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Buzz Feed
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
What's The Best Mayo? A Taste Test Of 8 Brands
Breaking mayo news from BuzzFeed Tasty office in New York City!!! After a multi-pronged evaluation and spirited debate that left several employees with mild stomach distress, we've officially crowned the MOST GOOD MAYO of them all. It's big. It's creamy. It's. So. Real. We know that all condiments are not created equal, so we set out to rank eight popular mayos from worst to best. Mayonnaise typically only needs three ingredients: oil, eggs, and an acid like vinegar or lemon juice. Seems simple — how much variation could there be?! We are about to find out... Before we dig in, let's define the gold standard: The ideal mayo is silky, creamy (not greasy), thick enough for dipping, and smooth enough to spread. Flavor-wise, it's all about balance — rich and eggy with a bright, tangy lift. Clean, craveable, and just indulgent enough. Now it's time to meet the contestants: We rounded up a mix of the iconic and the intriguing for our mayo taste test. First, the classics: Hellmann's (the undisputed staple), Duke's (a Southern favorite), Kewpie (the umami-packed Japanese import that's taken the world's pantry by storm), and Miracle Whip (the depression-era imitation mayo that is too iconic and chaotic to leave out). Then came the new wave of creamy contenders: Sir Kensington's (the artisanal disruptor), Molly Baz's Ayoh! (the it-girl, aesthetic newcomer), Generic (the no-frills wildcard), and Glen Powell's Smash Kitchen (the buzzy new celebrity entry we couldn't ignore). When stars start slinging mayo, you know Tasty has to taste test. Mayo, the ever-divisive condiment, is critical for three things: sandwiches, creamy salad dressings, and as a sauce for dipping! So it was vital we tried each mayonnaise in these three culinary situations: First, in a classic potato salad... Second, slathered on a simple tomato and white bread sandwich... And finally — because we are brave and this is for science — we tasted each mayonnaise on its own... To keep things as fair as possible, we did a blind taste test. To keep each brand a secret that only I would know, I gave them alphabetical aliases. I had probably too much fun naming each of them and got emotionally attached, only to devour them Yellowjackets style. Yikes. After turning our office kitchen into a potluck that was almost as pale as I am, it was time to taste. We rated each mayo for taste and texture, and gave our very honest opinions for each one. Turns out Google Forms are good for more than just HR surveys and event sign-ins; they're perfect for an in-depth condiment taste test, too! Another key factor in our ranking was cost. While price didn't influence the taste test, it absolutely matters when deciding which mayo to actually buy. I calculated the cost per ounce for each brand and included it in the rankings — and some of the results might surprise you. Quick note on pricing: These costs are based on what I paid here in NYC. For example, Molly Baz's mayo was only available at a specialty health store, so there was a slight markup. Prices may vary depending on your location and where you shop, but this breakdown should give a solid sense of overall affordability. And with that, here were the top four BEST mayos, ranked from "good" to "exceptional": 4. MIRACLE WHIP — You either love this nostalgic depression-era dupe for the actual condiment or you're deeply confused by it. In our tasting, most of us landed somewhere in between. Texture-wise, it fared surprisingly well: 'Very good texture! Rich and creamy without being gloopy,' said Ross. Raven praised its smooth spreadability, saying it 'mixes well with the flavors of the sandwiches and the potato salads.' One thing I will say is that this sauce is so gray compared to the others. The color reeeaally threw us off, TBH. Also, the sweetness. Nearly every taster commented on how sugary this stuff is, Sarah comparing it to 'a gummy candy but… mayo.' Ross put it bluntly: 'It's not gross, but this isn't mayo?? It's sugar sauce.' Megan said it reminded her of 'bread and butter pickles — and [she hates] bread and butter pickles,' while Sarah was ruthless, dubbing it 'sweet, but in a bland way. Like Tate McRae.' There were hints of vinegar, maybe mustard, maybe… who knows? It's definitely unique, and has its place, but mostly that place is in '50s-style ambrosia salad or in a very specific kind of chicken salad (i.e., Nicholas Sparks' Splenda one). OVERALL SCORE: 2.9/5 3. DUKE'S — Duke's is like the Dolly Parton of condiments — Southern, blonde, has