[artisinal]

Natural parks.

Tasty drinkable water from the tap in nearly the entire country. Being able to flush toilet paper. Free toilets almost everywhere.

Being a country for 250 years is also quite an achievement.

I’m European and have witnessed many wars on my continent in my lifetime. A childhood friend was shot down with a Russian surface to air missile.

[axpy906]

I don’t know. There are other countries that have those properties. I am envious of Western Europe’s healthcare, social safety net, healthier food and holidays that you don’t work on.

The comment came about from the last charts show religion, patriotism, etc down while money rose. It clicked.

[retired]

Grass is greener. I’m currently in Spain. I don’t have access to the public healthcare system. Don’t have access to unemployment. A third of the population can’t even afford a holiday. People are getting more obese every year. Rent is higher than minimum wage.

EU is a good place to be but some people have this overly optimistic view of the place.

[holgerschurig]

That is because EU is everything ... but not something homogenous entity. Living in Austria is very different to living in Spain, is different to living in Greece.

There are countries in EU where it is almost impossible to get out of public healthcare, for example. And then some like yours, where this seems to be quite common.

But I guess "rent is higher than minimum wage" isn't true for all of Spain. Spain is extremely centralized, everything is in Madrid. But if you somehow can get away with living in the middle of nowhere, then I don't expect rent to be higher than minimum wage.

These extremely expensive metropoles exist all over Europe (London, Prague, München, Madrid, Paris, ...) but also in the USA (New York, and probably 40 others).

[fluidcruft]

What food does Europe have that the US does not?

[axpy906]

Its what’s not in the food like additives, preservatives, pesticides, gmos and growth hormone. EU has stricter regulations.

[jandrewrogers]

Not stricter, just different emphasis. For example, the US famously has stricter controls on bacterial contamination than much of Europe.

[holgerschurig]

That migth be true in some cases, but there are glaring cases there this isn't the case.

Look at the conflict on clorinated chickens between USA and EU. The USA insists on not-so-clean production environments and to get rid of the bacteria with clorine. While the EU insists on a clean-from-the-get-go approach, where clorination isn't necessary.

(Fun fact: "the customer is always rigth / drives the market" isn't applied here. The USA farmers want to export their chicken to the EU, but never ever did they consider to produce them according to what the EU standards are and what the european customers want: chicken without a clorine taste).

Or your eggs: you wash them for no real reason, That removes the protection against bacteria from the eggshell, and then you need to have a complete fridge chain towards the customer. Whereas in europe eggs aren't washed, keep their egg shell protection and don't really need to be put into the fridge. One could argue that here indeed the USA has "more strict controls" by requiring the washing phase. But this is faux security, as it worsens the product, mandating a more special handling of it.

However, things are really complex to compare. For some bacterias, e.g. Listeria monocytogenes, the US is indeed stricter (zero tolerance). Whereas the US has some "100 colony-forming units per gram". However, what is better? We know that the human body actually needs some amount of bacteria, lest our immune system isn't trained or turnes against ourselves. So it might be that a little exposition is actually tolerable --- and given that europeans have a higher live expectation than US-americans, that might actually be true.

Also the measurements is totally different. In the USA, they measure usually with a simple n=5 method, whereas europe has a n, c, m, M system based on ISO standards. That also takes in process hygiene.

"Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points" is mandatory in EU for all food, in the USA only for some (seafood, juice, meat, and poultry). So here the EU has a leg, albeit this isn't strictly bacteria related. However it relates to toxic metabolism products of bacteria and fungi.

And a fun fact: while many things in the USA differ from state to state, food hygiene in the USA doesn't. Their FDA and USDA work throughout the USA.

In the EU there is no central one for food. We have some FDA equivalent, but that is more for drugs & vaccines, not for food. And I'm not aware of something like the USDA at EU level. Instead it is usual that a EU regulation that the members agreed upon is then implemented in all member states ... and often slightly different. So any US legislation like the GPDR (and all others) have counterparts in national rights. And e.g. the german version might be slightly different to the estonian one. Thats for data protection as well as for food surveillance.

[retired]

> EU has stricter regulations.

Different, not stricter perse. In the EU it is allowed to sell food with non-edible parts inside or cheese with maggots.

