Should you totally give up American foods?

I am just laughing my ass off about this thread, because who would want most of the things you guys are asking for? I don't even want cool whip, skippy peanut butter or velveeta cheese and I live in the US. Try some great stilton cheese and some walkers shortbread and some organic fruit and lovely English bacon. I found so many good foods in London I can't even imagine why you want the overprocessed junk you all are asking for? Sorry to be judgmental, but man, I would give anything to have the kinds of food availale in the UK.

You can buy all that stuff in the US. 

Walkers shortbread is everywhere, organic fruit is everywhere.  Even in the little cr@p less than 3,000 population middle of nowhere town that I went to grad school in.  Bacon is harder but then it is hard to find good crisp bacon here and stilton was fairly easy to find as well with just a car trip.

Otoh, you can buy a ton of stuff here like a million types of crisps and candy and soda sweetened with both sugar and artificial sweeteners.  All the stuff my UK friends want who have moved to the US?  Junk.  They want Bird's Eye potato waffles, creamola foam, Jaffa cakes, refreshers and Irn Bru.

Comfort foods are comforting for a reason.

Comfort foods are comforting for a reason.

Bingo! Not that I eat Velvetta and Mac and cheese everyday but sometimes you want that comfort mac and cheese or some queso and tortilla chips.
It wont be the end of the world but its nice ;-)

My husband lived in Germany for a year and all he wanted were Frey Bentos pies!  EWWWWW!

He never eats them here, but when he lived in Germany he wanted a gross slimly pie with dubious meat in a can.

I am just laughing my ass off about this thread, because who would want most of the things you guys are asking for? I don't even want cool whip, skippy peanut butter or velveeta cheese and I live in the US. Try some great stilton cheese and some walkers shortbread and some organic fruit and lovely English bacon. I found so many good foods in London I can't even imagine why you want the overprocessed junk you all are asking for? Sorry to be judgmental, but man, I would give anything to have the kinds of food availale in the UK.

different strokes for different folks.......if we all like the same things in life it would be a dull and boring world

I am just laughing my ass off about this thread, because who would want most of the things you guys are asking for? I don't even want cool whip, skippy peanut butter or velveeta cheese and I live in the US. Try some great stilton cheese and some walkers shortbread and some organic fruit and lovely English bacon. I found so many good foods in London I can't even imagine why you want the overprocessed junk you all are asking for? Sorry to be judgmental, but man, I would give anything to have the kinds of food availale in the UK.

Comfort food, or nostalgia.  I was born in MA, the land of Fluff.  Fluffernutter sandwiches make me happy because they remind me of when I was a kid.

If you have easy access to it, or know you are only going to be gone for a short period of time you don't miss it.

From your other post you live in Seattle?  How can you not find organic produce and other good food in Seattle exactly?

I am just laughing my ass off about this thread, because who would want most of the things you guys are asking for? I don't even want cool whip, skippy peanut butter or velveeta cheese and I live in the US. Try some great stilton cheese and some walkers shortbread and some organic fruit and lovely English bacon. I found so many good foods in London I can't even imagine why you want the overprocessed junk you all are asking for? Sorry to be judgmental, but man, I would give anything to have the kinds of food availale in the UK.

Clearly you haven't spent much time out of the US.  When I'm in the US I never eat donuts, they don't appeal to me.  After being away from the US for a year nothing in the world looked better than the Krispy Kreams I found at the Jakarta airport. 

I agree with half of what lawyerwoman says! I also never crave any of those vile, processed American foods. I never ate them when I lived in the US and I'm certainly not going to start now. Cool Whip and Velveeta ought to be outlawed! 

But I disagree that you can't get good, fresh, organic produce in the US. Where I lived in the US it wasn't quite as readily available as where I live in the UK, but it's certainly there! And things are definitely improving. I'm in the US on holiday at the moment and, even though fast food is still everywhere, I do sense a slight shift toward real food.

I am just laughing my ass off about this thread, because who would want most of the things you guys are asking for? I don't even want cool whip, skippy peanut butter or velveeta cheese and I live in the US. Try some great stilton cheese and some walkers shortbread and some organic fruit and lovely English bacon. I found so many good foods in London I can't even imagine why you want the overprocessed junk you all are asking for? Sorry to be judgmental, but man, I would give anything to have the kinds of food availale in the UK.

I changed the way I eat a few years before I left the US, and to be honest, I don't miss a lot of the processed stuff.  When I did have some (either back in the States or from speciality shops), I found them to be disappointing.   However, I do agree with some of the posters who say that it is different when you move away and are away for a while.  Sort of like Rachel Ray.  I didn't like or watch her show in the States, but when we got cable and her show was on (briefly), I would watch it every day and fight off fits of homesickness.  Some of it had to do with her accent and her growing up not too far from where I grew up, but it has to do with how we weave things into our sense of home more than anything I think.  

