Nutrition labels are very different in the EU than in the US. Some things are better, some are worse.

I’ll start with the worse. First, serving sizes are always listed as 100 grams, (sometimes there is an additional serving size as well, usually listed in grams). On the one hand, that standard size makes things comparable. On the other hand, I generally think of food in terms of volume (e.g., 1 cup) or raw quantity (e.g., 10 baby carrots, 1/2 bag of pasta, 2 slices of cheese). It’s hard to convert the weight measure to the volume/quantity measure that I consume. (I should note that I’m not on a diet, I just enjoy analyzing nutrition labels while I eat).

Second, they don’t list added sugar content. In the US, we pay big attention here. I normally think that a bottle of juice or a can of applesauce with no added sugar is much healthier than the same thing with added sugar, even if the total sugar content is the same. Here you can read the ingredients label to see if something has added sugar, but you can’t split out the grams of sugar into natural versus added.

On the other hand, they have this cool “Nutri-Score” letter grade on the front of packages that summarizes how healthy something is. It isn’t posted on everything, but most things have it. At a glance you can get an idea of nutrition content without having to turn a package over and try to scrutinize a nutrition label.

That being said, I’ve been surprised by several of the scores. They seem to disagree with what we are taught in the US. For example, white bread has an “A”, the same as whole wheat or multigrain bread. I normally think of white bread as mostly empty calories, but the EU sees high nutritional value in it.

Below are a few other interesting scores.

Apple juice (note that this bottle does not have any juice in it anymore) also gets a C. I realize that it has a high sugar content, but I wouldn’t think it to be that much worse than white bread or candy cereal.

Feel free to share your thoughts and help me understand some of these scores!

Ice skating is a Dutch tradition. In the winter, they anxiously await a cold spell when they can break out the skates and take advantage of the frozen-over canals.

With global warming, those sorts of deep freezes have become pretty rare over the last decade. However, we were lucky enough to have one last week.

World records for open water ice skating speed and distance were set last week in the Netherlands. We didn’t feel comfortable skating on a canal, but we did go to an ice skating rink set up under a temporary structure in Dongen (about a 15 minute drive from our house).

One interesting thing about skating here: people like the feel of natural ice. That means no Zambonis to clean the ice. So, the ice is quite bumpy and has a lot of shaved ice on the top.

We were so excited when we learned about Sinterklaas. He comes in November and leaves on Dec 6, so then we could focus on Christ for Christmas!

Unfortunately, after Sinterklaas left, we learned that in the last decade or so, the Dutch have started celebrating Santa as well. It quickly became clear that kids expect presents on Christmas Day in addition to the Sinterklaas presents from the prior month.

So, while we tried to keep Christmas focused on Christ, we were forced to allow a bit of commercialism back in as well.

In the US, most people have a pretty similar yard. The majority is grass, plus maybe a flower bed somewhere and a few shrubs, bushes, or trees. But, the majority of the yard is grass.

Here, grass is for parks. Yards are for decoration, and every yard is different. They often combine fish ponds, fountains, shrubs, rock paths, and other ground cover Here are a few examples from my neighborhood.

Our car insurance company in the US doesn’t offer insurance in the Netherlands. So, we were forced to take out some insurance here.

We went with ABN AMRO because they said they would give us a discount for our claim-free years in the US, something they said other insurers wouldn’t do.

After we got the insurance, we got a letter saying they couldn’t verify our claim-free status and they were raising our rates.

After a big ordeal I got a letter from GEICO verifying our claim-free status in the US. I sent that to ABN AMRO and thought we were good. Now, a few weeks later they have told us that we don’t qualify because the claim-free status has to be from a “former” insurer, not a “current” insurer.

I explained how we can’t cancel our insurance in the US without a huge headache, but it didn’t change their mind.

I asked for documentation where it says the claim-free years had to be from a former rather than current provider. All they could send me was something saying they had discretion about what documentation to accept.

Overall, huge bait and switch. I’m very disappointed.

I’ve been cold plenty of times in the US. In Massachusetts it often gets to single digits (Fahrenheit) or even below zero.

