Mostly it's acclimatization, I think. If you have sweet stuff all the time, it doesn't taste all that sweet anymore, and everything else seems bland.

But there's also genetics. Some people spit out stuff like "omg, that's too sweet! yuck!" I eat a pretty spare diet these days and try to eliminate sugars and other additives, and still, sweet is good. I cannot put together this concept, "too" sweet. My sister doesn't like the taste of red meat, never has. People are just different!

Why would you want to limit yourself to drinking only when you're thirsty?

Short of overhydration, there are no downsides to pretty much constantly consuming non-caloric liquids.

Given your list of beverages, it sounds to me you might be subconsciously self-medicating with caffeine :). Myself, I'm constantly drinking either black tea or diet coke, all day long. I only drink water as last resort. I've been like that since childhood. It only recently occurred to me that I'm always settling on drinking choices that supply me with stimulants, indicating a potential deficiency problem.

Drinking water excessively is often an indicator of illness eg diabetes. Other reasons exist. The "its a hot day" reason is better than most but cold non-sugar drinks are usually more refreshing.

I don't think these people drink soda because they're thirsty. They drink it because they enjoy the taste and it's something to do, it's almost a small form of entertainment. As a result they're never really thirsty in the first place.

It's also what you're used to. There was a time when I would drink a lot of soda, but then I made an effort to switch to just water (and coffee). I almost never crave soda now.

I'm addicted to the carbonation and bite of the citric acid, personally. Though, I did recently switch to Zevia and now limit my intake.

I agree with you. My dad only drinks coke and says water is bland/bitter. There is definitely a connection between the two.

Also soda is just easy.

Dressing up water with lemons or whatever takes time. Grabbing a soda from the fridge is dang near effortless.

Plus caffeine.

A soda stream might change your life. It's an amazing device to have. Hope you drink enough water to keep yourself healthy and your skin looking fresh.

tip: take carbonated water and put some lemons in it. removes the blandness

If you do this all the time you may have issues with your teeth.

Acid + teeth is not a good mix.

Soda (even diet soda) is incredibly acidic - lemon water is better than nothing

It tastes delicious and its super cheap. 36 cans at costco are about 10 dollars. I love having one after lunch or in the evenings when I'm unwinding.

No calories, better than alcohol and the delight.

The only thing is if I drink a lot of it in a week, I sort of get used to the taste.

Also Coke Zero is the only one that I've found that doesn't have an artificial taste to it. Things like Sprite Zero have a very odd after taste.

I'm originally from India, so I can understand your apprehension, but a diet soda is really cheap here.

> I live in India and flavored soda is considered luxury item here.

I worked for a B-School program which looked at growth opportunities for Cola in India.

One of the challenges were lack of electricity in large parts of the country. Even those who had electricity did not get it for 24x7. Those who had it uninterrupted could not afford to buy a freezer. This prevented the whole appeal of cold drinks that are not cold. Coca Cola and Pepsi invested heavily in refrigeration technologies as they mass imported cheap fridges and offered them for free. But electricity being government controlled remains a luxury in India. Coca Cola and Pepsi did crazy things to solve this problem including creating tie ups with ice makers who supply ice slabs for special events to brine based coolers than can keep things cool for 12 hours.

The results however were stunning. From 2016 to 2020, India has doubled the per capita consumption of cola per year to around 88 bottles. I think it is fair to assume that the ceiling for this number is around 1500 bottles per year because both USA and Mexico consume that much soda. Given the income difference between both countries I think that is an upper bound.

USA has 30x of India's per capita income but only 20x more soda consumption. Which makes me think Indians are going to hit that 1500 bound much much sooner than expected.

Note:

Some of our research results were fascinating and counterintuitive.

People preferred Coca Cola because it was "healthy" to a locally produced freshly squeezed sugarcane juice. The reasoning was that while the juicer center does not even have a food department clearance and is unsanitary, people had more faith in soft drink manufacturers quality control. Ice mixed with sugar cane juice was often transported via two wheelers, kept on the road and smashed into smaller pieces with a hammer.

When people were convinced that the sugar cane juice was produced in extremely clean fashion people preferred it over coke and were willing to even pay more than coke.

Companies like Paperboat in India have come into existence from these sort of insights.

American who's kicked a soda addiction -- it's super cheap, tasty, has some caffeine, and it's everywhere (gas station, convenience store, supermarket, advertisements), not to mention you have to walk by a soda fridge near the checkout lines of most retail stores. I only drank diet soda but you become so desensitized to it that water is 'boring' in comparison you don't reach for it as easily

Advertisement. Coca Cola spends billions every year in advertising. Nobody would drink this otherwise.

What I don't get is how they can get away with it. I mean people are getting crazy over companies like Facebook but junk food companies get a free pass for some reason. Most Americans are even unable to see the link with obesity rates.

It used to be a cliche that American tourists were the only ones who would order water at cafes or restaurants in certain countries.

When I was a kid and I'd visit my Dad he always had 'pop' around, and it was just something we'd power through without thinking. I'm not sure if I even thought that it was bad for me in a concrete way. It was just super sweet and felt 'fun'.

When I was 19 I worked at a tech company with unlimited pop available. The 15lbs of additional weight caused me to look at it a whole different way, and broke that habit pretty fast!

Now the only time I have Coke is after a huge endurance event, otherwise it's just way too much.

Unrelated, but it’s “pop”, “soda”, “soda pop”, or “coke” (regardless of brand) depending where in the US you are. It’s a regional dialect thing.

Does “coke” include non-cola flavoured beverages in parts of the US? Here in the UK we tend to call them “fizzy drinks” FWIW.

In the south-eastern US, it's totally normal to order an "orange Coke" (which Coca-Cola either does not make or does not call "Coke" at a minimum).

