Europe BANNED these American foods. Here’s why

They say American food can kill! ... well...

Thank you so much for watching! Hope you enjoyed it!

If you're new to my channel and videos, hi! I'm Evan Edinger, and I make weekly "comedy" videos every Sunday evening. As an American living in London I love noticing the funny differences between the cultures and one of my most popular video series is my British VS American one. I'm also known for making terrible puns so sorry in advance. Hope to see you around, and I'll see you next Sunday! :)

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[DavidHarperUK]

EU = Prove it is safe
US = Prove it is dangerous

I'm very happy with a cautious approach thank you!

[Sabinee]

This confirmed my preconception that companies in the USA don’t care about the people/animals/environment as long as it makes more money

[lorrefl]

I'm from Belgium and it always weirds me out how much unnatural brightly colored food I see in US tv series and movies. Food shouldn't come in bright neon colors full of artificial food coloring.

[vincea]

I used to host European exchange students and without fail they all would gain 20lbs - 40lbs after living here for a year. They would be so confused because their diets didn't change much. It was just the quality of food being so garbage.

Edit: the pounds would drop after moving back.

[danbo]

In regards to the chicken (bleaching), I think the best metric of success is infection rates. According to the EU, the entire EU has about 90k salmonella cases each year for a population of about 450 million people. Meanwhile in the US, according to the CDC, there are 1.35 MILLION cases EACH year for a population of about 350 million people. Long term effects of ingesting chlorine aside, I think this shows that the bleaching doesn't really help and seems to rather create unsanitary environments where Salmonella can spread easier.

[madisonary]

Interesting point at the end about having the right to choose. I don’t see how Americans are choosing this unhealthy, sometimes outright poisonous food, it’s not like the two versions are next to each other on the shelf (for the same price). I would rather be able to trust that my food isn’t intentionally poisoning me for the sake of profit for the manufacturer and profit for the health “service” in the country I live.

[sissyroxx]

Spent most of my life in USA until I left at age 50. I also suffered terrible gastric problems which doctors couldn't identify a cause for. Since moving to EU I no longer suffer any gastric problems. I just assume I'm no longer being poisoned by food.

[zoeydeu]

I'm Aussie, and when I lived in the US for a couple of months, I developed THE worst cystic acne on my face and back (I rarely get pimples). As soon as I returned to Australia, within weeks, the cystic acne went away 😳😯 I was so relieved 😭 but it made me think twice about returning to US for a holiday

[einejulie]

It’s almost like in some countries health insurance exists so the government has an interest in the health of its people and in one it doesn’t

[jensgoerke]

Fun fact: Subway "bread" contains so much sugar that it's classified as cake in Germany.

[Flawlesslmperfection]

When I was camping as a kid, our breakfast cereals got left out overnight by accident. All of the cereals were ripped/chewed open and eaten by (presumably) racoons, rats, and other rodents. All of the cereals were eaten except the fruit loops. NOTHING ate the fruit loops, not even the rats. They were just left in a big pile next to the ripped box. I've never eaten fruit loops since because it made me scared of what might be in them!

[aidancampbell]

A big part of what British people were afraid of with Brexit was that Britain might end up so desperate for food that it had to accept American food and the much lower food safety standards that American food is produced under. The “remain” campaign ran public advertisements about this possibility, while the “leave” campaign ran advertisements assuring Brits they would never have to stoop to eating American-made food.

[tylerbeaumont]

I think my favourite thing about American food law is that infusing meat and grains with carcinogenic chemicals to help with shelf life, yield and flavour is perfectly legal, but putting toys inside chocolate eggs is an incredibly dangerous and illegal action.

It’s like the FDA can’t see any danger that’s too small to literally see. Microscopic chemicals are fine, because we can’t see them, but kinder eggs are horribly dangerous, because even the dumbest member of society can see that it’s technically possible to choke on one.

[zhivik]

The thing that vexes me the most about the US food industry is not only their lax safety standards, but their insistence that food producers have the right not to inform consumers about the content of their foods. I have seen enormous effort in the US to prevent mandatory labelling, or create so many exemptions that requirements become pointless. For instance, if you don't make a claim that your product brings a certain health benefit, then you are usually exempt from nutrition labelling in the US.

So, if food producers keep you from finding what it is in the food you are eating, is it really a free choice then? I think not.

[anneolgavea]

Read a story about fruit loops, a guy gave some to his nephew and the nephew had an ant farm, he laid some fruit loops inside of the farm just to see what the ants would do. To their ashonishment the ants grabbed all the dead ants from their "graveyard" and piled them on top of the cereal. Turns out that the cereal emitts a chemical which is the exact same ants use to identify another ant as "dead" and not alive. He wrote that he never again would touch fruit loops.

[IndiTheBull]

Always loved that American candy always seemed to have "Artificially Flavoured and Coloured" like a badge of honour instead of a warning xD

[ericfielding]

Evan skipped one other big food difference between the USA and UK, etc., eggs. The eggs in the USA are washed, similar to the chicken meat. In the UK, the chickens are raised in a way to keep the eggs clean and the eggs are not washed. This makes a huge difference because washing eggs removes the natural protective layer that means USA eggs must be refrigerated but UK eggs are not kept refrigerated.

[nicks]

Me, an American, being raised with a diet of cereal, bread, milk, bacon, chicken, and mt dew suddenly rethinking my entire life.

[RUGrimm-fvif]

I remember moving to the UK and Denmark from the US last January, the first time I had ever a) been in a plane and b) never been overseas. I wanted to grab a Mt. Dew from Tesco, and I remember feeling very excited to get one because sodas are such rare treats for me. Upon opening the drink, I immediately stopped after the first sip. The taste difference between US and European versions of Mt. Dew are so sharp that I gave up halfway through the drink. The same thing happened with popular snacks like Ritz, Cheez-it's, cookies, and tortilla chips.

It took several weeks to get used to all the flavor differences, but I'm honestly glad to have made that transition. After two weeks of not having US foods, I legitimately felt like I was going through withdrawals (I couldn't get full no matter how much I ate, I was severely anemic, I had an extremely fast heart rate, etc). But food in the UK/EU is so much healthier, and I felt it while living abroad. I think living abroad has been the healthiest period in my life. Now that I'm back in the US, foods taste so gross now- I don't know how I managed to stomach all the unhealthy sugars and salts, and I feel sick almost every other day. The FDA needs to get its shit together, idk.

[blenderpanzi]

Side-note about E numbers: Some people think any E number is bad, but its just a system that catalogues every possible thing you could put into a product. E.g. Oxygen has the number E948. You need to look up what the E number is to find out if it might be bad, good, or if it's something completely mundane.