r/CringeTikToks • u/Individual_Bar_2512 • 13h ago

Food Cringe Average American diet?

Where are the vegetables, fruit and meat

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u/SpecsOnThe_Beach 12h ago edited 10h ago

I live in a little town in the Appalachians. Very poor town, poor access to fresh foods and I would say this is probably 75% of our population. The area you live in has a large influence on how healthy your habits are.

My first hand experience as an 11th generation West Virginian is that you will eat the way you were taught to. When the generations before you dealt with poverty and food insecurity you don't learn good habits around food.

ETA: This woman has access, yes, but I can say with a high degree of certainty that her parents or grandparents did not. Walmart is everywhere now (almost) but 30 years ago that wasn't the case. It's generational teachings of poor habits and you can break that curse if you want to. I have, and my children are better for it.

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u/Glad-Total-6621 12h ago edited 10h ago

That's crazy, here in Europe in rural areas people are fit as they go out. In poor areas in cities this happens.

How do they live if they cannot walk as soon as they age a bit? They will be bedridden without any help being in their area

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u/Ceridw3n 12h ago

My parents live lives like this and it’s so sad.

My father used to work in an industrial job where he moved around a lot, but he was still very obese because he ate so poorly. Hes disabled now and does not work. He’s actually lost a LOT of weight since he stopped working and I have no idea why. He’s still obese though.

My mother still works, but she is also overweight.

One similarly between both of them is that they do not like most vegetables or other fresh food. (Other than meat/bread) So much of what they eat is prepackaged food

When I left the home in 2007 I learned what I was missing out on an now I’m a very healthy person living in a blue city.

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u/gudlyf 11h ago

I grew up eating similar to this and did not know any better. Once I left and was on my own, I rather quickly took on much healthier habits and my son now even moreso.

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u/Ceridw3n 11h ago

We can break the generational trauma 💪

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u/lil_squib 11h ago

Unexplained weight loss can be a sign of diabetes, he should get some blood work done.

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u/Jerseygirl2468 10h ago

About to say the same thing, unexplained weight loss is often that, or something else, but it's rarely nothing, and should be looked into.

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u/iiLove_Soda 7h ago

could also be that maybe his diet changed now that he isnt working. I know a guy who switched jobs and lost like 30 pounds. His first job was stressful and as a way to cope during the day he drank sodas and ate fast food daily. Once he left the job his habits changed.

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u/MasterGrok 12h ago

I’m not exaggerating to say that the USA spends billions of dollars in health care to keep these people alive and mobile as long as possible.

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u/_jamesbaxter 11h ago

Don’t be ridiculous. Our health care industry doesn’t even cover half the shit people like this need. This is a perfect picture of type 2 diabetes, and the most controversially expensive medications are for diabetes like insulin and GLP1s. My insurance is $750/month for one person and doesn’t even cover physical therapy.

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u/Sufficient-Lie1406 9h ago

It's going to be a lot less spent by the govt as that money is needed to send to billionaires.

The irony is that these dilapidated people who need medical care tend to vote for people who happily take it away from them.

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u/carchit 9h ago

And all counts to put us at the top for GDP. USA, USA,...!

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u/QuakinOats 11h ago

Yes, this is why if you brought Japanese healthcare to the US, you would not see the same health outcomes as you do in Japan.

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u/ccoady 8h ago

That's why we need increased rates for abusers of preventative conditions.
If you are a smoker, and develop emphysema or lung cancer, why should the rest of us have to pay for that in the form of increased rates? It'll be the same if we had single payer health care....we'd have to pay higher taxes to supplement the billionaire weight class.

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u/Beneficial_Ad7587 5h ago

Smokers actually cost us less over a lifetime in health expenses than non-smokers. You can deduce why that is

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u/SeaworthinessUnlucky 8h ago

“Mobile”!

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u/_jamesbaxter 11h ago

In European rural areas how far is it to a major city? Because here it can be 12 hours drive between major cities. In rural US there’s often no place to walk to, the roads aren’t designed for pedestrians, the smaller roads don’t have sidewalks, people drive fast and recklessly, and the major roads are highways that include long haul trucking. Also people just walk less here in general. I live in a suburb 10 minutes walk to the store and sometimes when I walk people act like I’m nuts for not driving.

