It is worth comparing these weekly shops, both on cost and content grounds

[woolybanana]

Some of them seem to have little fruit and veg, others tons of both. And the costs vary wildly.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2319825/The-great-global-food-gap-Families-world-photographed-weekly-shopping-reveal-cost-ranges-3-20-320.html

[PaulT]

Now why didn't we buy a house where the shopping bill is £3.20.

Of course to the natives if all you receive is a handful of rice in wages then £3.20 may be a lot.

Perhaps a better judge would be percentage of income. The only time you could say 'this is very cheap' is if you have gone to live there from a modern western nation -and there again you may find the conditions very unpleasant.

[Chancer]

Very interesting, I found myself more looking at what types of food the people eat and the volume of it for the numbers in the family rather than the prices although they were very illuminating.

If we look at the British family I was shocked by the sheer volume of junk food and lack of proper meat/fish/poultry, not factory food, they had a little fruit and veg I think but I get through several times that volume as a single person, I chose the British shopping but it equally could have been one of the other developed countries.

I also felt that perhaps it wasnt representative, the families that I know of that size in the UK probably buy double that amount of food, those i see shopping also, their bills are much higher also and it clearly isnt the only shop of the week.

It does bear out what an ex lodger who lived on ready meals and junk food said to me, its far cheaper than eating healthily, I used to eat like him and the families in the article and I know that in the UK and France it costs me significantly more to eat properly than to be malbouffé although France doesnt have the sheer volume and range of processed foods and ready meals available that the UK has, although I never shop in les grandes surfaces so maybe it does.

So which one does your shopping basket resemble?

Mine would be the Ecuadorian, Guatemalan, Egyptian or Indian ones but without bread, I lived with a family for a month in Ecuador and we ate very well pretty much the same foods although the kids were into their fizzy drinks and were a bit hyper.

[NormanH]

I was struck by how little fish and shell fish seem to figure.

I can't easily compare since I shop for one and I eat my main meal in  restaurants, but I have a salad, vegetables and fish or sometimes white meat each day, as well as a couple of portions of fruit.

I went to Lidl the other day for the first time in years and was struck by the enormous percentage of junk food on offer. The fruit and veg there looked inedible.

[Pierre ZFP]

Once again, lazy and out of date copyting by the Daily Wail.  This story and many of exactly the same pictures appeared in a feaure in a Sunday paper magazine (Sunday Times? Observer?) Can't remember which but I remember I saw it in a doctor's waiting room in the UK so it must have been around 2005.

[NormanH]

It is more the out of date thinking in that rag which disturbs me ....

[idun]

Ah what other people buy. I don't know how much I spend on food per week. Being bargain lil, I buy meat and fish on offer and freeze it, same same with veg.  And friends have allotments and are given quite a lot of veg and some fruit. I feed them later, so it works out nicely.