It's a common idea that Americans are fat. This isn't a stereotype so much as it is a statistic. Since I can't really tell you about the American diet without talking about obesity, this story will include a lot of rhetoric about the obesity epidemic in America. Some of this chapter comes off a little ranty, and I've done more research on the topic than I care to mention. However, before we start all that, let's begin with the first meal of the day.

Most American's skip breakfast. There is a stigmatism that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day", and "breakfast jump starts your metabolism in the morning so you process your calories faster." I'll talk more about the American mindset, but for now, let's focus on breakfast. Most Americans might drink coffee for breakfast. It's considered strange to drink sodas, but juice or milk and coffee (if you drink it) are considered the staple for an American Breakfast. The juices we drink are typically apple or orange juice, and sometime cranberry or some kind of cranberry / apple hybrid. Not saying other juices don't exist, but I think those would be the most common three, followed by fruit punches and other 'more koolaid than juice' juices.

For the busy parent who has to get ready for work and get two kids ready for the bus by 7:00 a.m., cereal is the most go to option. Cereal is really bad for you, but in America, marketing (more later) convinced us that it is a staple of breakfast. Grocery stores contain aisles dedicated to just every type of cereal you can imagine. They're all bad for you, whether you grab cheerios or Coco puffs, but marketing lists tons of vitamins and the box is covered in buzz words from "multigrain" to "lowers cholesterol" and has convinced America that cereal is anything but what it is, sugar and wheat mixed with milk.

The second quick American Breakfast is a poptart. Not a toaster pastry, although those exist too, but the dry, sugar-induced monstrosity heavily marketed to kids and the busy parent that you toss into a toaster. You can also fall back on equally sugar-induced granola bars that are, once again, marketed as healthy.

Now, cereal, poptarts, and granola bars probably account for 80% (random statistic pulled out of my butt) of breakfasts in the morning. However, there are other options. Eggs, meat, and toast is a very very common breakfast. The meat is almost always bacon, ham, or sausage. You can occasionally get steak, but it is rarer. Eggs can be cooked any way eggs are cooked, including put into an omelet with cheese. The bread is not fresh, but plastic bag wrapped white, rye, sour dough or something like that.

Toast can be supplemented for pancakes or waffles (especially at IHOPs or Waffle Houses), which are served with pancake syrup, a thick artificial derivative of maple syrup (yah, more sugar!). Cheese would be a weird thing to have for breakfast unless it was put over eggs, and when I say cheese, I don't mean real cheese, usually... but American cheese slices or industrialized shredded cheddar or mozzarella. Potatoes can be served in the form of hashbrowns or "breakfast potatoes" which are just thinly cut into squares and cooked (sometimes with onions). I also should give a shout-out to bagels, which are often eaten with cream cheese, as well as the infamously sugary donuts, and of course muffins. At least donuts and muffins are also big calorie offenders.

Now, I'll mention fruit can be served for breakfast too. Less so for vegetables. For some reason, in America, vegetables are associated with dinner meals. I'm not saying there are not exceptions, but with the exception of vegans and vegetarians (still 3% of the population), not too many Americans would touch a salad or fruit platter for breakfast. For me, the thought of giving a kid an apple for breakfast seems strange, although I could see an orange on someone's plate, but usually as a side item, and not breakfast in entirety.

FYI, my kids occasionally eat cereal, but I also give them toast with nothing on it for breakfast a fair amount. Please note that most bread in America is not the nice hard hardy bakery kind, but soft pre-sliced manufactured bread that comes from a plastic bag. American white bread usually also contains sugar.

The standard "lunchbox" lunch that a kid would take to school or someone might take to lunch would be a sandwich. Two slices of white bread with peanut butter and grape jelly in between. (Grape jelly is the most standard of jellies, followed by strawberry, but for a PBJ, it's often grape) Peanut butter is smooth or crunchy. Sandwiches can instead have some kind of meat, usually thinly sliced turkey, chicken, bologna, ham, salami, or roast beef known as sandwich meat. Maybe mayo, maybe mustard, maybe spinach, maybe tomatoes. Maybe a slice of cheese, usually American or white American. Sandwiches can go a lot of directions, but I'd say sandwich accounts for 50% of lunches, where as "left overs" from last night's dinner account for a lot of the rest. That is, when you don't go out to eat for lunch.