[shawn_w]

If you're talking about casu martzu cheese, Wikipedia says

>Due to these risks, Italian authorities have banned the sale of this cheese, deeming it dangerous. Consequently, it is also prohibited across the European Union, as EU food safety regulations mandate that only food safe for consumption can be sold.

[fluidcruft]

You can buy the same food here.

[2muchtime]

The water is drinkable but in many places not what I would call tasty.

[artisinal]

Water tastes pretty gross in coastal Spain. In countries like Albania I wouldn’t even drink it at all. On Greek islands it is safe but everyone buys water from the stores.

Due to the age of many places in Europe there is also still a lot of copper pipe used for tap water. Not deadly but also not very healthy. In Amsterdam over 20 percent of homes have copper pipes.

[jandrewrogers]

A few places in the US have tap water that tastes famously bad, largely due to where they get the water from. San Diego is a famous example. The water is safe and clean but discolored and the flavor is pretty awful.

Much of the US has great tasting tap water.

[dnemmers]

I'm confused, you're saying that copper piping is not healthy for water lines? Any info you could help link to?

[artisinal]

Apologies, I meant lead pipes. Plenty of pre-war homes have lead pipes.

[dnemmers]

Thanks for the reply. I'm sure there are plenty of elements that could cause issues (acid flux, leaded solder, bursting, etc), I just hadn't hear the same things as galvanized or, like you said, lead piping.

[holgerschurig]

I give you the nature parks.

That being out of the way: drinkable water isn't really an achievement, we have it in all of western europe. Maybe even in all of europe. However, in the USA you have these places there the water is heavily poluted due to fracking. That is bad in itself. But even worse is that the political / judicial system in the USA is unable to fix this.

Being a country for 250 years is ... neither good nor bad in itself. And if you look at ancient egypt that had 4 digits here, then it is pathetic to bring this up. But also in the western world 250 years aren't that much.

Many wars ... yeah, the USA started and/or participated in many wars. More than european countries did during your lifetime. Out of my mind: Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Panama, Grenada, Bosnia+Herzegovina, Irak, Irak, Afghanistan, Iran, Libya. And don't forget undeclared wars like lots of "Wedding seeking hellfire missiles" in Yemen or Somalia.

Oh, and that was just a selection. Look up Wikipedia on the full list of US wars and incidents. You'll be mind-blown how militaristic / violent they are.

And then don't forget all the coups it did in south america, I think more than 20 incidents. Or the awful Nicaraguan Contra thingy, where the USA paid death squadrons to terrorize just normal people, not just communists.

Depending on how old are you, all of the above happened during your lifetime.

Ah, and did we forget in these 250 years not about their civil war, about the enslavement of millions of people? Or of the genocide on natives? Never heard of the trail of tears perhaps?

No way the USA has a even a tiny bit more of morality on their side as other countries.

[artisinal]

> drinkable water isn't really an achievement, we have it in all of western europe. Maybe even in all of europe

Absolutely not. Water tastes bad in plenty of parts in Europe and isn’t even drinkable in plenty of parts.

> But also in the western world 250 years aren't that much.

I would like to know which countries you are talking about.

> yeah, the USA started and/or participated in many wars

I was talking about wars on their own continent, impacting their own people. Europe has seen plenty of that. I am currently less than 1000 kilometers away from an active battle zone. How many Americans can say that.

[holgerschurig]

Yea, like the water in San Diego. Water tastes bad in plenty of USA. Not only due to clornination.

In in the fracking counties it isn't even drinkable.

Also note that I actually used the term "western europe" in my post. I was in UK, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Czech, Romania, Hungary, Poland ... and everywhere was tap water totally drinkable. In Mallorca (Spain) it didn't taste that nice, but it was drinkable. Germans travel a lot, and when you book a travel, you get some information about your host country. And never ever did I read "don't trink the tap water".

So of all places I've been, "tastes bad" only was once true. "Can't drink" was never true. Your "plenty if parts" is definitely hallucinated.

However, I've not been in many places in south-east and east europe, like not in Albania, Moldavia, Slowenia, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, the Baltics, Belarussia, Slowakia, Ukraina, Russia etc etc etc. So I have no idea on how their water is.