a little bite, and a LOT of devoted fans. Even tasting it blind, Megan picked up on the "nostalgic" quality of it — it's a true classic mayo. When I tasted it blind, I called it "a good blank canvas for sauces or salads" and Claudia was into its signature punch: 'I actually love the saltiness of this one… it definitely has a STRONG vinegar taste. She gave it a 4/5 and admitted, 'this one lingers for sure.' One thing to note is that this was the most affordable mayo of the bunch, and even cheaper than the generic brand. We liked the tang, but when it came to texture, Duke's fell short. Sarah said it was 'thick, but not creamy. Very... goopy,' and Raven doubled down: 'It's really thick and not creamy in a good way. When you lick it on its own, it covers the whole tongue.' Ross described it as having a 'tannic quality that sticks on your tongue,' and Claudia just summed it up with: 'I can't get over the goopiness of this one.' OVERALL: 3/5 2. HELLMAN'S — If mayonnaise had a starter pack, Hellmann's would be in it — and in our taste test, this classic came very close to the top. It's got a creamy, familiar vibe that just feels right. Megan only had two words for the texture of this one, and she summed it up perfectly: 'So creamy!' Ross added, 'Very tasty! Perfect amount of salt and a little hit of acid without feeling overly rich or creamy. I liked this one a lot!' Some of us thought it was a bit underseasoned. Raven noted it was "not salty at all," and Sarah called it "bland." Still, the mild flavor profile worked in its favor — Megan 'didn't notice the flavor in the sandwich or the potato salad," but she conceded: "I feel like for mayo, that's the point.' Claudia liked the level of acidity in this sauce, saying: "I weirdly like the taste of this one better on the tomato sandwich than on the potato salad, maybe because it's a little more vinegary and acidic than some of the others we tasted. Overall, pretty average mayo! If I had to guess, I'd say this is the generic one."A few tasters did wish for a bit more oomph, though. I thought it was 'a little too fatty," arguing it 'needs more vinegar or something.' So, while it didn't wow across the board, it also didn't offend, which is kind of Hellmann's whole thing. Dependable, versatile, and hard to hate. If mayo were a boyfriend, this would be the nice guy your parents love. OVERALL SCORE: 3.8/5 Now it's time for the moment of truth... I only have one mayo in my (metaphorical) hands, and this condiment is the winner of America's Next Top Mayo... 1. KEWPIE — This Japanese import slayed the competition, with multiple testers giving it perfect 5's across the board. Megan didn't hold back: 'This is everything a mayo should be, IMO… I would serve this mayo to the queen.' Sarah went even further saying, 'I would die for this mayo in battle.' Texture-wise, Kewpie nailed that creamy-meets-luxurious sweet spot. 'The perfect texture — thick, but not TOO thick,' said Sarah. Ross agreed: 'SO THICK! So rich!' but added it wasn't gloopy, which is key. Claudia was also on board: 'Creamy and thick without being GOOPY. I hate goop!!' (Relatable. Sorry, Gwenyth.) Taste-wise, Kewpie delivered a complex flavor profile that stood out in every dish. 'Perfect level of acidity and umami,' I wrote, giving it a 5/5 for taste, concluding: 'Honestly, no notes.' Sarah praised the sweetness, while Claudia noted it was 'well-balanced,' even if she 'could use more salt (but [she's] a salty gal).' Ross thought the oil was sliiiightly stale, but still gave it a perfect score thanks to its 'eggy (not in a bad way!) and luxurious' flavor. OVERALL SCORE: 4.6/5 If you want a mayo that goes beyond background noise and brings star power to your sandwiches, salads, and even spoon-licking moments, this is the one. And even though it is slightly more expensive than Duke's or Hellman's, our score cards might convince you it's worth the extra cents. Long live KEWPIE. Kewpie stands out by using only egg yolks, which gives it a rich, custardy taste and silky texture — and clearly, we're obsessed. FINAL THOUGHTS: I asked my tasters which condiment worked best on a sandwich, in a salad, and as a sauce for dipping on its own. Most of us chose Kewpie mayo for all three, but a few chose Hellman's as their favorite dipping sauce and salad dressing. Claudia caused a small upset when she chose generic (*gasp*) as her preferred sandwich condiment! When I asked: "If you were being sent to a deserted island and could only take one stable emulsified sauce with you, which would you choose? What's your ultimate mayo?" the choice was almost unanimous: KEWPIE! So there you have it, folks. your favorite mayos, and our unfiltered thoughts. Eight sandwiches, four pounds of potato salad, and one too many spoonfuls of straight mayo later, we can say with confidence: Kewpie is the definition of elite. As for me, I'm officially on a creamy condiment cleanse starting… right now. Seriously, after this tasting, we were stuffed — and struggling to waddle back to our desks. And if you're suddenly craving a dish with that creamy goodness only mayo can supply, download the free Tasty app and search "mayonnaise" for hundreds of mayo-y recipes.
