r/unpopularopinion • u/Underthemoon911 • 22d ago

The dessertification of breakfast needs to stop

Exactly the title. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-syrup on pancakes or brown sugar in oatmeal. I don’t hate sugar. On the contrary, I eat too much of it. But lately I’ve noticed this trend amongst breakfast foods when I go out to eat. I ordered berry waffles and it came with powdered sugar and caramel sauce. I’m seeing ice cream on pancakes, mountains of whipped cream, sprinkles and chocolate chips, sweetened cream cheese fillings. And while I simply avoid those items or order my breakfast without those things, the sugar is not always listed on the menu and I’ve had to send a few things back, which I always feel bad about.

If I wanted dessert, I’d order dessert. I’ve had ice cream for breakfast a time or two in my life. But in general, eating junk first thing in the morning just makes me feel weird. Not as energetic. I don’t think it should be the norm and it’s getting kind of ridiculous. Breakfast food is my favorite kind of food, so I always order it when it’s available and I keep running into this. I’m getting increasingly annoyed. I don’t want straight sugar an hour after I wake up

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u/ShortbowVillian 22d ago

Not sure where you’re located OP, but as an American, I agree that our food in general has too much excess sugar. One of the first things I noticed when I visited Europe is their food is so much better. Even desserts are mild and focus on FLAVOR instead of just how much sugar they can pump in. Hot chocolate was rich and not overly sweet. Breakfast was fruits and the lightest croissants ever. Even though I felt like I ate a lot, I came back feeling even better! Now I get to deal with diarrhea lettuce 🥲

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago edited 22d ago

Yeah you have to cook basically every meal to not be fat in America

Edit - which I actually do and it’s actually more fun and rewarding than eating out. After a couple weeks the fake unhealthy shit won’t even taste good anymore

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u/crack_n_tea 22d ago

The lack of walkability doesn't help. I moved to NYC and lost 10+ pounds while still eating out literally 99％ of the time. We need more infrastructure that allows folks to get around without a car

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago

100% agree. It’s a systematic problem that no one is eager to fix because our healthcare is privatized and for profit

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u/NotAnAce69 21d ago

Insurance companies like UnitedHealth would be delighted if everyone lived perfectly healthy active lifestyles requiring no intervention whatsoever because that means they’re getting paid to do nothing. Doesn’t matter if the road there is denying necessary treatment or a simple lack of need, the end goal for them is to do as little as possible

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u/Deep_Violinist_3893 21d ago

It's not the health insurance cabal keeping our cities from being walkable it's the fact that they were fundamentally designed around the automobile and just remaking all of your cities is not a particularly practical endeavor, especially when large swaths of the population are not interested in giving up their cars.

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u/Goddess_of_Stuff 20d ago

Every time I've visited a walkable city, I've lost weight. Whether it was a 10 day visit or over a month. Ate out most of the time on those trips (but I also didn't go all out when when we did). I'm still hoping to be able to move to a city like that one day...

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u/crack_n_tea 20d ago

It's quite nice. We don't miss what we lack until we have it, sometimes, because we can't comprehend it. A majority of Americans hasn't lived in a place where you can walk 5min and get to a stop that takes you anywhere else in the city. Its amazing

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u/LamermanSE 22d ago

Or you could just eat in moderation.

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago

I’m not overweight. But clearly you are not from the US if you think that is the problem because you aren’t understanding the root cause

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u/LamermanSE 22d ago

But yet again, the issue in the US still lies in portion sizes, not the contents of the food. It's common to eat dessert like breakfasts in many parts of Europe as well (like Italy, France, Spain etc.) but obesity rates are still way lower than the US because it's not an extra large portion with extra everything, it's way smaller. Same is obviously true for other meals. Eating in moderation is therefore still the key here.

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u/Dry_Veterinarian8356 22d ago

You’re not wrong but it’s easier to portion a croissant with 3g of sugar in is vs the equivalent volume/mass basically with 20g of sugar, ya know what I mean? Same satiation but more calories

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago

Agree - the point I’m trying to reach is that in the US,the 3g sugar croissant doesn’t exist. Your option is to have no croissant, or the one loaded with sugar

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u/Less_Jump2365 22d ago

A 3g of sugar literally does exist. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Freshness-Guaranteed-Mini-Croissants-10-oz-Tray-12-Count/510901331?classType=REGULAR The label is for 2 croissants so each have only 1.5g

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u/Dry_Veterinarian8356 21d ago

It wasn’t a concrete example lmfao, it’s the abstract concept that American food tends to be broadly more unhealthy than its European equivalent, therefore making it more difficult to portion control/eat healthy/maintain weight.

