Cost Of Food For Mexicans

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Perspectives allow an RV'er to grasp the ins and outs of why Mexico is what it is. When a higher percentage of basic income is used for staples and consumables it explains why certain foods are not as common as they are north of the border.

It also allows for appreciation of luxury foods that manage to make it onto store shelves.

I always smile when I see those tiny jars of Best Foods mayonnaise. I barely can tolerate the taste of really cheap mayo and rejoice when I see things that reflect "Better to have a bit of good stuff than twice as much inferior grade food".

Mexicans love mayonnaise. It wasn't that many decades ago when only the cheapest brands of mayonnaise existed at taco stands. You can visualize the disgust on my friend's faces when I explained to them the new fad of adding concentrated highly processed lemon juice allowed the companies to produce cheaper tasting product masked with overpowering citrus. There are far fewer lemon mayo's now and Best Foods never yielded to the temptation.

Ketchup is another condiment that has met a strong resistance with the Mexican consumer. More and more people are demanding Heinz. A few months ago I snickered when I saw a lady pull a bottle of Heinz out of her purse and set it on the table of a chicken sinaloa style semi outdoor style place.

If you want to see a frown serve guacamole made with Fuerte rather than Hass avocado.

The Mexican persnickity taste buds are refreshing and comforting. This is a society that knows good food and is very reluctant to settle for less than the best they can get their hands on.

One of the small "wars" occurring is that of sweet American corn versus the traditional light yellow Mexican corn on the cob. The government is very reluctant (and in my opinion correct) to allow hybrid yellow corn seed into the country. American corn crossbreeds destroy the quality of corn masa -- which is near to being holy to Latin Americans. Yet when they bite into a huge ear of American corn most Mexican's eyes open wide.

"This is as flavorful and tender as American asparagus" a street vendor told me as he wiggled rubber-band bunches of stalks in front of my nose. I bought three bunches and then as Eduardo and Vanessa watched, steamed them then served the stalks with butter and (Best Foods) mayonnaise.

I am addicted to excellent frijoles de la olla, tamales de res and pollo (tamales de maize are too sweet for me), and tacos -- especially tacos al pastor.

But I sure would rather see USA corn farmers sell their product at reasonable prices to appreciate Mexicans rather than waste it trying to taint gasoline. Then there is the Made In Mexico butter issue...

[MEXICOWANDERER]

"Here in Zihuatanejo we have a tiny Sam's Club, a small Bodega Aurerra (owned by WalMart) and a medium size Soriana. Electric scooters? Surely you jest"

Shirley I don't...
I'm ensconced in my 119 dollar per month medical hideout a few hours from the border. I'm stuck here until the cardiac surgeon and neurosurgeon have their way with me. Then a cataract removal and arthroscopic surgery on both shoulders. Not even the 2 tier IMSS facility is worth considering in Morelia, and then I get corrective eyeglasses gratis NOB. No arthroscopic surgery is in the IMSS formulary and I want it -all-done. I have a beta prototype dual lead Boston Scientific pacemaker and they want further confirmation that the battery will last twenty years.

So I am now in the land of the far north. Where spicy dishes are avoided and play-dough tortillas rule the tortillarias. I have the entire Contreras syndicate (60+ extended family) as friends and like anywhere I avoid the extraneous because I have nothing in common with them. Indeed I type long messages on this forum to keep my written Ingles brushed up. It's when I speak that Spanglish often comes out.

Sleep? Good god, I slept until ONE PM today. Overcast. I was out like a light. About 66F in the morning. This will give me a great chance to stock up on USA XX size clothing and shoes. I want a Carhartt vest for Patzcuaro, and ordinary cotton bed sheets. Wal-Mart USA has good sets for twelve dollars and I am going to buy a half-dozen sets. Vitamin supplements, Rx's for a thousand doses (COSTCO pharmacy) of Glyburide 1.25 mg (It's Glibenclamida in Mexico) and the crystal hard tiny pills are only available in 5 mg. A pill cutter shatters them.