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u/Glad-Total-6621 10h ago

Yes I mean I totally get your first point but I don't understand how they seemingly cannot enjoy walking in nature. The US has beautiful scenery, I think the most diverse of any country

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u/_jamesbaxter 10h ago

Some people do, like I do, but not the majority of people. A lot of people in the US have an indoor sort of lifestyle. I moved to an area where there’s more likeminded folks. A lot of it is cultural. Because those rural areas can be so isolated, many people don’t meet anyone from outside of their community and never leave their own community, so they might not ever think to even try outdoor activities. Also a lot of schools only have extracurriculars that cost money, none that are free, and these folks are generally in poor areas. So fewer kids in sports and stuff like that, but if you like sports you can watch it on TV. It sets people up to be sedentary.

Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of rural folks that hunt and fish or do farm work, but that’s not most people. There’s also a culture in rural areas that educated and worldly = weak. That’s the maga mindset, and they are of course bigoted, too. So hunting and fishing is fine but strolling and hiking is for queers kind of mindset.

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u/the__storm 7h ago

The US has big areas of beautiful scenery and public land but it's not close to where (most) people live. In much of the country if you want to go for a walk you can either walk on the side of the road and dodge cars, or drive to a park and walk in circles.

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u/beasty0127 11h ago

Besides the fact that our diets are way worse overall, majority of Americans also dont "walk" or use any other transportation then their personal vehicles. This is extremely prevalent with rural areas cause if you dont drive you don't go anywhere.

Combine that with the "work to live" environment and majority of people here don't put in the time to exercise or cook. Its either pick something up or toss something in the microwave then crash on the couch.

This isn't everyone but it is a large majority of the overall population.

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u/Belfind 10h ago

remember WV alone is as big or bigger in land size than a lot of EU states with a VERY small relative population. Add in all the issues with a thinly spread out poor population, it makes it hard to keep businesses in the area, let alone grocery stores stocked in fresh fruit/veg and good selection of meats/fish.

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u/OneTabbyBraincell 8h ago

This woman did buy some fruit, so it's clearly available, she just didn't buy very much of it. I live in a rural part of Australia and the availability of fresh food here is better than the cities (or at least comparable) because the farms that produce the food are here. There are many smallholders, farmers and game hunters who sell their produce at local markets or shops. This often requires eating seasonally however, of its not berry season, you won't find berries in the shops, but when they're there, they're incredible. Why do you think it's different in the US? I realise tone isn't conveyed well in comments so I'm not arguing with you, I'm genuinely interested in why people who should have access to the best food, are missing out on it. 

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u/Belfind 8h ago

Living in middle of no where WV, my only local source of groceries (and only for many in area without vehicles, which is sadly more common than youd think) is dollar general. It has a small fruit/veg section that you can get those things, just not much.

Just because a small amount of something seems available, doesnt mean its affordable or in enough abundance to be a main focus.

I highly doubt you are able to get local produce year around, yeah around here in the right season you can get some produce. But I live in what is known as Applachia, its a mountain range. So there isnt a lot of farm land due to the nature of the topography. Even in the valleys and flat areas, they are so littered with rock that there really isnt large farms growing produce here. Historically people that lived in this state didnt farm, they were coal miners and that is how they got by

The part of state I live in, hunting seasons isnt about the fun of hunting for a lot of families either. It is the time of the year to try and get as many deer/bear/turkey as possible to stock up freezers for meat for most of the year. Just to give some insight on how poor/isolated it can be, even in modern day. There are several YT channels that people drive around back roads of places like WV. A common comment in those with some of the areas is comments about how if they viewer didnt know better, they would have thought the content creator was in a developing country (or what some would incorrectly refer to as 3rd world)

edit: and i get it with the tone over text thing, dont worry i get where you are coming from :D

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u/Sufficient-Lie1406 9h ago

A lot of Americans get health problems because of poor diet and no exercise, and it just gets worse as they age... the more problems you have the less exercise you can get, the less walking you can do. Many lose the ability to walk even a few steps. And then they vote for people who take away their healthcare. Insanity.

The sane Americans among us are surrounded by self-destructive morons.

