Non-Americans' view of the U.S.

[Prime32]

The pledge of allegiance is creepy as fuck.

This.

[FireInTheSky]

The pledge of allegiance is creepy as fuck.

This.

True dat.

[Unbeliever]

Anecdote about portion sizes.  A few months ago I moved to Texas from New York.  And, we definitely noticed the increase in portion sizes at restaurants,  pretty much anywhere that isn't a chain.

The huge fixed expenses relating to public transportation are also an issue.  Either public transport or cars represent a significant infrastructure decision:  you either build the transport, or your build roads and gas stations, etc.  And,  people structure their lives around those decisions.  Shifting from one track to another is an extremely costly and an extremely slow process.  There are some places -- e.g., the Northeast Corridor -- where that's feasible and we see public transport.  Other places -- e.g., much of Texas -- it'd most likely be cost prohibitive.  This relates to the earlier comment just about size.  The amount of train stations or bus stops you'd have to put near one-horse towns would make it inefficient, I suspect.

[bhu]

Portion size is something we have a problem with. If fast food would cut down on portions it would help solve America's obesity problem.

Actually it would help if they made stuff out of actual food as opposed to processed starches meant to be a food-like substance...

[FireInTheSky]

Portion size is something we have a problem with. If fast food would cut down on portions it would help solve America's obesity problem.

Actually it would help if they made stuff out of actual food as opposed to processed starches meant to be a food-like substance...

But...but...it's in the constitution that you have the right to eat however much you want of whatever you want, even especially if it's not nutritious, and the government can't make any laws infringing on that!!!!

Also: BLOOMBERG! 

[bhu]

I'm not suggesting you should outlaw stuff so much as transparency.  For example instead of 'white meat chicken' restaurants should call it what it is: "Processed beaks, chicken balls, lungs, and other bits you wouldn't voluntarily eat mixed with fat and ground feathers and food starches disguised by thick glutinous sauces meant to fool you into believing this is something people normally consider edible"

[FireInTheSky]

I'm not suggesting you should outlaw stuff so much as transparency.  For example instead of 'white meat chicken' restaurants should call it what it is: "Processed beaks, chicken balls, lungs, and other bits you wouldn't voluntarily eat mixed with fat and ground feathers and food starches disguised by thick glutinous sauces meant to fool you into believing this is something people normally consider edible"

DAMMIT! Now I'm hungry. 

[awaken_D_M_golem]

If American restaurants cut down on portion size I'd just have to order multiple meals....

IKR, I like my 10-piece chicken nuggets.

True story:
"I'll take 3 of them 6-piece McNugs and an extra Ranch sauce.  I'd git more but I got dinner in 2 hours."
... I came to my senses, and left before ordering.

[ketaro]

I like my 20pc nuggets, though. :3
"would you like a sid--"
Hell yeeaaaah I would. Damn straight I'll go for large for only an extra few pennies!

[Sinfire Titan]

True story:
"I'll take 3 of them 6-piece McNugs and an extra Ranch sauce.  I'd git more but I got dinner in 2 hours."
... I came to my senses, and left before ordering.

Seen that too.

[Dkonen]

Think of it this way-all those fast food restaurants are just preparing us for the inevitable apocalypse. By eating all that crap now, it'll make eating grass and gelatinized chicken beaks really not that different

[phaedrusxy]

Think of it this way-all those fast food restaurants are just preparing us for the inevitable apocalypse. By eating all that crap now, it'll make eating grass and gelatinized chicken beaks really not that different

It could be in preparation for the Zombie Apocalypse, also. Fat zombies are slower, and you don't have to outrun the zombies... you just have to outrun the fat dude in your party. So it's a double win, if you're smart enough to see it coming and not eat that crap.

[dman11235]

Or you could realize that bones are delicious...

Seriously though, I think people are way overreacting to the "mysterious contents" of fast food.  The study about how there's beak and nerve tissue?  Did not use an adequate sample size, and those that do find that it's not a very common occurrence.  You might say to that "one time is too many", but then I point out that they are still using 100% animal parts....which should say something.....and how we use the things that we are grossed out by all the time in cooking.  It's not bad for you.  It's not dangerous.  It's actually delicious.  Have you ever had bone marrow?  It's delicious.  And yes, you have.  Any time you eat/drink something that is made with stock, you are having bone.  It's the bone that makes stocks delicious.  You cannot realistically expect that no bone gets into processed meat.  Because the meat is attached to bone, and getting it off requires scraping some bone off.  This is even more common with hand butchering, because the machines are better about getting meat without as much bone.  Which brings me to the "pink slime" which is literally just meat.  It looks weird, yes, but it's still, 99% meat.  The other 1%?  Stuff attached to meat (tendon, bone, cartilage, etc.).  Negligible amounts of other stuff (air, water, and yes, ammonia, in small enough quantities that it is impossible to detect without specialized equipment).

Now, having said all that, most fast food still sucks, but it's because it tastes bad and is poor quality and nutrition value.  Not because they don't use food.

[altpersona]

As I said before, these things pop up all the time.

we (i) find a good bit of that stuff weird also.

but not the guns, love the guns.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

And to clarify (yeah,yeah) while I can easily eat that much, it wasn't me ordering.

