As of 2010, the American diet seems to focus mainly on grains, fats, and oils, and ultra-processed foods make up about 58% of their daily energy intake.

And while diets around the globe are more similar than they used to be (in nearly 50 years, the differences in foods eaten has narrowed by 68 percent), foreigners are still having trouble with it.

So when Reddit user EskimoeExplosion invited non-Americans to name the quintessential US foods they will never understand, people from all over the world flooded them with all sorts of products.

(However, remember to take this list with a grain of salt, since, as we know, taste can be very, very subjective.)

#1

Tube cheese or aerosol cheese. The latter makes me gag thinking about it.

Image credits: the_law_talking_guy

#2

Pop tarts taste like someone half assed an attempt at flavoured cardboard. They’re horrible.

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#3

Canadian here… American soda. You can taste the corn syrup. All of my American friends drink Mexican Coke or that ‘throwback’ pop with sugar instead of corn syrup.

Image credits: applecored83

#4

Twinkies. They’re somehow delicious and disgusting, all at the same time. I am afraid of your gastromolecular science.

Image credits: bozzley

#5

Maybe not disgusting, but just a weird combination to me:

Peanut butter and jam (Jelly for ‘muricans)

I like peanut butter. I like jam. Together? No thanks.

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#6

The fact that your cheddar is orange. Whenever I’m in the States, I always get trolled by shredded cheddar in salads, thinking it’s carrot.

Also anything from Arby’s. Aerosol cheese. Pumpkin as a dessert item. Most straight-up chocolate, Hershey’s is like biting into a block of chocolate flavoured wax. Ugh.

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#7

American bread. I lived in the states for six months. At one point shortly after moving, I bought a loaf of bread and made a sandwich. To my surprise, the bread was so sweet. I told my housemates that I accidentally bought dessert bread, but nope — just regular bread in America.

Image credits: goldboldsold

#8

Casseroles made with “cream of” anything soup. Green bean casserole, tuna casserole, mushroom casserole. I know what those Campbells soups are like, we get them over here, and the idea of using them as a constituent ingredient in a main meal makes me shudder just from the idea of the sodium bomb. Especially those casseroles that are suggested to be topped with crushed chips.

Peanut butter and jam (jelly) sandwiches I can get behind. Pumpkin pie was a revelation of awesomeness for a new dimension on what to me is normally a savoury veg. Chicken-fried steak and sausage gravy? Genius.

But the idea of those casseroles make my stomach turn every time.

Image credits: InquisitorVawn

#9

Not so much disgusting as bland: Strawberries and tomatoes.

I remember going into a supermarket and seeing these absolutely huge strawberries. Biggest I’d ever seen. And bright red, like they were the juiciest, most ripe ever grown. Bought a punnet, went home and ate them, they tasted like wet cardboard. What a disappointment.

I’d say it was false advertising.

EDIT: Also, Twinkies. I grew up with Marvel comics and they had ads for all sorts of things at the back. One of the few ads I remember were for Twinkies. They looked delicious so when I got to the US I had to try one. Dessicated sponge wrapped around fake cream. The sponge was so dry and the filling so obviously unnatural that no self-respecting mould would go near the thing, I reckon it probably had a longer half life than platinum. I’m sure if humans nuke themselves into extinction any uneaten Twinkies will still be around when the lizards evolve civilization.

Image credits: anon

#10

I have a friend from New Zealand. I took him to Dairy Queen for his first Blizzard. He ate about 3 bites of it and said “Do you want it? This is gross.” I then ate 2 Blizzards and felt like a big fat f**k.

Image credits: anon

#11

That awful, orange, plasticky American cheese. I lived in North America for a year and missed good British cheddar so much!

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#12

American fast food. Honestly the quality of fast food in the U.S. is absolutely horrible compared to the very same chains in Canada. I’m talking about standard fast food like Burger King, McDonald’s, etc…

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#13

Fluff, that marshmallow spread

Like you find ways to add extra sugar to everything, even toast

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#14

Mayoneggs

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#15

New York Street vendor hotdogs.

I was so looking forward to this on my trip. I got one and it was tiny and when I bit into it, it actually dissolved in my mouth after one chew.

The bread was sweet tasting (high sugar content I guess). Overall a real disappointment

Image credits: flicticious

#16

It’s not so much the food but more the portion sizes. I’m Australian and was raised as a kid to eat everything on my plate. I brought that mentality to the US. over a month I put on 5kg!

The portion sizes are obscene. I could hardly finish a meal there without feeling ill from eating to much. I think implementing cheaper, smaller portion options would be great. It would also cut down on wasting food (as I noticed a lot of people didn’t eat all of their meal).

That said, American food on the whole was great. I spent a lot of time in the Deep South and I loved BBQ, baked beans, grits, sweet tea, Cajun food, Po Boys. Even Waffle House wasn’t half bad.

EDIT: A lot of people are mentioning getting a to go bag. In Australia people don’t really do that much. It is more for kids who liked their meal but don’t eat much. Anyway, I don’t remember ever been encouraged to do it by the Americans I was staying with in the Deep South. My friend in California used to do it (particularly with Mexican food). My girlfriend’s mother would often cook and always had food in the house, so getting a to go bag wasn’t a necessity for them. I really have no idea how her whole family had such good figures (must be good genetics). I would turn into one of those morbidly obese people you see riding scooters in Walmart if I lived in Alabama for a year.