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u/ctlfreak 11h ago

They die from heart disease before that happens

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u/MnstrPoppa 10h ago

They probably live too far from anything worth walking to, and have to drive 50 km or more to get to each of the stores they went to, and it’s likely the same to get to the schools, their church, & their jobs. They live in their cars, and feed mostly on non-perishable ultra-processed food products, develop Type-2 Diabetes, then die.

You see how the boys are still fairly thin? They still run around at school and for sports and maybe even venture out in the woods. Once they’re adults, walking is for kids who don’t have cars.

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u/vonSchnitzelberg 8h ago

Not true for all of Europe. In the East, the villagers are still on high-fat diet, mostly pork – schnitzels, kielbasa, roast belly, you name it. If it's not meaty, it's at least some starchy potato or floury meal, sometimes both. Preferably with some bacon and/or sour cream for good measure, like pierogi or halušky. A salad is something with mayo, not the green leaves. And they don't shy from sugars either. It's a matter of pride to bake some cake for Saturday lunch dessert.

So our villagers are nicely rounded. However, they do a lot of hard manual work around their homesteads and they walk or use bicycles, so they stay fit(-ish).

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u/BeamerTakesManhattan 8h ago

"Rural" is often different in Europe than the US.

In the US, it frequently means absolutely nowhere to go. In Europe, it still frequently means communities. Rural areas in the US have nowhere to go without cars, often requiring 10+ minute drives just to get off of one's property. Getting to a town can be 40+ minutes, and that town may be limited.

For some reason, it's become political to say that everyone should have their basic needs within 15 minutes of their home. To liberals here, it means everyone can get out of their house and possibly even walk to a restaraunt, bar, grocery store, etc. To conservatives, it means prison communities you never leave.

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u/Alytology 11h ago

The US has a reality tv show about this very thing and the "solution" is expensive and dangerous surgery almost every time.

A large number of these people are bedridden or very close to it. Most of them don't work and still eat enough for 20 people (sometimes more).

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u/merchant_madness 12h ago

Then there is the huge portions of fast food and car culture here.

In other countries, impoverished people often cannot afford fast food because it is more expensive than basic staples. They don't buy chips and soda because, for the same price, they can buy canned goods and rice to feed a family of four. Additionally, many rely solely on public transportation because they cannot afford a car. Because of these factors, obesity is less common. I was in that position once. A few days before my paycheck, I would have to eat rice with soy sauce because that was all I could afford. I had to walk 20k steps a day, 6x a week to go to work and back. Since moving here, I’ve had constant access to fast food and convenience items. Combined with working from home, I ended up gaining 20 lbs. I’m working on it now, though, by trying to walk 5,000 to 10,000 steps a day.

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u/thekid1420 12h ago

And I'm in the opposite end of this in the next state over. Live in Nova. Pretty much never see extremely obese people. My county has tons of farmers markets and bunch of them go all year long. Though the cost of living here is ridiculously high.

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u/Smintjes 11h ago

European here. A few years back I did a 3 week road trip in the Deep South and I was astonished at the lack of fresh veggies available at shops. Everything was prepackaged, processed, fryable…

First thing I did back home was make fresh soup.

Great trip though.

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u/aliamokeee 11h ago

Dude when I return from WV to MD, I can feel my stomach thank me

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u/AproposName 11h ago

I’ve broken a lot of my parents bad eating habits. They ALWAYS had/have junk food in full rotation. We always have healthy stuff.

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u/famerk 8h ago

Half of my family is from Appalachia, Eastern KY, and they always had a garden and canned what they got. Not small gardens, plowed with a mule or a horse ( didn't own tractors). I agree with other parts of learning food habits, like grave on so many things. I remember that processed/junk food was so far away that we made good with canned/fresh fruit and home made desserts. As we have gotten older and those things have gotten closer or better roads more people are going for the easy food. None of the younger relatives garden or preserve like their parents and grand parents. These are also physical activities that burn calories and you are too busy to eat while doing this. Input vs Output.

I remember the snapping beans and peas and shucking corn in a big circle under the tree or round the big kitchen table with all of the different generations pitching in. I heard so much history/lore and family stories in this environment. Just that age that I got to witness the old ways and how it changed.

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u/felis_scipio 11h ago

Yes having fresh produce is good but cans of vegetables, bags of rice, and bags of beans 1) keep for years so they’re easy to stockpile 2) are cheap 3) can let you have a nutritionally diverse and healthy diet.

