Canadian and American homes tend to look identical on the outside. However, the routines inside each kind of household are rather different, with some of these habits emerging from city rules and others simply appearing because of the climate.
These differences appear during everyday moments in each kind of household. While one kind of habit might feel completely normal to a Canadian, American guests are sometimes a little confused by it, and vice versa.
Here are eight household habits that differ between Canadian and American families. Which one do you think is the strangest?
Keeping a small kitchen container for food scraps
Most major Canadian cities have organics pickup, meaning that the kitchens tend to have a small counter bin that’s only for peels and leftovers. This includes Ottawa. The city’s Green Bin program actually recommends that people use a dedicated kitchen container before they take their scraps outside.
Of course, some American homes do compost as well. But curbside food-waste programs vary a lot more in the United States, so the routine isn’t as consistent across American households as it is in Canada.
Separating paper from containers
A similar difference is the number of recycling bins in Canadian homes. While many municipalities are switching to single stream to increase participation, places like Hamilton, Ontario, ask residents to separate paper from containers into different blue boxes, so lots of Canadian families will sort out their items right in the kitchen.
The system in America is quite different. In 82% of American cities, the local government runs a single-stream recycling service, meaning that everything goes together and households don’t have to sort the recycling themselves.
Hanging laundry vs the dryer
Quite a few Canadian households still dry their clothes on a rack or use a line, rather than throwing everything straight into the dryer. In fact, data from Statistics Canada found that around 64% of Canadians air-dry their clothes.
But the number of Americans who do the same is much lower, with one survey from YouGov finding that only 7% of Americans air-dry all of their clothes. Laundry day looks quite different on either side of the border.
Running air conditioning
Something as simple as using air conditioning differs in Canada and America, too. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, approximately 88% of American households use AC, yet Statistics Canada found that only 61% of Canadians do the same.
That’s not to say AC doesn’t exist at all in Canada. However, it seems that people are more likely to keep their windows open or rely on fans than use AC to cool down. It’s not like we need to do that a lot, anyway.
Meal-kit use as a home cooking shortcut
There are many American households that rely on using meal kits, with one survey finding that around 18% of Americans reported using these kits in the previous week. The rate in Canada was much lower.
Only 9% of Canadians report doing the same, meaning that many millions more American households are opening pre-portioned boxes when they’re cooking. But in Canada, people are more likely to plan meals from scratch.
Cooking meals at home
Similarly, daily cooking is different in each country, too. One study found that 32% of Canadian households said they cooked twice a day, and 21% of Canadians cook more often than that.
But over in the United States, a mere 24% of Americans cook twice a day. 8% of them cooked more than twice a day, and that’s probably because a lot more of them rely on buying food pre-prepared.
Time doing household production work
Overall, Americans tend to put in more minutes doing chores at home, with a Levy Institute comparison report finding that they spend around 13% more time than Canadians.
These chores include cleaning, cooking, and general home maintenance. While that might not seem like a big difference, it adds up over the week and means that Americans might feel like their evenings are a little busier.
Watching local media on TV
Usually, you’ll find an unbalanced mix of both local shows and American shows on most Canadian TVs. Data shows that only 36.3% of English-language TV viewing in Canada comes from domestically-produced programs. The rest of it is mostly American.
But the majority of shows in America tend to be domestic shows, and Canadian series very rarely become an everyday viewing option in American homes. It’s not as common for them to watch shows from abroad as it is for us.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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