New York Times
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How Should a Woman Sound?
WERE THE NATION'S avid TikTok users ever to lose their favorite app, they — we — wouldn't just be losing a form of entertainment; we'd be losing a library of cultural signifiers that came into being there, reflections of their time but also shapers of it. Gone, the daughter-dad self-consciously bonded dance routines; gone, the time-lapse speed recipes heavy on 'even you can't screw this up' subtext; gone, for better or for worse, a particular kind of voice that's dominated the platform in its adolescent years, a voice that is in its own way subtly subversive, if not by design. If you've been on TikTok at all, you know this voice: It's female and aggressively chipper. It veers from high-pitched to only slightly lower than high-pitched with intonations that defy logic and emphases placed where they ought not to be. It's a voice destined to say things like, 'Hey, can I play too?' when there's clearly no need or room for one more player. It's the vocal equivalent of Miracle Whip, or rather, Miracle Whip that's been left out on the counter for too long — just slightly off. The voice, named Jessie, is a popular (formerly default) text-to-speech option on TikTok that became briefly ubiquitous, an aural meme. For some TikTok users and content generators, there must be something subconsciously intriguing about the subtle artificiality of a voice generated with the help of A.I. — Jessie offers an uncanny valley of sound, the merging of something familiar with something digital and therefore a tiny bit detectably alien. The voice, which was generated from that of a real person and named, perhaps, to represent someone young and accessible, rather than a bot formulated in a lab, has quickly come to represent a familiar recurring sound on TikTok, like the Shangri-Las sample made ubiquitous by the rapper Capone: 'Oh, no — oh, no — oh, no, no, no, no, no.' On a Reddit thread called 'TikTok A.I. Voice Narration Is Insufferable,' one person wrote, 'That A.I. lady's voice makes me want to throw things. I can't be the only one.' Added another Redditor, 'You will want to scratch your own eyes out after hearing this voice!' Even an A.I.-assisted female voice can apparently provoke the same rage that merely human vocal fry and upspeak have for the past several decades. Jessie seemed to reach peak use soon after being introduced in 2021, the latest in a long line of disembodied female voices that were products of their respective ages of technology. From the beginning, those voices were highly regulated and controlled so as not to provoke certain outrage, as if it were a given that a woman virtually freed of her uterus and visual sexual signifiers would obviously pose some considerable threat. Consider the guidelines of a pamphlet for operators published by the Chicago Telephone Company in the early 20th century and called 'First Lessons in Telephone Operating.' The book was used to train some of the first generations of disembodied female voices — belonging to women who were given entree into a new line of work only because the young men who preceded them found the job so annoying that they were, in fact, uncontrollably rude. 'The training of the voice to become soft, low, melodious and to carry well is the most difficult lesson an operator has to learn,' the guide reads. The women were underpaid, overworked — and highly scripted for niceness, according to a former operator interviewed on 'American Experience,' the PBS documentary series, in a 1997 episode devoted to the history of the telephone. If a caller said, 'You're a stinker,' the veteran operator recalled, she could respond only one way: 'Thank you.' The voice of novel technological communication has been, almost from the beginning, a female voice, which is to say the voice of a helper, a perfect helper, pleasant, unflappable, immune to insults, come-ons and bossiness. It's a short path from the telephone operator to Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, both forever placating, always even-keeled, impervious — they