Before I get into that, lunches also typically involve a bag of potato chips (crisps), combos, chex mix, or pretzels, perhaps a fruit (apple, orange, or bananas usually), and maybe a single pack of yogurt. If you're more health contentious, maybe a vegetable or nuts. If you're in a rush, lunchables are also a thing people get for lunch. They're horrible little conflagrations of fake cheese, bologna, and crackers that are made for convenience, not health. Or you can get fake pizza lunchables with some shredded cheese, sauce, and maybe pepperonis, eaten cold or luke-warm. To the healthier person, about the only "normal" option is a salad... which can quickly become unhealthy once you add bacon, croutons, ranch dressing, and cheese.

Now, if you go out to eat, lunch usually doesn't deviate too much. Maybe a hamburger and fries instead of a sandwich and chips, but we still have the same kind of setup... a sandwich and a starch, with maybe a fruit/vegetable on the side. However, most lunches "out" are the same as dinners, but smaller portions. For Americans, dinner is usually the biggest meal of the day. Many people will skip breakfast and lunch, and ONLY eat Dinner. Or they'll eat a late lunch that also serves as a dinner. Although, while many people only have two meals a day, the three meals a day mentality is strong.

Nutritionists will advise people to eat 5 times a day. Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner. There is a belief that continuous eating curves appetite and dissuades overeating. If I eat an apple before lunch, then I won't each as much during lunch, the story goes... This idea of snacking between meals is pushed on kids too, at my son's school, they require you send your kid to school with not just lunch, but also a snack for the morning so they have a snack break. I remember in middle school, our teachers used to stop class for fifteen minutes in the middle of the day and force us to take a snack break, where they would sell us little debbies (really sugary bakery goods) to eat during the break. Tell me that isn't effed up.

However, time is not on our side. Fifteen minutes is all you ever get for a snack, and 30 minutes is all you get for lunch. Most jobs are required to give you a lunch time if you work over 6 hours in a day, so rather than have you work less than 8 hours, they'll just have you work 8.5 hours instead with that ½ hour pre-deducted from your pay. In most jobs, you'll get a really crappy break room, a microwave, a refrigerator stuffed full of people's bag lunches... and that's it.

Good thing you also have access to microwavable meals... frozen boxes with pre-aliquoted food for one that almost always taste like nothing. If you don't have the time/energy to make a sandwich, that's your option. If you live near a fast food joint, though, you have barely 30 minutes to run over there, order something, eat, and then run back before you run out of time.

Despite popular belief, the American diet isn't overeating or even massive portions. Its speed and convenience. Every problem with our food is entirely about getting the calories in you as quickly as possible, while making them as palatable as we can. The idea of Americans always walking around with some kind of food item is true, but it's not from laziness... it's because we have a culture that doesn't dedicate any time to eating. You eat fast or you eat on the go, those are your choices.

So finally, you come home and eat dinner. Dinner is the one meal a day most families will actually enjoy together... and they probably don't spend it at a dinner table, but in front of a TV. Since both parents likely worked the whole day, and only got home come 2-3 hours before dinner, they likely didn't feel like spending those entire 3 hours cooking... so most meals are made in under an hour. Most American's wouldn't even know HOW to cook a meal that took more than an hour to whip up, and most food is dedicated towards fast cooking. They're tired. They want to sit down and relax. Exactly what about sitting around on hard wooden chairs around a table is relaxing? Food is cooked quickly, and then you sit on a nice comfy couch to eat it.

What do Americans eat for dinner? This is a very loaded question. The simplest answer is it's usually a meat, a carb, and a vegetable. The carb is usually pasta, rice, or rolls. The meat can be chicken, steak, pork, fish, or a dozen other things. The vegetable is usually frozen in a bag, either corn, carrots, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, or some random mixture of this group.

