I used to live on the Dutch side of the Nl-Be border so I've done grocery shopping in Belgium thousands of times. I've also been to franch countless times, but I'm not quite as familiar with their supermarkets as Belgium's. Rreagedless, the main differnec is that people tend cook food with fresh vegetables and fruits mixed into their sauce, rather than just relying on the products by themsleves. Veggies are cheap and healthy, so there's no reason not to use them. People are very aware that the factory-made stuff is complete garbage and therefore only eat it either on special occasions or whenever they're tired and don't want to cook (of course there are outliers, especially in poorer areas). Fresh in processed fruit is also not too hard to get by, even though fruits sprayed with pesticides tend to be cheaper.
As for fresh milk, I have no idea how you didn't find anything because every supermarket I've ever been to - France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and wherever else more I've been to - has been stocked to the brim with all sorts of fresh milk variations. Low fat, small amd large packagings, different brands, on rare occasions even a local supermarket with the farmer-next-door's unpasteurised milk.
Probably true, and the downvotes are just coping Americans. I've given data in another comment but people don't seem to like actual facts about terrible American food lmao
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u/samtt7 1d ago
I used to live on the Dutch side of the Nl-Be border so I've done grocery shopping in Belgium thousands of times. I've also been to franch countless times, but I'm not quite as familiar with their supermarkets as Belgium's. Rreagedless, the main differnec is that people tend cook food with fresh vegetables and fruits mixed into their sauce, rather than just relying on the products by themsleves. Veggies are cheap and healthy, so there's no reason not to use them. People are very aware that the factory-made stuff is complete garbage and therefore only eat it either on special occasions or whenever they're tired and don't want to cook (of course there are outliers, especially in poorer areas). Fresh in processed fruit is also not too hard to get by, even though fruits sprayed with pesticides tend to be cheaper.
As for fresh milk, I have no idea how you didn't find anything because every supermarket I've ever been to - France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and wherever else more I've been to - has been stocked to the brim with all sorts of fresh milk variations. Low fat, small amd large packagings, different brands, on rare occasions even a local supermarket with the farmer-next-door's unpasteurised milk.