Anyway, I also disagree with you on British bacon.  That stuff is foul.  Sorry, I've ordered it from some of the best organic butchers in this country, and it either tastes of the pig or of fake smoke flavour.  Bleh.  I've only had back bacon a few times where it was decent, and it was a pure premium from Waitrose.  Most British streaky bacon is the same way.  I'd rather spend my money on OM imported bacon or something from the continent.  Mr A says the same thing now, and he used to rave about British bacon.  He thinks they changed something about it, probably in reaction to health concerns.

Also, there are a couple things I think the British do better produce-wise, but it's not like there is a homogeneous "American supermarket" which only sells pale watery tomatoes and iceberg lettuce.  Maybe I was lucky.  The earliest place I remember living had pretty crap produce from the shop, but we lived in farm country.  Most people grew their own and stored them or bought from farmer's markets.  Now, it's got a monster supermarket with a produce section you could fit my entire first British supermarket in.  A lot of it is imported and probably wasted, but you could get a lot more than you can here.  Then I never lived far from a Farmer's Market or greengrocer's in NYC.  Western NY had the amazing and awesome Wegman's, and I was a member of a local co-op, not to mention farmer's markets.  And organic vegetable box schemes are becoming common in the US schemes as well.  

I don't find it really that much easier to get really good veg here, but I do think that it's easier to get common veg that is of good quality if you're careful where you shop (if that makes sense).

I do agree with you on Stilton.  I can't believe it's not more popular there, especially with blue cheese fans.

What I do miss isn't very good for me.  I really miss all the weird and wonderful diet soda flavours.  It doesn't mean that I stay up at night pining for them, but I do swing by Partridge's on occasion to pick up some diet A&W creme soda or root beer.

I don't think I ever said I can't get organic good food here, but I can't find English bacon, meat pies, or Indian food as good as I can in England. I saw krispy kreme donuts at Selfridges and Oreos for like 10 pounds. All that stuff I don't eat. I would rather have some great baklava or the delicious yogurt and organic meats I can find there that are grown locally, in Europe, as opposed to Mexico or some other places far away. I strive to find foods here that are as delicious as some of the stuff I sampled when I was in England and the rest of Europe. As far as peanut butter, I am one of the ones who goes to the natural food market and uses the "make your own peanut butter" machines that is basically creamed peanuts...nothing added. I know you can find cream in England. Whip some up...voila, whipped cream instead of cool whip which is really just oil and sugar. If you want processed cheese like velveeta, buy some nice cheddar, add additives and oil and milk and you can have a fake cheese product. Velveeta cheese has to one of the most vile things ever created. I am not trying to pick a fight here, I guess I would just like to encourage people to live where they are, and become invested in the food culture of where they live. I think a lot of acclimating to a new culture is doing things the native do. I think the only thing I ddidn't like was beans with breakfast. Beans are fine...just not with breakfast. The english have a come a long way in eating ahealthy fruits and veggies...which was evident when I was there. I thought I was a much healthier eating envitonment that here in the US.

Sorry, but until you emigrate I don't think it's fair to judge people on this thread. If I were visiting Europe and I saw Krispy Kreme in a shop for 10 quid, I'd laugh and shake my head at the craziness. Once I was out of the country for 5 years, don't think I wouldn't stop at the KK shop in Paddington when I was going through there. If you do end up moving to the Isle of Wight, I'm fairly certain you'll be back here talking about how you miss making your own peanut butter at the health food shop. As far as I'm aware, the only place you can do that in the UK is at the Whole Foods in London. You might just be surprised what you get the occasional craving for and don't be surprised if it hits you out of the blue.

You can make your own peanut butter with a good food processor....

There's no need to insult people by telling them the things they like are 'vile'. Some people might say the same about your lovely make-your-own peanut butter. Maybe you don't understand why some people crave the things mentioned in this thread; in which case, why not move on to a different thread?

I also think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that people aren't invested un local food culture if they occasionally buy American products.  I also wouldn't call European produce locally sourced.

Sorry, I am not a Velveeta or Cool Whip consumer, but I'd never dream of criticizing an expatriates for wanting to buy them.  I imagine people can take it too far and have it interfere with adjusting to  a new life, but making a few orders with an online  supplier or making the occasional shop somewhere different to pick up some highly processed food which reminds someone of home is hardly grounds for concern or derision.

I am an immigrant.  I can hardly imagine someone telling an immigrant in the States or an immigrant here from any other country that they should forget about food from home, no matter how inferior anyone else thinks it is.