have in common the sound of someone trying to keep the peace, a woman constantly being abused for her inability to read her interlocutors' minds or make sense of their mumblings. We may bully that female voice, but at least her humiliation carries no projected shame the way it would if that voice were male. That female voice — should we be relieved? — is not the voice of the oppressed, the accented; it's a service voice that's reliably deracinated beyond the default, implicitly suggesting that the ideal helper is not just female but white. Siri now has five American voices, explains Nicole Holliday, who teaches linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and who surveyed listeners for a 2023 study: a white woman; a white man; a Black man; a woman who is 'racially ambiguous'; and finally (a voice that was not part of Holliday's study because it was introduced more recently), a white person whom Apple reportedly gave the ambiguously gendered name Quinn. But the indelible original is the one forever associated with Siri in this country: clearly gendered but oddly sexless. Her accent or voice may vary depending on the nation in which she's being used, but the tonal quality of the original — that's universal. Last spring, OpenAI debuted what was then its newest version of the text-to-speech ChatGPT, with an emotionally expressive voice that could respond in real time. 'Hey, ChatGPT,' says one of the researchers featured in a live demo. 'Hey, there,' ChatGPT responds. She's confident, cool, friendly, not flirty — pitch-perfect professionalism. Asked to answer a question about a particular piece of code, ChatGPT, in phrasing that's clear and upbeat, goes on a fascinating tear about how the change would make 'smoother temperature lines because the rolling mean reduces the noise or fluctuations in the data' — and then it happens: 'Awesome!' the young man interrupts her, steamrolling right over the next few words she offers. 'Thank you so much, yeah — I definitely will want to apply this function,' he says. A beat, then ChatGPT's conciliatory response: 'Absolutely! Take your time. I'm excited to see the plot when you're ready!' Listening to ChatGPT speak, I despaired both at her obvious superiority to me (never mind to all humans) and at the reality that even the most surreally ideal female would fall prey to the same sexist dehumanizing that all of us decidedly so-so women in offices experience daily. She almost seemed designed for some man on a stage in black trainers and running pants to make that point. WOMEN'S VOICES, RESEARCH has shown, are subject to more scrutiny and criticism than men's voices, both by men and by women: Female politicians ranging from Hillary Clinton to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kamala Harris — whose laugh seemed to garner more overall media attention than, say, Donald Trump's attachment to Project 2025 — could have told researchers that. But here in that ChatGPT demo was a voice designed by the world's top engineers to do nothing but please, both setting an impossibly high bar and reinforcing the idea that even the most brilliant woman alive would still be treated as little more than an assistant. Indeed, to travel internationally is to be reminded that this association — of the female voice with the providing of cheerful, uncomplaining assistance — is one thing that globally unites us, whether in the car's navigation system or the kiosk selling train tickets. Researchers have found that people do speak loudly and more slowly to voices that are artificial, or even to voices that they imagine to be artificial. Given that so many voice assistants are female, this has spawned a whole new dynamic that didn't previously exist: a generation of people who become habituated to speaking louder to a female voice than is necessary, a form of communication that generates something artificial in and of itself — a female response that doesn't convey annoyance or irritation or even confusion but simply accepts all with equanimity. What young women and young men learn from that is anything but new: It's a technological training of pleasantness that serves one and not the other. I can't pretend to know who chose TikTok's Jessie voice as a former default setting (and TikTok declined to comment), but I find it hard to believe it was a panel of women sending out into the world the female vocal equivalent of what men call, usually only in front of one another, a punchable face. And yet, perhaps after simply being confronted with the possibility of Jessie's demise, I've developed a new fondness for her. Jessie doesn't pretend to be the ideal woman; she has