Eating Habits in Minnesota

1. Introduction

I visited Minnesota in this summer to participate in a home stay program. I stayed with my host family for a month. I like food, and eating. In addition, I’m interested in not only American food, but also eating habits of American.


I expected Americans would be fat, eat too much, and eat snacks between meals before I visited America. I wanted to know how different in the real, so I decided to write about this theme.
There were a lot of foods both delicious and terrible. Now, I will tell you about my eating habits in Kumamoto and Minnesota.


2. Eating Habits in Kumamoto

We take meal three times in a day. In addition, when we feel hungry, we eat snack. As breakfast, we eat rice, miso soup, grilled fish, salad, Japanese omelet, natto and so on. Sometimes we eat toast, sausage, sunny-side up egg and so on. My mother makes us hot dogs or sandwiches with mayonnaise, cucumber, tomato and tuna, or boiled egg and lettuce. We often drink cold water, barley tea, and hot coffee. Sometimes we drink green tea.


Lunch is not so heavy. For example, spaghetti, okonomiyaki, Chinese fried rice, and, Chinese noodle and so on. However, we often bring lunch box to our school or working place. As contents of the lunch box, for example, rice, an omelet, a grilled salmon, a deep-fried chicken, a meatball, and a salad and so on.


Dinner is the heaviest than other meals. For example, a hamburger steak, a grilled fish, a croquette, curry and rice, an omelet containing fried rice, ginger-flavored slices of fried pork, and tempura and so on. In addition, rice, salad, and soup and so on. If we feel hungry, we eat snacks between meals.


3. Eating Habits in Minnesota

1) Breakfast

Breakfast of Minnesota was very lightly and quickly, so I often felt hungry. My host family often ate hot oat meals add the brown sugar and butter. In addition, they eat cereal with milk almost everyday. Sometimes they ate yogurt and toast, but the toast was different bread from what I expected. It looks dark brown, and bitter. I didn’t care for these breakfasts. Especially, oat meal was terrible. It was like a baby food.


My host father often ate breakfast in his car, because he slept late every morning. My ESL teacher said the American often eat breakfast in the car. Japanese people tend to eat breakfast well, but American people think that breakfast is not so important.


2) Lunch

Lunch of Minnesota was so heavy for me. I ate lunch at Cafeteria in Bethel University on ordinary days. On weekend, I ate out.
At the cafeteria in Bethel University, there were a lot of dishes. As vegetable, for example, there were lettuces, cucumbers, tomatoes, ruccolas, broccolis, carrots, and zucchini and so on. So we could make own original salad. As other thing, there were tuna with mayonnaise, boiled eggs, hams, croutons, cheeses, olives and a variety of dressings. So we could put own favorite dressing on a salad. As main, pasta, pizza, and what like a hamburger and so on. As dessert, a variety of cakes, waffle, ice cream. We could eat as much as we like. As staple diet, there were rolls, buckets, bagels, sandwiches, and a variety of breads.


On Saturday, we often went to outside, so probably I have never eaten lunch in house. I ate hamburger at McDonald’s, tacos at Mexican restaurant, pizza at Mall of America, hot dog or hamburger at party. I often went to party, so I often ate lunch there.


On Sunday, I went to church. and I ate lunch there. There were croissants, hams, lettuces, mayonnaise, mustard, potato chips, orange juice, coffee, and a variety of cookies. We could make own sandwiches. I often ate sandwiches of croissant in America. American croissants were bigger than Japanese. It was delicious.


3) Dinner

Dinner of Minnesota was not so heavy. My host family often ate chicken and spaghetti with original meat sauce. They rarely eat fish and pork. They also ate vegetables, but only boiled potatoes, raw carrots, and raw broccolis without seasoning. I was so surprised at this eating style. After the dinner, they ate dessert almost everyday.


Sometimes we went to restaurant. I went to Italian restaurant. I ate calovonara.It was so good, but the spaghetti was thick. The American often gives a party at their houses. I went to the party five times on first week. There were hamburgers, hot dog, pasta salad, fruits, chocolate cakes, ice cream, pops, corn chips, raw carrots with sour cream, potato chips, cookies, French fries, and so on. They brought a dish each family. Then, they shared.
Americans like hamburgers and French fries, but the people who I met don’t like McDonald’s.


4. Conclusion

I thought that American must be eating snacks between meals before I visited America, but they didn’t eat snacks between meals. I found some Japanese restaurant, and Oriental super markets. My host family likes rice, soy sauce, sesame seeds, and laver. They sometimes ate Japanese food. In addition, American like potato chips. I often saw potato chips as a meal.


Then they always ate fruits. Especially, they ate grapes, cherries, plums, and strawberries. As a vegetable, they eat only carrots, beans, broccolis, and potatoes. I was so surprised. In Japan, almost all the people eat a variety of vegetables every meals. While, we don’t eat fruits so much. American often gives a home party. They bring some dishes each other, and then they share it. American eating habit is very lightly breakfast, heavy lunch, not so heavy dinner.


Generally, Japanese think that food is important for us. So, we rarely leave the foods at meals. In contrast, Americans tend to leave the foods easily. Sometimes, kids play with the foods.

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