I call bs. No one wants to admit they ate nine cans of ravioli..

Hmm idk about that. Where I'm from, 500g of minced beef is over 7 euros, and everyone I know has basically stopped buying beef, bc it's not worth it anymore. And we are historically a big consumer of beef. Tbh less beef consumption is probably a good thing, in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn't stop people complaining about it ofc.

Looks pretty middle eastern to me

You know it! I don't have much experience with the tropics, but my guess was that it's simply because there's such an incredible amount of moisture everywhere. Nothing is every really dry in the boondocks!