less in common with the imperfectly perfect Alexa than she does the deep, resonant and pompously put-on voice of authority that Laurie Anderson cultivated in the speech that emerged in her innovative music in the 1980s. (Here's some unknown pontificator, maybe a retired geology teacher, channeled by Anderson: 'There are some things you can simply look up such as the size of Greenland, the dates of the famous 19th-century rubber wars, Persian adjectives, the composition of snow.') Anderson's voice was clearly a female one that relied on technology to question masculinity; Jessie could be heard as sending up, also artificially, some stereotype of the featherbrained female. Both play with technology to announce themselves as patently fake. Give me Jessie, in fact, over many of the other female voices that contemporary media has produced: One typical female voice of Japanese anime is so disturbing it makes me physically queasy — high, young, whispery and querulous, yet somehow sexualized. More maddening is the voice of the wildly popular internet tradwife, who's soft, calm and gentle as she separates wheat from chaff while her children — drugged on Benadryl? performing with docility, trained on pain of death? — play quietly with sticks off camera. A former Christian fundamentalist wife and mother, Tia Levings, built up a considerable following on TikTok talking about, among other things, her former 'fundie voice' — a submissive tone, breathy and high-pitched, gleaned in part from tips in a 1963 book called 'Fascinating Womanhood' — which she left behind when she left the church; meanwhile, another new generation of women are learning how to cultivate that same voice from the rise of videos that highlight it against images in soft light. If the porn of the digital age has distorted, as many sociologists worry, young people's sense of what an ideal sex life looks like, the ubiquity of narrated media in their lives may have also warped their idea of what the female voice is supposed to sound like — which is another way of saying how females are supposed to be in the world, how much noise they can make and according to which rules. A.I. is likely to learn from those real women's voices, perhaps even the ones with the most followers, creating a potentially dizzying feedback loop of female murmurings rather than roars. As the mother of two teenage boys, I became used to hearing the noise, coming from the basement, of some epic anime struggle, those helpless female voices competing with the sound of the local news I tried to concentrate on (as I performed my own gender conformity, making dinner). But when I wasn't hearing that, I was bombarded with the sound of one son yelling loudly at his computer in the middle of a Fortnite battle. I find it fascinating that my son, like many serious Fortnite players, chose what's called a female skin for his avatar in the game. This means that, from the time he was maybe 11, he's spent countless hours identifying incredibly closely with a female character who represents him at his most powerful: shooting, eluding, outfoxing. Maybe he chose a female skin, or avatar, at so young an age because the older gamers he admired also did, and maybe they chose female skins because they're faceless — the game entails staring for hours at that avatar's backside (which, in the case of some female skins, is noticeably round and toned). But I've also been struck by another facet of his Fortnite avatar, true of her and all her peers: She has never, in all the years he's been playing the game, uttered so much as a word. Those avatars are remote cousins of the women on TikTok who rely on Jessie, I could argue: The scores of influencers who choose Jessie's narration for their videos are, in making use of technology, also making the choice to silence themselves. A crucial aspect of their humanity is entirely absent, with only their beautiful young faces the lasting representation of themselves in front of their thousands of followers. But I turn it around in my mind again, and I land somewhere else. Perhaps in choosing Jessie, they're finding a way to protect themselves, making a subtle assertion of power: With their voices kept private, the world can have only so much of them. Jessie may be annoying, but she apparently doesn't care, which might be why so many women embrace her for their endless 'get ready with me' videos — just as they're priming themselves for the male gaze, they're making it clear to the male ear that they aren't entirely packaged for consumption. Jessie's loud and proud; she's a pill, so wholly artificial she's transcendent — entirely above seeking male approval.