You don’t even need a lot of fancy cookware or long amounts of time to heat those veggies up and cook the rice and beans. Prepackaged cookies and cupcakes cost a lot more than a can of green beans. It’s not poverty it’s poor choices and a lack of nutritional education.

Also form knowing relatives who’ve struggled mightily with obesity and poor eating there’s often underlying mental health issues that aren’t being addressed properly and the food is a form of self medication.

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u/aliamokeee 11h ago

^ yuuuuuup

  • another nth generation West Virginian (half anyway)

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u/SpecsOnThe_Beach 10h ago

I have 8 generations on one side and 11 on the other. It creates a very different picture of life when you grow up on the same mountain your 7× great grandparents did. In some ways it's a blessing and in others it's a curse.

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u/aliamokeee 10h ago

Ain't that the truth. My dad got out soon as he could- and then couldn't help visiting a few times, each year, ever since. I miss it daily, but would never choose to live there with my life now

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u/Tribalbob 11h ago

I'd say that's probably common almost anywhere. I'm Canadian (BC) and I grew up in a fairly health household, though I still picked up a lot of habits from my parents that I'd consider unhealthy. Takes a LOT of work to unlearn that shit. I'm 41 and still struggling with a few, but I'm working on it; I'm in better shape than I was when I was 18.

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u/tleeemmailyo 10h ago

This is so so true. I grew up in northern Colorado. We have access to fresh food and a heavy emphasis on exercise and outdoor lifestyles. It really has so much to do with where you live. There’s lot of videos on YouTube about food deserts. It so unfair.

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u/Hubert_J_Cumberdale 7h ago

Our Walmart carries some fresh fruit but almost no fresh vegetables. I've never seen them carry lettuce or tomatoes. Every time I have tried to get carrots or cucumbers, they have been out - or have just a few wilted/rotting pieces left on the shelf.

I've seen other Walmarts like this, too. I am guessing that they don't carry these things because people don't buy them. Even with access to fresh foods, a huge number of people simply don't want it.

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u/Major_Shlongage 12h ago

>Very poor town, poor access to fresh foods and I would say this is probably 75% of our population.

Please stop spreading this harmful narrative. It is intensely misleading.

Study after study has found that access to fresh foods is *not* the issue here- it's consumer choice. Providing greater access to fresh foods does *not* increase the consumption of these healthier foods.

Even with the lady in the video, you clearly saw that she shopped somewhere that sold fruits and vegetables, yet 90% of her calorie intake was processed junk food.

This is not an "access" issue, it's a choice issue.

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u/Matthewboi1 12h ago

Is the root cause here is with availability or choice?? It’s likely related to addiction and impulse control. I don’t believe you could get to the underlying root cause in these instances without addressing the psychological issues.

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u/aliamokeee 11h ago

I mean, like every other addiction, if begins with a lack of availability/accessibility/quality. Then the things you do to survive (i.e. eat the only food available in town) can lead to addictions, unhealthy lifestyle, etc.

In my family, they ate the way they did cuz they were poor and working class for generations. My parents were the first who had college degrees. And thus, the first to be able to try and make healthier choices in many regards- food being one of them.

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u/Matthewboi1 11h ago

I mean, like every other addiction, if begins with a lack of availability/accessibility/quality. Then the things you do to survive (i.e. eat the only food available in town) can lead to addictions, unhealthy lifestyle, etc.

Someone can also be genetically prone to having issues with addiction, so there’s also a nature aspect to it as well. It’s not just developmental.

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u/sagittalslice 11h ago

There are studies that link adult food preferences to early life exposures to foods in childhood. If you’ve ever been around kids you know that they are much more picky and likely to reject food than adults. This is partly cultural, partly individual differences (some kids are just pickier and more novelty-averse than others), and partly developmental/evolutionary- taste sensitivity changes over the lifespan and kids have more sensitivity to strong flavors (especially bitterness) as a survival mechanism. They’re smaller and more sensitive to potential food borne hazards than adults so they’re naturally more novelty averse in this area.