Think of it this way-all those fast food restaurants are just preparing us for the inevitable apocalypse. By eating all that crap now, it'll make eating grass and gelatinized chicken beaks really not that different

It could be in preparation for the Zombie Apocalypse, also. Fat zombies are slower, and you don't have to outrun the zombies... you just have to outrun the fat dude in your party. So it's a double win, if you're smart enough to see it coming and not eat that crap.

Heh.
200 lb Bear Cub wandered into town, and the cops tree'd it.  City kids and a few internationals are borderline cheering for the bear.  Game Warden shows up for a Tranq and pickup ride to the super-boonies.  So I ask one of the kids what they think is happening (humoring).  Then I ask if he cares what I think.  He looks suspicious+curious and says "what"?  I say "there's 20 of you between the bear and me.  Heck I'm bigger than the bear but the bear would kill me !!"  He started moving away from the bear.  I started moving faster.  He freaked. 

[nijineko]

ditto on the toliet gap comments....

the comments about the meat reminds me of the laws that regulate how much blood and pus from the cow is allowed to remain in the skim, 1%, and 2% milk in the grocery store.

or how mcd's buys sprinkler system pipes for their meat processing plants, because other pipes are too small and clog up, as they shove the semi-liquid mass through pipes from one processing station to the next.

oh, and the one study that found that standing ice making machines (such as those in restaurants and fast food joints) have more bacteria residing in them on the ice cubes and ice slush then your toilet water has.

[veekie]

Or you could realize that bones are delicious...

Seriously though, I think people are way overreacting to the "mysterious contents" of fast food.  The study about how there's beak and nerve tissue?  Did not use an adequate sample size, and those that do find that it's not a very common occurrence.  You might say to that "one time is too many", but then I point out that they are still using 100% animal parts....which should say something.....and how we use the things that we are grossed out by all the time in cooking.  It's not bad for you.  It's not dangerous.  It's actually delicious.  Have you ever had bone marrow?  It's delicious.  And yes, you have.  Any time you eat/drink something that is made with stock, you are having bone.  It's the bone that makes stocks delicious.  You cannot realistically expect that no bone gets into processed meat.  Because the meat is attached to bone, and getting it off requires scraping some bone off.  This is even more common with hand butchering, because the machines are better about getting meat without as much bone.  Which brings me to the "pink slime" which is literally just meat.  It looks weird, yes, but it's still, 99% meat.  The other 1%?  Stuff attached to meat (tendon, bone, cartilage, etc.).  Negligible amounts of other stuff (air, water, and yes, ammonia, in small enough quantities that it is impossible to detect without specialized equipment).

Now, having said all that, most fast food still sucks, but it's because it tastes bad and is poor quality and nutrition value.  Not because they don't use food.

I'm thinking it's the other permitted portions that are more worrying, like fecal matter and insect fragments, because it's an indicator of hygiene standards.

[nijineko]

i've always been fond of bone marrow....


there is supposedly a restaurant in japan that serves fecal matter... the "cooks" are women who eat special diets such that what comes out is still flavored, shall we say. or so i read once.

not re-finding the article, which may mean it was a fake, but here are some other related bits:

feces wine

feces steak

[urlhttp://weburbanist.com/2008/08/10/15-of-the-strangest-themed-restaurants-from-buns-and-guns-to-cannabalistic-sushi/]various weird themes[/url]

i even found a restaurant so disturbing, that i can't bring myself to post a link.

[dman11235]

Or you could realize that bones are delicious...

Seriously though, I think people are way overreacting to the "mysterious contents" of fast food.  The study about how there's beak and nerve tissue?  Did not use an adequate sample size, and those that do find that it's not a very common occurrence.  You might say to that "one time is too many", but then I point out that they are still using 100% animal parts....which should say something.....and how we use the things that we are grossed out by all the time in cooking.  It's not bad for you.  It's not dangerous.  It's actually delicious.  Have you ever had bone marrow?  It's delicious.  And yes, you have.  Any time you eat/drink something that is made with stock, you are having bone.  It's the bone that makes stocks delicious.  You cannot realistically expect that no bone gets into processed meat.  Because the meat is attached to bone, and getting it off requires scraping some bone off.  This is even more common with hand butchering, because the machines are better about getting meat without as much bone.  Which brings me to the "pink slime" which is literally just meat.  It looks weird, yes, but it's still, 99% meat.  The other 1%?  Stuff attached to meat (tendon, bone, cartilage, etc.).  Negligible amounts of other stuff (air, water, and yes, ammonia, in small enough quantities that it is impossible to detect without specialized equipment).

Now, having said all that, most fast food still sucks, but it's because it tastes bad and is poor quality and nutrition value.  Not because they don't use food.

I'm thinking it's the other permitted portions that are more worrying, like fecal matter and insect fragments, because it's an indicator of hygiene standards.

But those weren't found in the meals.  So, what does that say about the quality?  And besides, people aren't freaking about that right now, they're freaking about the chicken parts in their chicken nuggets.  And the pink slime that's 100% meat, but looks weird.

And the reason those bad things have an acceptable level is that the levels are so low as to be essentially not there, as far as human consumption is concerned.  It's roughly the same level as what you'd find in the stuff you make at home.  Insects?  People eat them.  They get into food easily, and people eat them.  I'm not talking about things like insect based food (grasshopper on a stick or whatnot), I'm talking about insects in food you make.  It happens.

[nijineko]

ever eat fig newtons? those crunchy bits aren't seeds, you know. there is no effective way to get them out of the fruit, so they just don't mention it on the ingredients, ne?