Exchange Student vs. Food

Everyone warned me that a year in America would mean new levels of sugar intake, becoming a Starbucks addict and eating more burgers and coffee than my previous 21 years put together.

No! I told them, I love a salad, me. Oh how I’ve been proved wrong.

Is there anywhere else in the world where “Jumbo Slice of Pizza”, which is probably triple the size of my face, exists? These giant triangles of copious amounts of cheese have become a standard end-of-the-night binge after an evening of partying in Adams Morgan.

The choice for post-bar food indulgence is either giant pizza or McDonalds, where you can only order a TWO cheeseburger meal, minimum TEN WHOLE chicken nuggets with a meal, where the medium drink and chips (sorry, fries) are the same size at what England would call a Large. What worries me is after three months of living in America I can now gobble down an entire 10 Chicken McNugget meal without feeling ill.

The ‘baking’ aisle of grocery stores (my friends at home would kill me for using the term ‘groceries’) have never-ending cardboard boxes of cake mixture and tubs of every kind of cake frosting imaginable.

Even the Ben & Jerry’s flavors. At home, there are only four or five different ice-creams on sale, but here, my oh my, Karamel Sutra, AmeriCone Dream, S’mores, Milk and Cookies, CAKE BATTER?!

There is now even an “Iced Cake” flavor Smirnoff vodka. Since when did alcohol have to taste like desert?

…Not to mention a cupcake store on practically every street.

One “Honey Bun” I believe they’re called, a doughy cake covered in icing, has 95% of the daily allowance’s sugar content.

One slice of the "Ultimate Red Velvet Cake Cheesecake" from the infamous Cheesecake Factory: three days worth of saturated fat, almost 60 grams. 1,540 calories a slice. 

I ordered a salad at TGI Fridays during the first week of being here, and received in front of me half an iceberg lettuce covered in nachos. How do you cut and eat a huge wedge of lettuce?! In the end I gave up and shared my friend’s barbeque chicken and chips, which considering the portion size, it’s no surprise she didn’t finish.

Let's just say I’m glad GW has a free gym.