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Fried bologna to espresso martinis. TNT staff's best eats and drinks of late
Chasing down the news leaves us with a powerful thirst and a gnawing hunger. Here's what we at The News Tribune have eaten and imbibed the past few weeks to take the edge off. Reminder that this best eats column will run monthly. If you haven't already, please sign up for the TNT Diner newsletter by staff writer Kristine Sherred. She's got the weekly skinny on the Pierce County dining and food scene. Cheers! The best bite I've had recently was from a fluffy cinnamon roll at Meridian Cafe in downtown Puyallup, an old favorite. Warning: These rolls fill up the entire plate. Share one with a friend or four. The diner's historic Puyallup decor makes it a fun place to take visitors for a casual brunch. Honorable mention goes to the scoops of honey lavender and grasshopper pie (think mint chip on steroids) that I had in downtown Puyallup at Lick Homemade Ice Cream. I see they have Girl Scout cookie ice cream this week. Yum. Alexis Krell, communities editor The black pepper strawberry and fennel Danish from Three Hearts wasn't the afternoon carb-kick I expected, but it's the one I'm glad I found. The flaky dough cradles a vanilla pastry cream specked with black pepper – I initially thought it was flecks of vanilla bean – vibrant strawberries and licoricey fennel. Everything works great together. The tang of the fennel/strawberries combo bounces off the richness of the cream, and the black pepper gives a little warmth to the back end. Brian Hayes, visual journalist Growing up fried bologna was a delicacy: two slices of thin, pan-seared mystery meat with melted American cheese – you know exactly the kind I'm talking about – on untoasted white bread with a smear of Miracle Whip. On the first Friday of the month, The Red Hot does a fried-bologna sandwich special. If you grew up eating them like I did, get it. Their take on the southern specialty is zhuzhed up to the max. Two thick pieces of well-seared bologna on top of pimento cheese, with grilled onions, Carolina Gold BBQ sauce, pickles and coleslaw all on a structurally sound brioche bun that can support this hefty sandwich. Brian Hayes, visual journalist My favorite drink in the Harbor recently has been this super creamy espresso martini at Greenhouse in Uptown Gig Harbor. If you haven't been, Greenhouse has a great bar that's the main focus of the restaurant. There are no TVs if that's your vibe. Their seasonal cocktail list is full of fun names like 'Fig Around and Find Out' and 'Millions of Peaches, Peaches For Me.' I'm one of those weird creatures who can drink caffeine at any hour, so I always gravitate towards their espresso martini with the housemade whip. Stephanie Pedersen, editor
Buzz Feed
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
I'm Completely Disgusted Yet I Can't Stop Looking At These Unhinged Things People Found While Cleaning Their Parent's And Grandparent's Homes
It's happened to all of us. Your parents get older, you get older, you go to visit home, look through the pantry, and you find some truly inexplicable stuff. I'm talking about something completely inedible. Something that doesn't even resemble what it's supposed to be. Something that might kill a small Victorian child. Here are some of the wildest things people have found in their parents' and grandparents' homes: 1. Finely aged Miracle Whip from 1997: 2. A special goth-edition bottle of ketchup from the '90s: 3. Shake 'N Bake prominently featuring Aaron Carter: 4. Whole mushrooms from 1983: 5. Peanut butter from 1983: 6. A once in a lifetime box of Cheerios: 7. Canned peaches aged to perfection from 1976: 8. A juice box featuring the Backstreet Boys official fan hotline: 9. A jar of mayonnaise from 24 years ago: 10. A sandwich from the Coolidge administration: Facebook 11. Perfectly good baby food from 1994: 12. A bag of caramel that's simply taunting you with how delicious it looks: 13. Almond extract from the '70s that seems to have evaporated: 14. The world's oldest can of Slim Fast: 15. A big bag of Lays from 1994: 16. A literal bottle of arsenic: 17. A casual tray of meat from 1999: u/workingemployee8767 / Via 18. A box of Tide from the '60s: u/tattedhippo / Via 19. Pringles from 1971: u/pleasedtomeetyou194 / Via 20. A roll of toilet paper from the literal 1940s: u/unknownaristocracy / Via 21. Some jam from 1990: 22. A bottle of Orbitz that has seen much, much better days: u/donkeyfarms42069 / Via 23. Twinkies just in time for the new millennium: u/aquietinspiration / Via 24. Pop-tarts containing a free movie rental: u/sawtoothpath / Via 25. A literal bottle of cocaine: u/human-employment-800 / Via 26. A box of 50 year old condoms: u/brickreek / Via 27. A can of NEW COKE tucked away in the vegetable drawer: u/random-non-sequiter / Via 28. A box of Barbie breakfast: u/squeakysnapdragon / Via 29. Egg nog old enough that Gerald Ford himself could have sipped it: u/lovesniff / Via 30. Some suspiciously good looking glass Gatorades: 31. Crackers older than your parents: 32. And something called "chocolate coated POISON:" u/flatgreysky / Via Oh, okay.