I seldom if ever "eat out" and a housekeeper maintains this place as sterile as a hospital. There is a 90/10 tortilleria at the end of the block that sells ten corn tortillas for every 90 made of play dough.

I bought the lady who makes corn tortillas a 90 lb sack of prepared kernels and she grumbled "Finally! Someone who knows what a tortilla is!". She grinds the masa and makes golden tortillas for me and her family. She's from Chilpancingo. She shares her secret stores and origins of where to buy choice groceries.

And all the major markets here have disabled scooters. Except those that are tiny. In Lazaro the girls do the shopping like they do at tianguis. I sit at a stool at the tamal vendor, sip orange agua fresca and chomp tamales. The neurosurgeon is supposed to get me mobile again.

The Contreras family spoils me. Little 1-1/2 year old Vanya, screams "David! Es David y dulces!" Dulces, sweets, candy...

Tonight for dinner I had mixed vegetables and a bolillo (roll). This week I prepare 10 quarts of beans in the pressure cooker. Beans, tortillas and chili. I suppose few readers have ever had properly made beans, actually pure beans but in the form of a stew. With cotija cheese -- a chunk on the side.

This is the land of menudo, and once I discovered Mexicans do everything to mask it's flavor (loads of hot sauce, onion and cilantro) I can only wonder at it's popularity. But the regional tacos are great. They ask me in broken Ingles hos it want them. I reply in Spanish: "traditional style" They give me the eye when sprinkling spices on and I smile.

These people the norteno citizens seem to love Habanero zero flavor hot sauce. The market is flooded with false pretenders.

"They use one chili for every hundred bottles" I grouse. Go to Yucatan. Be a man, and ask for salsa habanera. It will burn you from the inside out. I like bottled salsas with character: Salsa chili piquin, de arbol, chipotle. Balantino brand is for smothering sliced mangos or cucumbers. I am picking up a half gallon of Tabasco green, Jalapeno.

There is also a push down spring loaded meat tenderizer I want from the USA. Marinate eraser rubber grade beef overnight in Papaya mush then even a ran and made ---- -off steer's beef becomes edible.

I promised Brenda a commercial french fry cutter. The recipe she now knows about making superior fries, has locals stopping by for a plastic bag of fries. Good money but she needs to prep ten large spuds per hour on weekends. Poor Dalia prepped over a hundred spuds last Easter break -- per day!

Making good chilaquiles is too much work for one person. Especially if pulled chicken is involved. So I need to hunt down the best cocina economica in town.

[obgraham]

One more thing. Asparagus. Once a very big crop here in Eastern Washington, but the acreage has dropped a lot lately. Probably because the local good stuff is only around for about 5-6 weeks, and the consumer wants it to be year-round, and is willing to accept lower quality cheaper Chilean stuff all year.

Nothing beats asparagus eaten the day it was picked.

[obgraham]

I appreciate your comments on food of the average Mexican. I haven't spent much time there, but I have spent extensive times in a lot of "3rd world countries".

I've found it interesting that in almost all cases it is difficult to find the products we might be most familiar with here in the US, but there are different products elsewhere, very often far more tasty than what our megacorporations produce here. Rural Bolivians made me some superb home cooked meals, and local restaurants had steaks of fantastic quality for, say $3. Same in Nicaragua. Same in Africa, even when a famine was in effect.

And don't get me started on Peru! Some of the tastiest foods on this planet!

[Talleyho69]

Here in Zihuatanejo we have a tiny Sam's Club, a small Bodega Aurerra (owned by WalMart) and a medium size Soriana. Electric scooters? Surely you jest.

I get the daily discount sheets delivered to my computer. Produce days are Tuesday and Wednesday. The maid and gardener come on Wednesday, so off we go. We still buy the vast majority of our groceries in the mercado area, but like we did in the US, we watch the sales and use them when we can.

We thought you were about 40 miles north of Lazaro. That's a lot of gas!

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Bartering is confined to fruit and vegetables. Try it with meat, bread and eggs and you will get a cold stare until word is passed and the whole mercado municipal breaks out in hysterical laughter.

