Why You Should NOT Care About Brazilian Presidential Elections

Bowl of traditional açaí with sliced bananas, seasonal berries, and honey drizzle.

This is my açaí order every week at It’s Thyme. Every Friday, as a first-year Brazilian, I have a personal custom of forgoing Marketplace dinner to use my equivalency on açaí. I pay around $11.78, plus $0.90 in fees, so I need to swipe my DukeCard twice—the first swipe is free, and the second charges an extra dollar in food points.

Açaí first hit the world stage in the 2000s. Coming straight from the capital of the Brazilian Amazon, açaí made its way to California, riding alongside a strong surf culture. The bowl format, topped with granola, banana, and honey, became a craze among California surfers and quickly spread to Hawaii and major urban centers. In 2008, a 16-ounce açaí smoothie at a Costa Mesa health-food market sold for $5.95. These days, paying $11 for a bowl of açaí is a decent deal. According to Food Data Scrape, a firm that tracks food pricing data, the price of an average açaí bowl rose 34.82% between 2021 and 2025 alone.