Esskultur / Food Culture

One of the things I've noticed about looking at Germany is that one can learn a lot about a society and a culture by looking at its food, and vice versa. For one thing, simply looking at which meats are most common gives a fairly good indication of what animals have historically been kept as livestock. The vegetables are wholesome but not too strong-flavored, which pretty much reflects people's general behaviors here, if I may go so far.
Bad food is genuinely quite rare here: foods generally don't have as many additives as they do in the states, and everything usually tastes pretty good. On the flip side, truly amazing food also seems to be hard to come by here. This seems to reflect the general situation and sometimes general attitude of Germany: liveable. I had a fairly stimulating conversation last weekend with a law student here. His English was not the best, and my German really shouldn't even be mentioned, but we managed to talk about abortion rights and ethics quite extensively. Afterwards, he went on to tell me about the socialist ideals of Germany, something that he seems to believe in very strongly. And indeed, this is reflected everywhere: just about everyone seems to have a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear. But not that many people have absolutely stunning homes, access to the latest in the gourmet world, or concern for the latest runway collections. These are some of the things that I enjoy about the States, that one can pretty much find whatever one wants - it's only a question of money. This luxury, to me, is part of the art of living. But then the real question is: how can we ask others in places like the States to starve, to be homeless, to live in bodily danger, just so this other side, this true epitome of the beauty of life, can go on living?