The big difference here is that I’m not driving to work or bundled up for skiing. Rather, I’m trying to bike to the office.

Yesterday it was -6C (about 21F) when I biked in. I wore thermals, a sweater, a coat, a ski mask, and two pairs of gloves (liners plus snow gloves), but it was still a very cold 40 minutes! I only have the one pair of thermals, so I’m not sure how I’m going to make it in today. I could take the train, but that still requires a 15 minute bike ride, waiting outdoors for the train, and then a 10 minute walk from the train station to the office. So, still outside for about 30 minutes.

I had a great, whirlwind visit to Bern, Switzerland this week.

Tuesday morning Linda drove me to the Gilze-Rijen train station at 5:40am. I took a train to the Schipol airport in Amsterdam and then a direct flight to Zurich. From there, a train to Bern and then a 30 minute walk to my hotel (it should have been 15 minutes, but Google Maps got very confused).

As a quick tangent, I learned that Bern is the Federal city of Switzerland, but it’s not quite considered the capital. The Swiss people consider themselves pretty independent and don’t really feel like there is a capital.

There’s also not a major airport in Bern.

Anyway, Tuesday afternoon I had some office visits followed by a great dinner.

Wednesday morning Markus Arnold and I went skiing at Grindelwald. It was beautiful! Great snow and few crowds.

That afternoon we went back to Bern and then I presented a paper including some brand new data, so new that I actually analyzed it that morning!

After the workshop we all went to an Italian dinner. Everyone else knew exactly what they wanted to order and started ordering right away. I was stuck trying to get Google translate the menu from Swiss German (not the same as German German) to English. Of course, half of the words were in Italian anyway, so I was just plain confused. When it got to be my turn I said, “Um, the lasagna?”

The waiter liked that, and then asked in German what starter I wanted. “Um, some bread?” My colleagues then asked if I wanted a salad or soup or something. I tried to look at the menu frantically to pick something at random.

Markus recommended the Lamb Festivus salad. I thought that sounded fun, so I ordered it. It was really good, but not at all what I expected. I was expecting something with lamb, maybe with a Greek flair. Nope, it was lettuce, beets, fig, dates, and some cheese. Very sweet and very good, but certainly not what I expected.

After dinner I went back to my hotel. Then got up at 5:10am to catch a train to Zurich so I could fly back to the Netherlands for the Tilburg Wintercamp Thursday/Friday. Whirlwind of a week!

One more quick tangent. I really like hot chocolate. I often get it at the office in Tilburg after biking to work, and I sometimes get it in meetings when my colleagues get coffee.

Now, if asked to name a brand of hot chocolate, the only brand I would be able to think of is Swiss Miss. Based on that anecdote, I would have expected Switzerland to have good hot chocolate.

In reality, my hotel’s coffee machine didn’t have any hot chocolate, nor did the machine in the airport lounge. I’ve been to several hotels in several countries in Europe. They have all had hot chocolate except for in Switzerland, the country famous for hot chocolate.

Sinterklaas stopped by our house yesterday! He brought two sacks full of presents and his Pieten brought lots of papernoten (traditional treat, sort of like small gingerbread cookies) to eat!

Interesting fact, since Sinterklaas and his Pieten live in Spain for 11 months of the year, they speak Spanish! We had a fun conversation with one of the Piet in Spanish. Of course, they also speak English and Dutch.

When in Rome, do as the Romans. I’m not actually sure what the Romans do. Luckily, I’m not in Rome. However, I am in Belgium (workshop at Ghent University), and I know that the Belgians do food really well!

Belgian chocolate cake to bring home as a surprise for my wife’s birthday. I also bought her some Belgian chocolates for a birthday present (hopefully she doesn’t see this blog post before I get home).

Oh, and the workshop at Ghent was really nice! Great feedback on a paper and helped me think through how to do a follow-up experiment.

Happy Thanksgiving!

They don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in the Netherlands, but I made sure to have a turkey sandwich for lunch to celebrate.

And we got pie for dessert tonight!