End Dependence on Foreign Oil!

[C0ckney]

On the Big Mac index Brazil is only ~35% more expensive than the US (a Big Mac supposedly costs $5.68 there) so it's hard to imagine a fast food meal costing $12.

a fast food meal could easily cost that. R$20-25 is normal for a meal in a place like that. i never eat in those places, because as elok pointed out, you can get much better food at a much better price on the street or at a cheap restaurant.

to give some examples. you can get a x-tudo (a burger with cheese, eggs, ham, bacon and salad) for between R$2.50 - R$5. you can get a 'prato feito' which will typically contain, rice (or pasta, sometimes both), beans, meat (beef, chicken or pork), farofa and salad for between R$7 - R$10. there are many places that are all you can eat (usually with a two meat maximum), those typically charge between R$9 - R$15. although the quality of the selection can be quite variable. you also have 'por kilo' restaurants which charge by weight. a typical price would be R$15- R$25 per kilo of food.

portions in brasil are massive. it's common to find a 'prato feito' which can serve two people.

yet strangely american style fast food is popular here. i still can't work out why.

[Dinner]

That sounds like a huge burger for R$2.50-R$5. I can see why few people would want to go to fast food and why their volume would be lower and thus prices higher.

[C0ckney]

well the fast food resturants here are busy and seem to do well. it must be a case of good advertising, because they are inferior in every way to the other options on offer.

[Dinner]

I'm kind of curious about how the pay by the kilo restaurants work because wouldn't people just load up on the expensive stuff (meat, fish, eggs) and avoid the cheap stuff especially if it's heavy cheap stuff like beans or rice? How do they stop Las Vegas style pillaging of the buffet (where people load up on the lobster, prime rib, and crab legs but skip the breads, starches, and veggies)? In Vegas they try to cut the expensive stuff into smaller pieces then drench them in heavy sauces (lots of flour added so people get full faster) to at least cut costs and slow down the rate of pillaging.

[C0ckney]

generally in a cheaper place, there will only be cheaper food on offer. you have to go a bit more upmarket to find really high quality meats and fishes for example. there's nothing stopping you from simply loading up on meat or fish, but i can't recall seeing anyone just picking out expensive stuff. i'm sure it happens though. meat is very cheap here (but dairy products are outrageously expensive), so maybe it's less of a temptation.

[Dinner]

With all that grass land in the south why would dairy products be expensive? Heck, with Merco Sur you'd expect Argentina to be selling huge amounts of dairy to Brazil.