Attitudes towards large numbers of choices in the food domain: a cross-cultural study of five countries in Europe and the USA.

Telephone interviews of 6000 representative adults from France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA, included two items on attitudes to variety. One had to do with whether the respondent preferred a choice of 10 versus 50 ice cream flavors. Ten choices were preferred by a majority of respondents from each country except the United States. A second item asked whether one expected a small or large menu choice in an upscale restaurant. A majority in all countries expected the small number of choices, but this expectation was lowest in the UK and USA. High variety expectations and preferences were weakly positively correlated (r=0.19). There was no substantial relation between a variety of demographic variables and variety preferences or expectations, except that older people were less inclined to prefer the high (50) variety in ice cream choices (r=0.28). The results suggest that the US, and the UK to some extent, focus on providing choices that cater to individual differences in preferences, whereas the continental European countries are more attached to communal eating values.

The ecology of eating: smaller portion sizes in France Than in the United States help explain the French paradox.

Part of the "French paradox" can be explained by the fact that the French eat less than Americans. We document that French portion sizes are smaller in comparable restaurants, in the sizes of individual portions of foods (but not other items) in supermarkets, in portions specified in cookbooks, and in the prominence of "all you can eat" restaurants in dining guides. We also present data, from observations at McDonald's, that the French take longer to eat than Americans. Our results suggest that in the domain of eating, and more generally, more attention should be paid to ecological factors, even though their mechanism of operation is transparent, and hence less revealing of fundamental psychological processes. Ironically, although the French eat less than Americans, they seem to eat for a longer period of time, and hence have more food experience. The French can have their cake and eat it as well.