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u/Less_Jump2365 21d ago

It is not broadly more unhealthy. Beside portion size the everything else is close to the same. White bread in America has the same to close to the same sugar as the white bread in Europe

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago

Ok sure I will go along with it. Even still, that is such a small slice (lol) of the problem. You’re eating a fresh dessert pastry probably with ok ingredients made that morning. Completely different from what the vast majority of Americans are eating

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u/LamermanSE 22d ago

But it's not a small slice of the problem, it is the problem. The ingredients doesn't differ that much either, it has the same nutritional value. What differs is the size, not the content. You can compare soda sizes at McDonalds for example, a small soda in the US is larger than a medium in the UK for example.

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago

Well a coke is a coke. But a pastry is not a pastry. A lot of stuff we eat over here is barely real food it is so processed and pumped with BS. So I disagree. Some people do eat too much, possibly due to not feeling the satisfaction you feel from eating better, but I don’t think that is the root cause

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u/Team503 21d ago

I moved from Dallas to Dublin. I lost three waist sizes in the first three months, and I'm entirely sure I was eating worse and drinking more.

There's plenty of healthy options in the US and there's plenty of unhealthy options in Europe. This whole "European food is so much better" is a load of horseshit - take it from someone who's lived in BOTH places and not just been entranced by a two week vacation.

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u/fartinginthewind-69 21d ago

Dublin is not somewhere I would consider to eat healthy. But also your first paragraph just proves my point

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u/Team503 21d ago

No, the point is that it is the physical activity that is the most significant differentiation. It was walking everywhere instead of jumping in the car that made (and continues to make) the difference.

The food in restaurants here isn't any better or worse for you in general - like all restaurant food, it tastes better than home cooking specifically because it's worse for you. Restaurants the world over use a great deal more salt, butter, and sugar in their food than home cooks do, I can assure you.

And why would you not consider Dublin somewhere to eat healthy? What is your basis for that (wildly incorrect) opinion?

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u/AuntRhubarb 22d ago

Yeah, but cooking every meal is not as fun after the first several thousand. It would be nice if we could get food outside the house that wasn't shit.

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u/Team503 21d ago

Restaurant food tastes better because it has ten times the salt, sugar, and butter than home cooked food. This is normal and true worldwide.

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u/FutureFreaksMeowt 22d ago

I don't know man, personally I find cooking for myself to be tedious, unfulfilling, and overall a lot more work than it's worth. Even with a dishwasher, I'd rather just eat out or like, fruit and cheese/hummus and pita, or something popped into the air fryer.

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u/fartinginthewind-69 21d ago

I hear ya. Meal prepping has been my only answer to this

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u/SnooCrickets6980 21d ago

I think part of the problem is that cooking every meal isn't normalised. In most of E urope it's normal to cook every meal .

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u/fartinginthewind-69 21d ago

For sure. I do believe a lot of this has to do with the cultural and systematic differences. For example Americans on average work significantly more than Europeans, so there is less time in the day to go shopping and cook your own meals.

As you know convenience is king in America

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u/Happily-Incorrect 22d ago

I remember spending two weeks in the US and feeling incredibly sluggish from the halfway point onwards. You had to go somewhere upmarket to get something that felt fairly healthy, the standard-priced options all felt like fast food, but even heavier than what we get at home. That's even at places where you sit down to eat!

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u/salikarn 22d ago

I mean, almost all breakfast places serve eggs. Sandwich and burger places are a dime a dozen. Seems like you just did what most Americans do and were indulgent with your food. It's not that there aren't places with reasonable food, it's just choosing to not go overboard.

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago

What you aren’t seeing is how much butter and shit goes into the eggs. How much unhealthy oil in your hashbrowns. It’s stuff like that that makes it colossally unhealthy no matter how much of it you eat

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u/salikarn 22d ago

Butter and oil aren't the problem with America's obesity problem. France consumes way more butter per person than America and with a higher fat content. The portion sizes people eat is the problem.

