Originally Posted by
petri
I have never taken grocery statistics seriously.
If I look at the basket they use for comparison here, it barely contains any products that we buy. Or even if you buy them, they are products that you need buy once a month or half a year and not every week.
Internationally there's the culture difference. Of course Tokyo is at the top. But if you eat a japanese diet, I'm pretty sure they grocery bill will be much lower. In some countries you go to a huge hypermarket and buy everything, in some countries the locals visit half a docen specialist shops to get what they need.
Then there's the seasons and overall quality. You can easily double, triple or quadruple the price for a product just by buying during a wrong season or from a different shop with different quality. Some products may be more expensive imports, sometimes the opposite.
I think with immigration one just has to adjust to the local diet the same way one adjusts to the local housing, banking, byrocrazy, and other customs.
If you are a Brit the local diet is not very much different, it's the same meat, just different gravy.
It is worth a look at the study Jolie mentioned above it explains a lot as to why I feel so poor compared to when I lived in London.
There's a little table that shows on average how many hours you need to work to buy particular (non-seasonal) uniform goods that are the same the world over, which really brings it home:
Auckland
1 Big Mac = 19 minutes
1kg bread = 19 mins
1kg rice = 13 mins
1 iPod nano = 16 Hours
London
1 Big Mac = 13 minutes
1kg bread = 10 mins
1kg rice = 8 mins
1 iPod nano = 11 Hours
New York
1 Big Mac = 14 minutes
1kg bread = 12 mins
1kg rice = 8 mins
1 iPod nano = 9 Hours
Sydney
1 Big Mac = 14 minutes
1kg bread = 16 mins
1kg rice = 11 mins
1 iPod nano = 9.5 Hours