Tomatoes in Soriana or Commercial Mexicana may cost forty cents per pound. At tianguis they may cost thirty cents per pound. This is earth shaking? Regional fruit may be very cheap. But rural chicken (free range) are TWICE as expensive as Foster Farms franken-chicken in the USA. Same with eggs. Franken-huevos may cost sixty pesos per crate of 30 ($3.33) but ranch eggs the kind that truly rural Mexicans may have access to cost double or more.

For meat and vegetables COSTCO is among the most costly places in Mexico to shop. I will not buy meat, chicken, vegetables or fruit there. For meat I shop at a local carniceria that is always flooded with patrons. Grass fed lean beef with very little fat marbling.

Like in the USA, to find the best food bargains it is necessary to chain-shop three large supermercados. For me, it's Soriana, Wal Mart and Ley.

There is ZERO IVA on food that is not prepared. People who represent themselves as knowledgeable about Mexico should know that. Same with pharmaceuticals.

A large majority of la gente rural never set foot in a restaurant except for businessmen who have coffee at restaurants. Places that have breakfast specials and comida corrida, specials of the day have some middle-class customers. I do not associate my self with Mexicans who drive Escalades, Navigators and Range Rovers. Upper class restaurants exist because today there are more upper class people. But not in rural areas.

My income is LESS than twelve thousand dollars a year. I am "encouraged" to live as rural Mexicans do. I am not a high-dollar retiree who plays occasional games of "what if" to see how the other half lives.

What would a bricklayer or concrete worker have to trade? He has to find someone who has a tangible property to trade with. Someone who raises cattle? Silage corn? Rural people sometimes exchange tomatoes for onions or favorite chili but this is in no way enough to count for squat.

Try this on for size as a typical comida, the largest meal of the day

Beans
Tortillas
Rice
Guisado (stew with a little meat and a lot of vegetables)
Lentil soup
Agua Fresca. perhaps half a cantaloupe made into 2 gallons of lightly sweetened drink.

I don't guess at this stuff -- I live it every day. Week. Month. Year.

Where I cross swords is with folks who say nothing about buying over-priced flavored tortilla chips. This is rightfully called alimentos chatarras (junk food). Loaded with salt and fat. Drinking far too much cola. But it is the custom and I have to grit my teeth and bear the sight of little fat kids and hyper-obese women who are waiting for coronary or diabetic judgement day. Their choice not mine.

Little Caesar's Pizza has a 15" combo pizza that costs 130 pesos and a pepperoni pizza that costs 70 pesos ($7,22 and $3,89) I will buy them both and take them to a friend's house once a month. They will feed eight people. No colas! Not from me! Ten divided by eight is not a lot of money for a meal.

A typical breakfast for me is a bowl of oatmeal with fruit. 180 pesos per kilo dark roasted coffee ($4,55 per pound). Home made spaghetti for the afternoon with fruit. I do buy peanut butter at Costco. And chomp sticks of celery loaded with Skippy. Or microwave a half pound of fresh fish and mix it into a bowl of rice.

There is a Chinese take out 4 miles from here. They have 80 peso businessman's lunches for takeout that cost 80 pesos. Enough food for me to last 2-1/2 meals.

For me, the avoidance of salt and sugar is the biggest challenge. Chinese cooling uses both lavishly and the rice itself is a carbohydrate/blood sugar time bomb.

But BREAD is not much less than it is in the USA. Beef usually is cut thin so it can have a hammer applied to it. Supermarket beef can have GOODYEAR stamped on it as far as degree of tenderness is concerned. Friends sneer at the thought of having to eat supermarket beef. COSTCO beef? Shirley you jest. Eight to ten dollar a pound beef imported from Canada or the USA.

Soriana has two-fifty per pound USA butter packaged in Tijuana. And ley has Imperial margarine a full kilo tub for about three dollars. I start there when I need groceries. I'll cruise the aisles in an electric scooter. If something in my list is irresistible I'll buy it. Somethings in COSTCO I do buy. Frozen vegetables in (5 lb or 6 lb) bags. I cannot afford the gasoline to make 30 shopping trips per month. COSTCO also has fresh baked bolillos 12 for 13.45 pesos. Those get frozen. Kirkland Signature mayo is also on the first choice list.