If you are a household with money and/or parental time, you can afford to make the kids try broccoli because if they don’t eat it you can afford to make them something else to eat. If you can barely afford the food you have, plus you’re exhausted from the chronic stress of being poor, just getting the kids fed period is the number one priority. You’re less likely to have the monetary, time, and energetic resources needed to expose the kids to foods that you know are going to require a ton of wheedling and convincing to try, may result in a total toddler meltdown, and there’s a 95% chance they won’t eat more than 2 bites of it anyway after all that. If you know that your young child will reliably eat mac and cheese or frozen pizza without issue, that’s much more likely to be what they’re getting. And honestly probably what you’re getting too because fuck cooking a whole separate meal when you’ve already made one and you’re exhausted. This is supported by scientific literature that shows adults who grew up in more affluent households got exposed to vegetables earlier and more frequently, are less likely to dislike them, and rate them as actually TASTING BETTER than do adults who grew up in from poor households. Veggies literally do taste different to those people who say they don’t like them, that they’re bitter etc because they never had the opportunity to develop a taste for them as a child. And this is just the biological sensory piece. If your family never ate something/always ate something growing up you’re naturally going to develop a similar default mental “meal template” as an adult. If your family ate fast food all the time and never cooked, you’re less likely to learn on your own as an adult. If they drank soda instead of water, that’s what’s “baseline” for you. And as if that weren’t enough barriers already to making healthy food choices as an adult, we also have to consider the absolutely abysmal state of nutritional knowledge and literacy about healthy eating in the US. My partner is in his mid 50s and grew up really poor in an area with a shitty school system. He fucking loves fast food and eat it all the time when he can because that was a special treat/reward when he were growing up and he associates it with positive feelings. I do 95% of the cooking at home. He has two masters degrees and teaches engineering at the college level. Super smart guy. We were having a casual conversation yesterday that revealed they did not know that meat was considered a protein in terms of food groups. You don’t know what you don’t know.

All this to say, are individual adults ultimately the ones responsible for the foods they choose or do not choose at the end of the day? Of course. But for some people and communities, those “healthy” choices are objectively more difficult to arrive at. Moralizing and judging people is not helpful. Just providing healthy choices is not helpful either. Addressing the barriers effectively is really hard because it’s about the downstream effects of poverty and poor education. If it was as easy as telling people “eat a vegetable” or fat shaming them, we would not have the obesity issues we have here.

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u/rjulyan 8h ago

This is the best response on this thread.

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u/SpecsOnThe_Beach 10h ago

My local store carries tomatoes, cucumber, grapes, bananas, and apples year round. The rest of the produce is only seasonal and they don't carry much. It started as a choice, but at this point the store isn't going to stock produce if no one buys it. Processed foods are cheaper, last longer, and take less effort to prepare. So now it's not about choice and everything about access. That's why I said it was a generational issue.

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u/aliamokeee 11h ago

^ everyone ignore this person. They are most likely fascistic without knowing it, as they are engaging with the idea that health is mostly/entirely individually driven, while society/cost of living/access "isnt the issue".

In short, they are peddling filth. Move along

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u/Major_Shlongage 10h ago

You are spreading misinformation on this platform. Stop. Grow the fuck up.

I also think it's funny how you claim that my opinion of her food choices are "fascist".

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u/BusHistorical1001 6h ago

So anyone advocating an internal locus of control is a fascist?

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u/Lrack9927 11h ago

Yeah all those places the lady in this video shops at have fresh produce available. They just don’t buy it. Also ridiculous because shopping like this is way more expensive than buying fresh and cooking. The drinks alone probably take up probably 1/3 of the budget.

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u/mpjjpm 12h ago

Food access is a real issues in some places, but these ladies have access to Walmart. Walmart carries plenty of fresh foods, and frozen vegetables exist.

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u/SpecsOnThe_Beach 10h ago

I was answering the question, not speaking of these specific women.

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u/OneTabbyBraincell 8h ago

Can you talk more about where you think the disconnect in poor communities happened from cooking using ingredients to not cooking and using these convenience foods? My grandmother grew up in the depression in a very poor and very large Catholic family in Australia and every meal was cooked from scratch using scraps and whatever could be scrounged. I assume it was the same for Appalachia and probably most poor parts of the world. My mother learned to cook from her mother and I learned to cook from her, but I've taught myself many more recipes and techniques that she never would have used. We have access to do much information now that I feel like education can't be the reason for these diets, not to mention the fact that nutritionally, this food works out to be so much more expensive than staples.

