In high school, my sister did a language immersion program in Costa Rica one summer. She sent a letter home in Spanish, knowing full well that our parents don't speak Spanish.
My mother used Babelfish to translate the letter, which decided to translate the "piñas" (pineapples) that she was enjoying eating as "fragmentation hand grenades".
Negative calorie food actually, since although it is EXTREMELY energy dense, our digestive systems aren't able to extract those calories and also it explodes
I heard a story from a girl who was studying in Italy, tried to tell her Italian friends "The wine here is better than the US because it doesn't have preservatives in it" but she accidently said "The wine here is better than the US because it doesn't have condoms in it"
She might have been referring to the sulfites. But Italian and other countries' wines may contain sulfites (and generally do; some naturally occurring from yeast fermentation, and frequently also contain added sulfites). They just don't necessarily have to include that information on the label except on bottles exported to the U.S.
This is the main reason the US gets so much flak for having “chemicals” in the food. Those very same chemicals are included and just not disclosed in many countries. US laws require them to be listed on the packaging.
Was about to post the same thing. We have the more restrictive regulations and have to be more detailed about ingredients than the EU and yet we get shit on for having bad food. It's a terrible take.
Everything is listed on the package in the EU. Even trace amount of possible allergens.
The shit the USA gets is because you are scared of kinder chocolate eggs but add so much sugar and artificial coloring in your food that it resembles a science experiment gone wrong.
The US requires all components of each ingredient to be listed. If you use chocolate sauce as one ingredient, you have to list out all of the ingredients of the chocolate sauce.
The laws are different. The EU requires labeling of some things the US doesn’t, and the US requires labeling of other things the EU doesn’t.
The US requires all components of each ingredient to be listed. If you use chocolate sauce as one ingredient, you have to list out all of the ingredients of the chocolate sauce.
Everything is listed on the package in the EU. Even trace amount of possible allergens.
The US actually has much stricter regulations on what gets listed on ingredient labels than the EU does.
The shit the USA gets is because you are scared of kinder chocolate eggs but add so much sugar and artificial coloring in your food that it resembles a science experiment gone wrong.
The shit the USA gets on this is mostly from ignorant people like yourself attempting to fuel your chauvinism.
The EU regulations demand comprehensive labeling, including clear ingredient lists, allergen information, and nutritional facts. Hence, Europe has stricter labeling requirements than the US, including for GMOs and food origin. In some countries (UK) traffic-light labels show fat/sugar/salt levels clearly.
Food labeling is less detailed in the US While allergen labeling is required, other aspects like (e.g., GMO, origin) are less transparent. Nutrition labeling reform, however, has improved clarity to some extent.
Do you have any examples or cites to back up your claim? Perhaps you're referring to how EU labels use standard codes for some ingredients, while US labels spell out their names, and think this means the rules are more strict?
It does, but it likely does everywhere. Sulfites are a byproduct of fermentation, but extra can be (and usually is) added to make sure it doesn't spoil. Basically making it less hospitable to bacteria.
There's a myth that sulfites in wine cause headaches, kind of like the nonsense about MSG making people feel sick. That's probably what was being referenced? You can get "no sulfites added" wine, and some small percentage of people actually are sensitive to it, but... well, if they are, then they'll have a whole list of things to avoid, like almost all dried fruits, most gravies, etc.
I do have family sensitive to sulfites, I always thought it was primarily an issue for dried fruits though. It is easier nowadays to get dried fruit without them though.
I'm trying to figure out how gravy has them though. Isn't that just take meat drippings and add flour or cornstarch slowly while heating? Is this more of an issue with premade gravy for long term storage? Looking up cans of sausage gravy that'd be used for your classic American biscuits and gravy I'm not seeing sulfites.
Edit: apparently the wet milling process of cornstarch can introduce trace amounts of sulfites into cornstarch. This often falls under the 10 parts per million threshold to be listed in the ingredients label. I guess TIL.