I can kind of see how that came about—my kids would assume that any soda I drank was a diet coke and would refer to orange soda as orange diet coke.

In the American South, you're likely to hear "coke" regardless of whether it's actually Coke, or even cola-flavored. It's "pop" up north, and "soda" in the northeast and southwest (plus a couple of pockets near Milwaukee and St. Louis, which would otherwise be "pop" territory - fascinating stuff).

Whenever I would visit family in Louisiana, it was pretty common to go to restaurants, and even at places that exclusively served Pepsi products, asking "what kind of Coke do you want?"

Yep. Coke is every carbonated sugar drink. You have to get all the way to la croix for it to stop being a coke. South-Eastern USA aka "The American South"

Here's some interesting regional US dialect maps:

https://www.rd.com/list/regional-sayings-phrases-words/

It's just culture. Some cultures eat a lot of rice, some drink a lot of vodka, some eat a lot of fish. Probably a mix of marketing and cultural taste like most things.

Soda is highly subsidized in the US, it is a consequence of US gov subsidizing corn syrup, so on a ratio of wages to prize sodas are very, very, very cheap, and in a country with few public bathrooms or public fountains, the easiest way to have a drink while on the go used to be sodas

These days it is more common to ask for water, but even then, that will be bottled water and the prices can be similar to soda

Are we talking about the same US? I don't live there anymore, but I'm always surprised by the high number of indoor fountains in publicly-accessible buildings (as well as many parks and outdoor locations) there. For instance, every library, shopping mall, or larger store seems to have one near the bathrooms.

Meanwhile, in some European countries, for instance, outdoor fountains can be more plentiful which is fantastic in its own way, and indoor options are much less common. In others, neither outdoor nor indoor options exist so one is forced to find a public bathroom to use the faucet.

In some other countries, both public bathrooms and water fountains can be very rare, which unfortunately leaves no viable option.

You can always ask for a glass of water specifically. Any place with a soda fountain can give you cold, filtered tap water.

Exactly

But that didn't use to be culturally ingrained in the US until just relatively recently, and since then it has been exported abroad

Soda isn't really subsidized. Yes corn is subsidized but the main cost of soda is advertising, packaging and distribution, the flavor and syrup (or in the case the sweetener) costs nothing.

I can tell you that for me personally, it’s a way to get a small bump of caffeine. I’ve learned to drink more tea in the last few years, but having strong bitter receptors make coffee a flat out no.

Several people I know who grew up drinking pop will say they "hate water". Drinking water for them is boring or like a chore. The local water here is even highly ranked among the US as a whole for good taste, so it's not that our water is actually bad. I do recall feeling similarly in the past. At some point I got a nice metal water bottle and started carrying it around and drinking water, and I grew to enjoy it. Time away from pop and energy drinks for a while also made it more obvious how gross my mouth feels after drinking some. My tongue feels coated and sticky for hours, my teeth sometimes seem to feel weak. I imagine in the past this was something like my normal state. I didn't know what I was missing. It's hard to convince people to change on this. They'll get an attitude like you're some health freak trying to hook them on a diet. Even my parents have a favorite pop each and will drink 2-3 a day. Caffeine probably plays a large part as well. Most of the people I have in mind don't like or consume tea or coffee at all, because they don't taste very good (especially when you're used to pop).

It's normal to give to children due to marketing and it has not 1 but 2 addictive ingredients. Sugar && Caffeine. I was addicted to soda as a teen and it was very difficult to quit I had huge cravings.

It's such a good question! And all the answers here are "it's cheap" or "I'm used to it" or "I only drink the sugar free version"... Why is there no self reflection? Everyone's getting pested by theses corporations. "I don't like the bland taste of water." wtf is wrong with you?! Some people in the world have to walk miles to get water! And we could have it from the tap. Just drink it from the tap! Seriously, I thought people were smart in here, but all these answers...

>Why is there no self reflection?

>Seriously, I thought people were smart in here, but all these answers...

Shame culture is sad and pretty obnoxious. Does that a make you feel good about yourself, was that your objective? WTF do you care what people drink? Maybe do some self reflection on that.

> I am ignorant in this topic, but why do americans seem to drink soda( pop as they call in cinema) excessively ? I live in India and flavoured soda is considered luxury item here.

You answered your own question - because America is wealthy and Soda is cheap.

I'm in New Zealand and soda was definitely a luxury growing up. But here it cost 14.57 USD for an 18 pack, while for a 24 pack in the states it's 10.22 USD. So almost half the price.

There's the fact that soda is packed with sugar and people getting addicted to the dopamine hits. [1][2]

[1]https://wexnermedical.osu.edu/blog/addicted-to-soda [1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6488513/

In the case of diet soda, I assume that since most people already start drinking regular soda, there's a placebo effect.

I don't know if someone already mentioned this, but a big factor is that a bottle of soda costs the same as a bottle of water, and some times even less. It's absurd, because soft drinks are made of water, so water must be cheaper! Unfortunately, soft drink companies try to corner the bottled water market so it doesn't undermine their sales.

It's pretty darn good and you can find it everywhere for quite cheap.

> We just drink water with everything

People who grow up on soda invariably think water "tastes bad", which has been the reason folks around me keep drinking it. I find it as mystifying as you.

Water? You mean like in the toilet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YZnORoAWkA

Excessive soda consumption? That's me! But I drink the sugar free versions.

I guess because it is cheap (~$1 for 2 litres), sweet, and fizzy.

Honestly yeah, I just prefer all my drinks fizzy. But carbonated water has something off about it.

The ph sits in a different place. Try adding a dash of lemon or lime juice.

Tasty. Fizzy. Caffeine. Cheap. Tons of flavor options.