Other meals include enchiladas, taco night, spaghetti and meatballs, chili, beef stew.... But even these usually include the idea of 1 meat, 1 carb, and 1 vegetable. We have access to other foods, but these are often cultural. My family had German origins, and so sauerkraut and sausage was a common meal. We like certain things in the past, so we occasionally make sushi-like California rolls, or gyros with pita bread. Every family will have their own preferred meals, based a lot on whose cooking, and what their family likes.

America has a lot of cultures mixed in, and if you live near any city, there is a good chance you've been exposed to a LOT of different cultures of food. Then again, I know people who have never eaten anything that could be considered outside of the standard American diet of a plate of meat, vegetable, starch, so it goes both ways.

I'd also like to put out that many of these meals get substituted. When we don't skip meals, we sub them for something quick and easy. In this case, the options are "shakes", which an artificial vanilla or chocolate concoctions full of vitamins. They started with slim fast, but there are tons of other options, some concentrating on less carbs, or lots of protein, or low calories. Up to two meals a day can be subbed with these. As someone who always had weight problems, I actually grew up on slim fast shakes, not that they did any good.

If you're more health conscientious, you may have picked up "green smoothies" or "juicing". Basically, kale, spinach, and a random assortment of fruits and/or yogurt get blended in a blender until you have a smoothie consistency. This would replace a meal. People swear by it, claiming it gives them so many advantages. Juicing does the same thing, but extracts everything but the juice from the fruits and leaves. It gives you a temporary high since you're basically drinking pure sugar that'll spike your blood-sugar levels, so it keeps people who are afraid of 5 hour energy or coffee energized.

So you take five apples and you turn them into one drink. Is it healthy? No, not at all, but some people would swear by it. Would eating five apples be better? Yes! But who has the time for that? Like I said, convenience and speed.

If you live near a city, you likely have a large assortment of places to eat. In America, for some reason, people think restaurants are "healthy". Even though the portions are quite large, we've been so conditioned to believe fast food is bad, that we somewhere decided restaurant food must be good. It's quite the opposite. Restaurant food is as bad as fast food, and you're likely to eat more at a restaurant than you would at a fast food joint. However, because it's more expensive, you're also likely to go out to eat less, and there is the rub.

Restaurants typically come in Chinese, Italian, Mexican, Southern, Seafood, and ... I guess you'd call it "American"? Chinese/Japanese/Thai restaurants are usually small and rare. You're more likely to find an order out/delivery place or a buffet. Italian places are either focused on pasta, or focused on pizza. Mexican places are area specific, and there is always the question on whether the food is "authentic" or just Americanized Mexican food. Southern are the steak places, usually they serve peanuts at every table, and have a heavy "cowboy" feel to them. American is the word I use to describe TGI Fridays, Applebees, ect... Usually they contain a bar, the food is a mixture of hamburgers, Asian "inspired" dishes, steak, and chicken... fairly wide-ranged.

Fast food probably is about the same everywhere? McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Arbys. You have a few location-specific fast food places. You won't find a skyline chili far outside of Ohio. Jack In the Box are all west coast, I see none of them where I live. Culvers are typical to Midwest. I could name a billion different discrepancies, but you'd be better off just googling it. If the location you want to set your story doesn't have that restaurant within 200 miles, there is a good chance the people in that area are unfamiliar with the restaurant.

Likewise, every area has their own quirks in food. Cincinnati chili and Cincinnati chili dogs are fairly unique to the area around Cincinnati. Giant burgers and custard is fairly unique to the Milwaukee area. There were tons of Mexican places where I grew up, none where I live now. There is a lot of fish restaurants and fish related food products on the coasts, but very little in the Midwest.

If you live out in the country area, you might not have any fast food or restaurant near you, or you might be limited to one or two options, whereas in many cities, you have 3-4 fast food joints and just as many restaurants near any major shopping center.

