America really does super-size everything, from meals, to drinks, to grocery stores, to….

I observed many things last week while I was spending some time overseas in London and Paris. There are so many differences in everyday culture between these cities and the United States. One of the most noticeable differences was the size of drinks! The photo above shows what the typical sizes were – maybe even bordering on being a little larger than most. These are the large and small coffee/tea/hot cocoa sizes from a kitchen in London.

Notice, the small is actually smaller than the salt shaker – which was a typical size salt shaker. The large is just a tad bit taller than the salt shaker. I would say the large in this photo was equivalent to a small-medium at typical coffee chains in America. In restaurants, the cups were extra small – more like a shot glass size, a couple times a tad bigger. I was absolutely intrigued at this and realized that the common joke that Americans super-size everything, is actually true. We overdue so much, which can explain why there are so many issues with our health.

The other thing I noticed was: people didn’t walk around with coffee in hand in the typical cardboard cup with a sleeve. In fact, I never did see a crowded coffee shop and the ones with the least amount of people were the very few Starbucks locations we saw. Unlike the phenomenon of driving by a Starbucks in the USA and seeing no less than 17 cars in the drive-thru lane, it didn’t seem as if Europeans have taken to the trend to by hopped up on coffee and synthetic sugar 22 hours a day.

Along with this revelation, we noticed that coffee shops and cafes didn’t have 37 options of dessert coffees to choose from. In fact, there were typically 4-5 choices and none of them were sugar-laden beverages. They were simple: coffee, cream, milk or the average mocha. You add the sweetener to the coffee yourself once you get it. No S’mores Frappuccino® Blended Coffee or Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino® Blended Coffee. You couldn’t order a Caramel Flan Latte or Cinnamon Dolce Latte, unless, of course, you visted the Starbucks chain. It was just coffee.

In one word, I found this simple and authentic aproach to coffee drinking, refreshing. I am going to adopt this method in my own life, back here in the states. Simple, small and as a treat, not a drink that needs to be consumed 3-4 times a day.

What am I saying? I don’t know about everyone else, but I don’t want to be that person who is excessive in the wrong areas and things that eventually cause destruction in some way to my body. I enjoy life too much to knowingly do that!

Simply said: London size for me please.