Cost Of Food For Mexicans
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 ...
Forum Discussion
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.
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.