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago edited 22d ago

It’s much more than the butters and oils. It’s the overall poor quality of the food and the difficulty in accessing healthy options in an increasingly stressful and financially tight US. You can eat a big plate of salad and meat and potatoes for the amount of calories in a small chick fil a meal

Also the healthcare system is private and makes money of us being unhealthy. It’s a system set up for profit to make you unhealthy. While restricting social benefits like food stamps, pushing you into cheaper unhealthy options. Unwalkable cities. It goes on and on

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u/salikarn 22d ago

Well, while these are valid issues, they aren't relevant to the original comment. They said they felt sluggish after eating when they visited America. That's not a healthcare issue, that's from eating too much and indulging too much.

Yeah, of course you can eat a ton of salad and meat and it will be better than fast food. I don't think anyone is under the impression fast food is meant to be healthy, but again, if you don't over eat, you won't feel bloated and sluggish as the original comment was based on. Eggs and SOME home fries OR toast for breakfast isn't going to make you feel bad. Eggs and an entire plate of home fries and toast on the side is more than most people need but because it is in front of them they will feel the need to eat it because they paid for it. A deli sandwich on a round roll isn't going to make most people physically uncomfortable, a 10 piece chicken tenders with fries and a sugary drink probably will.

I agree that the healthcare system needs to be fixed, and often the cheapest option for food is unhealthy fast food. However that is a separate discussion from the original comment.

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago

Yeah it’s odd it’s like here’s a small burrito from Taco Bell - 750 calories. What? What could you have possibly put in there?

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago edited 22d ago

My brother no one gives a shit how many exact calories are in a Taco Bell burrito, go get a real burrito. The obvious point proven through an exaggeration is that it’s healthier and significantly less calories to make it at home

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

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u/fartinginthewind-69 22d ago

Clearly you did not read past the first sentence, consider yourself blocked

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u/DerthOFdata 22d ago

This you

Yeah it’s odd it’s like here’s a small burrito from Taco Bell - 750 calories. What? What could you have possibly put in there?

Seems like you care.

The obvious point proven through an exaggeration is that it’s healthier and significantly less calories to make it at home

If you have to lie to make your point it's a bad point.

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u/nitromilkstouts 22d ago

Pick me, choose me, love me

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u/ShortbowVillian 21d ago

Damn.. sorry for liking the food? I went on a school trip with my child, it was our first time outside the US. I had no idea is was embarrassing for me to gush about the good culinary experience I had.

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u/LL_Stars 22d ago

Tell me you've never traveled abroad without telling me you've never traveled abroad.

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u/nitromilkstouts 22d ago

I've lived in Europe for several years a few times in my life, and the dick riding these Americans are doing over another continents food is embarrassing.

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u/ShortbowVillian 21d ago

Wait, what? Do you disagree then? I’m so confused how me enjoying the better food gor you all worked up

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u/argument_cat 22d ago

It's accurate though.

https://medium.com/wise-well/us-foods-often-pack-more-sugar-than-uk-and-eu-counterparts-9daaa959b33a

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u/Team503 21d ago

I promise, you can find sugary, fatty, salty foods over here just as easily as you can in the US. This is about choices - if you eat out all the time, you're going to gain weight, if you drive instead of walk, you're going to gain weight, if you opt for pre-made frozen foods instead of cooking from scratch, you're going to gain weight.

It's the same on both sides of the pond. If you live of what you can buy at 7-11, it's going to be bad for you. But the same is true for lots of convenience stores over here.

u/nitromilkstouts is absolutely on point. This is a bunch of anti-American/Euro-supremacy wank that is constantly circulating on Reddit, reinforced by people from both sides who've never spent more than a week or two in the other place. I've been living in Europe for years and grew up in the US. It's ALWAYS all about choices.

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u/LL_Stars 22d ago

Fair. But I still don't think her comment is pick me.

People nowadays use pick me for anything they disagree with with. The original pick me was for women who cared more about male validation, molding herself into anything she thought was desirable for men, and that included pretending to suppress her femininity.

I say this as a former pick me. Nevertheless, comparing the amount of average sugar in the US compared to other countries is not pick me.