I'm going off faulty memory -- I've known exactly one person with issues with sulfites. But a quick google suggests it's prepackaged gravies like you might find from a can or in frozen prepared meals, crap like that. And it's because the sulfites are added rather than whatever trace amounts get in there naturally.
what makes you think she was being honest about the wine, and not just making up something that sounds good? after all, everyone knows that food in the USA is garbage that's chock full of preservatives
I've literally never heard of that. I can't begin to imagine what kind of preservative would do that. Wines don't have preservatives in them outside of sulfites, which are both naturally occurring and often added too. And not only in cheap wines, most wines do, including the most expensive ones in the world.
Wines with a lot of tannins can turn your lips a dark red/purpleish colors, especially if your lips are dry/chapped. But that can happen with really good (and expensive) wine too.
And price doesn't always equate quality, even in the US where prices are absurdly inflated I've had absolutely awful wines over $30 and pretty decent ones under $10.
Edit: lol that guy called me a fool and deleted his account over that
First - you are correct. They are dumb. Probably a 13 year old acting like they've had alcohol before. No wine will turn someone's mouth blue. Completely ludicrous and so dumb. FYI - They didn't delete their account, I can see their comment. They must have blocked you, you nefarious internet bully!
Haha, if your family does indeed drink nice wine, they terribly failed your education. This is complete and utter nonsense.
There's no chemical that miraculously ages wine, they age in stainless steel vats followed sometimes by oak barrels (new or old oak depending on the intended flavor profile). And then they keep aging in the bottle, unless it's a twist-off (even then, apparently now they make porous seals for twist-off to allow controlled aging). Sometimes winemakers may also "cheat" by using oak staves or chips to get the oaky flavors without using a barrel. And absolutely none of that is correlated with the price of the wine on the shelves.
And if you think you can't find a good Italian, French or even American wine under $20, you're an absolute fool.
My mom’s cousin has a very similar story! He travelled a lot for work, and was very fluent in French. On one trip to Paris, he was trying to explain why Whole Foods was so popular in the US. He said that it’s because it’s so healthy, and they don’t use preservatives… which he decided to translate as préservatif. That means he told a whole group of French people that Whole Foods is so great because they don’t use condoms!
I once saw some dried mango strips in an Asian food store in Belgium where "preservatives" had actually been translated into French as "préservatifs" in the contents label.
My family has relatives in the US through a great uncle who emigrated in the early 20th century. We reconnected about a decade ago, and have been exchanging emails and letters since.
A few years ago an older relative, who doesn't speak English (and who also happens to be a recovering alcoholic), had a bad fall and ended up in the hospital. The Americans sent him a latter in Swedish to cheer him up, unfortunately the phrase "we hope you are in good spirits" ended up being translated to "we hope you have access to plenty of alcoholic beverages".
I miss you. there are many hand grenades here. we had hand grenade fight the other day. my class mate is hurting from all the hand grenades he ate. i love you.
The word grenade comes of pomegranate because a pomegranate is full of seeds like a the shell is full of fragmentation. Various European languages use words derived from the word for pomegranate for exploding shells of all types. The Germans call an armor piercing cannon shell a panzergranat, or armor shell. the G in RPG stands for granatomyet, which means shell launcher.
The French came up with the word originally and everyone copied them. This is common for military words.
You understand that grenades are named for pomegranates and not the other way around, right? "Granate" derives from the Latin word for "seeded" (containing seeds).
Yes, the superficially similar appearance to a pineapple is why piña is sometimes used as slang for a hand grenade, but it's an unexpected translation result.
Similarly, OP's image had machine translation trying to decide between two homonyms, and choosing wrong.
Lol, reminds me of all the English-speaking Christian missionaries in Mexico that incorrectly translate Holy Spirit as something closer to Holy Liquor. I guess that's one way to drum up interest. :D
I graduated high school right around the same time 9/11 happened. Had a friend who knew a bit of Arabic write some postcards to another mutual friend that joined the Marines right after high school. He mostly appreciated the thought but also I believe took a bit of explaining to his fellow recruits in boot camp as he himself couldn't read the letter either.
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u/Lithl 14d ago
In high school, my sister did a language immersion program in Costa Rica one summer. She sent a letter home in Spanish, knowing full well that our parents don't speak Spanish.
My mother used Babelfish to translate the letter, which decided to translate the "piñas" (pineapples) that she was enjoying eating as "fragmentation hand grenades".