[Ski_Pro_3]

ksg5000 wrote:

Ski Pro 3 wrote:
I call BS on that chart. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual expenditures for 2017 was $60,060. Of that amount, food was $7,729. The math says that food is 12.86% for us here in the USA.

Pretty sure the difference is the Mexwand* is using statistics that exclude eating out at restaurants (discretionary) and your includes all food. If so - Mex* stats maybe more relevant.

If it goes into my pie hole. It's food. If Americans were to eliminate their dining out without increasing their groceries, then they would starve. (Well, maybe not) Dietary consumption should not matter it's source. Heck, I bet a lot of folks grow their own food. Where is THAT calculated into the equation? I also bet many Mexicans barter and trade and that isn't included in the calcs either. If the government doesn't tax it, then it doesn't exist according to their reckoning.

[ksg5000]

Ski Pro 3 wrote:
I call BS on that chart. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual expenditures for 2017 was $60,060. Of that amount, food was $7,729. The math says that food is 12.86% for us here in the USA.

Pretty sure the difference is the Mexwand* is using statistics that exclude eating out at restaurants (discretionary) and your includes all food. If so - Mex* stats maybe more relevant.

[Ski_Pro_3]

Talleyho69 wrote:
US style sweet corn, and it's great, is available in the supermarkets in three packs. Here a package is 24p.

Asparagus from the US??? The US produces very little asparagus these days, it's imported from Mexico. Here's a link: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/asparagus-farms-california_n_7029836

Catsup? We find the Clemente Jacques to be at least as good as Heinz.

Growing up in the central valley of California, Asparagus farming was huge. Now days, I don't think there's even 1% of that planted any more. Yet every year they hold an Asparagus Festival. I doubt many in attendance of the festival even know it's not grown here any more.

[Ski_Pro_3]

I call BS on that chart. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual expenditures for 2017 was $60,060. Of that amount, food was $7,729. The math says that food is 12.86% for us here in the USA.

Here's a link to that data;
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cesan.nr0.htm

If the OP's chart were true and Americans only spent 5% or so of their expenditures for food, and expenditures are $60,000, then only $3,000 per year is spent on food? Let's say that's a family of three living on that $60K a year. Food budget would be a mere $1,000 per year, per person? Breaking down even further, to monthly and weekly, that works out to $83 a month, $19 a week and $2.74 per day for each person.

The BLS #'s are much more accurate at 2.5x more spending on food than the OP's chart.

***EDIT****
OH! I get it! The 'Food' doesn't include dining out.
USDA stipulates Americans spend 6% of their income on food and another 5% on dining out. Far as BLS is concerned food is food regardless of whether it's bought in a grocery store or a dining facility. My link shows they break it down to those two components, but classify both as food for the calcs.

[RayJayco]

I used Heinz for years then I researched the chemicals used in it. Then I switched to Hunts...

[Talleyho69]

We need to appreciate quality not quantity.

[ppine]

Americans are spoiled by cheap food and cheap energy.
People need to travel just to see other ways to live.
It only recently that Americans are waking up to the concept of high food quality and local food production.
I watched an old guy in Italy spend 20 minutes once selecting a couple of blood oranges that came from Algeria. In America we just grap a bag oranges and go.

[garyemunson]

In the 80's I was servicing elevators in San Fran and was sent on a night call to Best Foods mayo plant. Was the cleanest place I'd ever seen. White tile everywhere. Elevator was down due to steam cleaning. Rabbi on patrol blessing the plant and workers. I'll never buy any mayo except Best Foods. You could eat off the floors.

[Talleyho69]

US style sweet corn, and it's great, is available in the supermarkets in three packs. Here a package is 24p.

Asparagus from the US??? The US produces very little asparagus these days, it's imported from Mexico. Here's a link: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/asparagus-farms-california_n_7029836

Catsup? We find the Clemente Jacques to be at least as good as Heinz.