A few people also commented on Australia having large portion sizes. I would agree that this is the case if you go out for a pub meal. Some of those meals are huge. Also out in the country (where people tend to be fatter) the food is often deep fried and in large quantities. Still compared to what was on offer in Alabama, it is nothing.

EDIT 2: Many people freaking out about what a kg (kilogram is). One kg = 2.2 pounds. So I put on 11 pounds in a month. I’m surprised the US just doesn’t adopt the metric system as the rest of the world uses it and it is a really simple way to measure weight, length etc.

Image credits: mrphasedance

#17

‘Imitation Pasteurized Process Cheese Food’. WTF is it? Why is it?

#18

Cincinnati Chili. Keep your spaghetti noodles out of my chili.

Image credits: PompeyMagnus1

#19

Sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, just WHY?

Image credits: milkandnosugar

#20

Circus peanuts are weird. Why would you shape them like peanuts if they taste like tainted bananas?

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#21

HERSHEYS i seriously thought it was spoiled when i tried one.

Hand on heart i wouldnt eat it even if it was free, how they make a profit i will never know.

Image credits: Sir_Fancy_Pants

#22

Turkey bacon. It’s vile. Only pork should be made into bacon, I care not what ye say.

Image credits: Jhasso

#23

Cherry flavoured anything. Have you tasted cherries? They tasted nothing like that icky flavouring!

Image credits: golitsyn_nosenko

#24

As a Swiss:

* the cheese
* the chocolate
* the bread

And the coffee I once bought in a Dunkin’ Donuts was horrible, never had another one.

Other than that I love almost everything… I could spend the rest of my life eating cheetos and kfc!

Image credits: Skinnj

#25

When I first moved here a few years back, biscuits and gravy weirded me out the most, but I have grown to enjoy it. Still looks like vomit, though.

I still can’t stomach the standard supermarket bread here. It’s so sweet. Same goes for average burger or hotdog buns.

I find Americans’ need/desire to eat sandwiches with potato chips bizarre. Where I’m from, a sandwich is a meal in and of itself – it doesn’t come with a side. And potato chips shouldn’t be a side. Ever. They’re gas station junk food. To me, it’s like getting a Snickers bar as a side.

Ranch dressing. Why don’t you people want to taste the actual salad you’re eating?

Flavouring everything with pumpkin around Fall. Pumpkin pie, ok, fine, I’ve learned to like it. Things I will never accept pumpkin in: coffee, ice cream, pancakes, doughnuts, smoothies.

Granola as a “healthy” breakfast option. It’s basically a dessert.

Taco Bell. OK, I haven’t actually tried it, but it looks so unappealing in the ads and posters in the store windows – more so than any other fast food chain – I just can’t imagine why anyone ever would. It’s not like actually good Mexican food is expensive.

One thing I think is great about American food, however, is all the regional variety. Sure, a lot of it is a bit gross and incredibly unhealthy (can’t say I enjoyed my encounter with Jello salad), but I love that you can try new things in every city and how proud people are of their local specialties. We don’t have that back in Australia, and I think we’re poorer for it.

Image credits: tigersmadeofpaper

#26

Mountain Dew. It doesn’t even taste good. I mean, it doesn’t taste *bad* and it’s addictive, but I want to scratch it out of my veins as soon as I hook up to an IV of it.

Image credits: bahanna

#27

Red Vines. As a New Zealander I expected them to taste like hopes and dreams, solidified into a long strip of candy… But alas, they really taste like a*s.

Image credits: JCLNZ

#28

As a Brit who’s been living here for a few years there are so many odd foods. I know, the UK isn’t known for its high quality food (although things are a lot, lot better these days), but the following stuff mystifies me.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – WTF? You take a salty spread that looks like it came from a milk-fed baby’s nappy then add sweet jam? Stick it on sugary bread and people seem to love it.

Similarly putting syrup on bacon for breakfast. Bacon, food of the gods and the ultimate savoury snack and you cover it in cloying sticky sweetness. Can’t get my head around it.

Pub cheese. The US doesn’t make much good cheese but my New Jersey in-laws introduced me to this spreadable cheese going under the brand ‘Pub Cheese.’ It tastes like leper shavings, and the name only makes sense in that you have to spend all day getting utterly wankered in the pub to make it even remotely palatable.

White Castle burgers. Had one bite and that was enough. Oily meat that murders the taste buds and an aftertaste that hangs around like a fart in a spacesuit, yet people eat these by the dozen and made a film about how good they are.

Similarly Taco Bell. Food that not only looks, but tastes like someone else has eaten it before and excreted it into the wrapper.

Finally tea. You put the bag in the cup and pour boiling water over it. Please do not bring me a mug of tepid water and a bag for dunking. About the only place to get a decent cuppa is Starbucks. Also iced tea? I suppose in hot climates it kind of makes sense but it’s foul tasting.

That said, soul food is marvelous, no country in the world does better BBQ (and the pizza can be as good as anything you find in Italy) and I could eat hash browns until they come out of my ears.

Image credits: penguinopusredux

#29

I absolutely think cakes made in America are too sweet with too much frosting. I always end up buying cakes from Asian or Mexican stores since they’re not as sweet.

Image credits: euramuse

#30

Hominy grits.

I’ve been told they taste great and I’m sure they do, but I saw some in a hotel once and it looked like they left a bucket of cum out in the sun for a while.

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