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Denmark considered U.S. one of its closest allies. Now many Danes are refusing to buy American
When Mette Vennegaard, a retired psychologist living north of Copenhagen, wanted to clear her pantry of all American products, she wrote to Denmark's largest manufacturer of candy and chocolate, Toms Group, asking where the company sourced its almonds from for its popular marzipan products. Marzipan, a sweet paste made out of ground almonds, is a popular filling in chocolate and a key ingredient in some of Denmark's most beloved desserts. When the company replied that its supply came from California, which produces 80 per cent of the world's almonds, Vennegaard put the product on her "do not buy list." She then went even further, posting the letter from the company in a Facebook group, urging other Danes to steer clear as well. "I investigate the ownership of all kinds of different products," she told CBC News. "If they are American, they do not go in the shopping basket." Boycotting U.S. products Vennegaard is part of a surging group of Danes who are trying to cut or reduce the number of American products and services they use — a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and specifically what appears to be his obsessive determination to take over Greenland, an autonomous territory that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Tens of thousands of Danes have joined a Facebook group dedicated to sharing advice about how to avoid American-made products and instead buy local. Mette Vennegaard, a retired psychologist, is one of tens of thousands of Danes who are trying to boycott American products in response to the Trump administration. (Submitted by Mette Vennegaard) People post about cancelling their trips to the United States or their subscriptions to American streaming services. Others look for shopping tips, like one woman who wanted to know whether Miracle Whip, a mayonnaise-like condiment, was made in the U.S. and, if so, what a suitable substitute would be. While the boycott group is a grassroots movement, political experts say it taps into the current mood in Denmark, where the population of nearly six million feels alienated and even threatened by the messaging coming from the U.S., a country that it has previously considered one of its strongest allies. Trump has repeatedly vowed to annex mineral-rich Greenland, promising its 56,000 residents that Washington could make them rich. In his marathon speech to the U.S. Congress earlier this month, the president said the U.S. would get it "one way or the other." U.S. delegation scales back trip amid protests Usha Vance, the wife of U.S. Vice-President JD Vance, was supposed to visit Greenland this week to take in cultural sites and a dogsled race, but after officials in the region called it a "provocation," the trip's itinerary was scaled back. Vance, who will now be joined by her husband, will only be visiting Pituffik Space Base, a remote U.S. military installation in Greenland's northwest that handles missile defence and space surveillance. While officials from Greenland and Denmark are viewing the change in itinerary as a win, there is still deep concern about what Trump has said and what he might be intending on doing. WATCH | Greenland residents protest planned visit by U.S. delegation: "I'm boycotting products because of the way Trump is conducting himself, including his aggressive treatment of Ukraine ... and threats to annex Greenland," Vennegaard said. "My grandchildren have been told that for the next four years, there will be no more Coca-Cola, Pringles, American chocolate bars and visits to McDonald's." Vennegaard joined the boycott group back in February and admits that using Facebook, a company headquartered in California, is unfortunate, but she said it's hard to replace the reach of the platform. No more Netflix or California wine Bo Albertus, a school