America underpays waitresses, so it is considered normal to tip them. Every meal is increased by 15%-20% to cover the cost of the waitress who served you food. This does not happen in fast food restaurants, of course, but anywhere where you sit down, tipping is expected. I've even seen buffets where the waitress brings your drinks and it becomes seriously questionable on whether you're tipping or not.

Soda is usually a free refill. This is expected in America. You pay once, and then the waitress will bring you as many refills as you want. At fast food places, you usually fill your own soda from a fountain machine. Some places will only refill once, and a very select few will just bring out a can of soda and pour it into a glass, but if it's a fountain drink, it should be refilled. This is the same with coffee and tea. Iced tea and soda include a lot of ice. Like, 2/3 of the cup is filled with ice. You'd have to request for ice to not be in your drink. When we order drinks, it's usually provided in a ~32 oz glass, and refilled upon request. Pitchers and carafes are occasionally used when ordering beer, but it seems like restaurants use pitchers less and less these days (when I was young, I remember pitchers, but in the last decade, I don't see waitresses leaving a pitcher out to a table anymore). They bring the pitcher, fill your drink, and then leave with it.

Water is free in most restaurants. Saying that might give me a strange look from Americans because this seems like common sense to them, but you actually have to buy water, often in glass bottles, in a restaurant in many foreign countries. Our water plumbing is considered quite good in America, and so if you ask for water, 9/10 times you'll be served tap water with ice. You can order bottled water, especially at nice restaurants, but it can be considered quite pretentious. The quality does vary on location. I used to live in a place with great tasting tap water, but where I live now it's quite gross and I use flavoring (crystal light). Some locations may filter the water, but not always. There is a common saying in America that you shouldn't drink the water whenever we leave the country, because it doesn't usually occur to the less traveled that tap water might not be drinkable.

If you order iced tea in the south, it's almost expected that it's sweetened. In the North, you'd probably need to sweeten it yourself. Most tables have a rack which includes ketchup, salt, pepper, jelly, butter, and packets of sugar as well as sugar substitutes. It's not abnormal for people to use salt and pepper on their meals, sometimes before even tasting it. (I've heard in some countries, this is considered rude). Sometimes there is a napkin container as well, especially if it's a rib joint or somewhere where eating might be messy.

So when you're not going out to eat, you're eating in. In that case, most food is purchased at a grocery store. Like access to fast food, where you live depicts what grocery stores in your area. Food 4 less, Sentry, Pick N Save, Krogers, Piggly Wiggly... some people end up doing their grocery shopping at Walmarts and other super centers that now have food as well.

Most grocery stores are designed to make you walk in a circle. They start with the fruit/vegetables, send you through the meat/bakery, then cheese, then packaged food for aisles upon aisles, finally to end up in the frozen section. This was carefully orchestrated for various reasons going in psychology that I'm sure you could look up and have an interesting read... But not every store necessarily is positioned in that order. Still, the fruit and vegetables are usually the first thing you see (freshness!) and the meat and cheese is at the back of the store.

Milk and eggs are refrigerated here. The way we process them, they'd spoil within days if left out, and will still spoil within weeks based on the current way we handle milk and eggs.

Small shops and specialty shops are rare. I remember my mom used to drive to a butcher occasionally to get some of her meats, but it was on the other side of town and you literally made a day of running around to 3 different places to shop for groceries. I couldn't tell you where there is a butcher, a bakery, or any of that stuff where I live now. I only use a bakery when I want to buy a cake. These places exist, but you probably have one per 100 miles (okay, bakeries can be more frequent, but still, mostly they're cake repositories for weddings and birthdays), and they are almost certainly more expensive than the grocery stores. Most people buy all their food needs at one store in one trip.

As far as the cost of buying things... let's just say that fresh food is discouraged. You can get a lot more canned/frozen food that lasts a lot longer in your fridge. Since the average American only spares twice a month to go grocery shopping (basically when they get paid from work), we need food that lasts that long. I can't buy salad that'll be bad in three days. It's wasteful. Those crackers will last me three months. That's part of the American mentality.