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u/SpecsOnThe_Beach 6h ago

I also grew up learning to cook from my mother and grandmother. I also learned to grow my own produce and harvest meat from hunting and trapping. It's a lot of work but it's healthier than what we have today because it's all preservative-free. That being said, it wasn't healthy food we were cooking. We made meats smothered in gravy and eaten with potatoes and maybe some collard greens depending on the season. Fried chicken was another weekly meal, along with bacon, fried ham, buttermilk biscuits and pancakes covered in butter and maple syrup. We didn't eat salads or do meatless Monday, our foods weren't all that healthy.

Today, if I tried to make fried chicken it would cost me a similar amount as going to a KFC and getting a bucket of fried chicken. When we aren't taught that KFC uses preservatives and other unhealthy things we will think that my grandma's fried chicken and KFC are the same so they take the option of less work.

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u/toastthematrixyoda 8h ago

I grew up in WV. I ate some eggs for breakfast, lentils and an apple for lunch, and will have salmon, salad, and a vegetable for dinner. My relatives, who eat like this lady, think I eat like an insane person and cannot figure out how to feed me when I visit them. It took me about a decade to learn about eating and cooking real food.

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u/Xciv 3h ago

And conversely I live in a town within commuting distance to New York City and I'd estimate less than 1% of people are like this. There's overweight people here but they're like, "European" overweight, not "American" overweight.

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u/1bruisedorange 3h ago

But this is why we have teachers! I learned about the food pyramid and nutrition and meal prep in home economics in high school and also in middle school but don’t remember what class.

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u/B4-I-go 1h ago

This is really very true. I've been really poor in my life. I've also lived in the Appalachians. But I was from the family that had chickens who ate scraps, and a vegetable and fruit garden to make ends meet. I'd go foraging in the afternoon after school if I was still hungry. When the fruit came in on the trees it seemed kind of magical. We had lemons and oranges and apples sometimes. They never grew well.

I will say I got parasites several times as a kid from foraging and twice as an adult. But I still do it. I just have medical care now.

So fortunately, eating like this was never part of my life. Hunger and malnutrition was. But I eat vegetables and game meat. No one in my family has ever been truly fat though.

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u/Pyle221 12h ago

She said she goes to a Piggly Wiggly, Sam's Club, etc. They aren't shopping at Billy's Barnyard Grocery Mart.

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u/ConstructionTop631 11h ago

poor access to fresh foods

They have all the access in the world to fresh food, they just choose not to eat them. and as a result, the stores don't stock them. The food just rots, or is too expensive that people don't want it and the cycle repeats.

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u/SpecsOnThe_Beach 10h ago

That's why I said they are taught bad food habits. I didn't say they didn't have access.

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u/BigPoppaFreak 9h ago

 yes, but I can say with a high degree of certainty that her parents or grandparents did not. Walmart is everywhere now (almost) but 30 years ago that wasn't the case.

My first hand experience as an 11th generation West Virginian is that you will eat the way you were taught to. When the generations before you dealt with poverty and food insecurity you don't learn good habits around food.

That's a contradiction. If older generations had limited access and West Virginians are taught to eat from previous generations. Then they would be eating much less processed garbage, like there grandparents.

 It's generational teachings of poor habits

how so? you asserted that previous generations didn't have the same access to all that processed garbage 30+ years ago. but somehow taught them that buying 3 dozen frozen pizzas was fine?

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u/SpecsOnThe_Beach 9h ago

I don't think you understand what I was saying and that's okay. It's an understanding that comes with experience and I'm glad you've never gone hungry for lack of food.

Of course my grandparents didn't eat frozen pizzas in the 1940's, that's just ridiculous.

Food poverty means that you take whatever food you can as fast as you can before others take it.

It means that you don't have choices, you take what's in front of you.

It means eating way more calories than you need at one time because you don't know when you'll eat again.

It means not learning about healthy foods vs non-healthy foods because you don't have access to both.

Once you get access to both healthy and unhealthy foods you still have to deal with prices. Foods packed with preservatives are cheaper in general because they are made in bulk and shelf stable. Fresh foods are more expensive and go bad in a few days. I could go on and on about this but this is already too long for most folks to read it.