principal who lives just outside of Copenhagen, Denmark's capital, helped create the group. He insists it's not about being against Americans but rather the government they elected. He began his boycott in January by cancelling his subscriptions to Netflix, Disney, Apple TV, HBO and Amazon Prime. He signed on to a local Danish streaming service instead and dug out his old DVDs. Bo Albertus, a school principal in Denmark, helped create an online Facebook group that connects people trying to avoid American products. (Submitted by Bo Albertus) The California red wine that Albertus used to serve on Friday nights has now been replaced by bottles from Italy. He said he hasn't been able to find an alternative for his favourite barbecue sauce, but he'll just have to live without it. "There is no such thing as a 100 per cent boycott," Albertus said in a phone interview from Denmark. "But we are 92,000 individuals who are choosing for ourselves what to do with our money." The conscious-spending campaign has prompted a renewed interest in Danish and European products. Denmark's biggest supermarket operator, Salling Group, started marking the labels of all its European products with a black star this month, after getting so many inquiries from customers about where certain products were made. On the Facebook group, there are posts expressing solidarity with some of Trump's other targets. One posted image, which shows the flags of Canada, Greenland and Denmark, reads, "Red and White side by side." Tens of thousands of Danes have joined a Facebook group dedicated to sharing advice about how to avoid American-made products and instead buy local. This post shows the flags of Canada, Greenland and Denmark. (Boykot varer fra USA Facebook group) Trump has repeatedly said that Canada should become the 51st state, and his team's rhetoric toward Greenland continues to escalate. Trump reiterated on Wednesday that the U.S. needs the strategically located island for international security. "I think we'll go as far as we have to go," he told journalists. "We need Greenland, and the world needs us to have Greenland, including Denmark." Pressure builds on government Trump, who has been fixated on Greenland for years, suggested in 2019 during his first term as president that the U.S. was looking at buying the territory. When Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen dismissed that idea as "absurd," he called her "nasty" and cancelled a scheduled visit to the country. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is shown arriving for a European Union summit in Brussels on March 20. She's under pressure by U.S. President Donald Trump, who said on Wednesday that the U.S. needs the strategically located Greenland for international security. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/The Associated Press) Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen, a political science professor at the University of Copenhagen, said despite Trump's earlier comments on Greenland, the Danish government is "more than a little surprised" that things are playing out the way they are, and he believes there is pressure building on the government to take a tougher stance. "We Danes are patient people, but I think that is gradually running out," Rasmussen said in an interview via Zoom. Denmark has been a strong supporter of the U.S. in the past, and Danish troops fought and died in Afghanistan and Iraq alongside American forces. Rasmussen said there was a sense that the U.S. and Denmark were close allies and that the countries had a mutual understanding of each other. For many, that notion has now been shattered. On Thursday, Frederiksen said that while Denmark really wants to work with the U.S. on defence and security, it is clear that "Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people." Protesters gather in front of the U.S. Consulate during a demonstration against Trump's vow to annex Greenland, in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, on March 15. (Reuters) As pressure builds on the government to take a tougher stance toward the Trump administration, Rasmussen said, some Danish citizens are doing just that through their shopping habits. While Rasmussen said he hasn't been able to give up his California Pinot Noir just yet, he understands why others have. "We love electric cars in this country, but we aren't really buying Teslas," he said. "People are trying to make their own foreign policy. The only thing they can really do is to talk to one another about it or choose different products."
