Photo by Peter Menzel
What’s on family dinner tables in fifteen different homes around the globe? From the new book “The Hungry Planet” by photographer Peter Menzel. The above photo shows a week’s worth of food for an Ecuadorian family in Tingo. A fascinating look not just at how much people eat, but what they eat. The processed food in some diets is incredible, especially in contrast with the above photo. [via Jason]
Hungry Planet isn’t new; the book has been out since 2005. It is a really interesting, humbling, and beautiful book, though, so thank you for reminding me I should get my copy out and look through it again!
It is very interesting to see this family’s dinner, but it would have been much more interesting to me to see what an urban family from Quito is eating.
I would be equally interesting to see what different families across the United Sates are eating… I wouldn’t be too surprised if it weren’t almost as diverse (with the except of the African family).
Frankly, It would be interesting to see how my own families diet has changed as we have moved around several different states and provinces — there are always a subtle local vagreities that end up making a big difference. Add North America’s cultural diversity to the mix and you have a wide spectrum of food buying realities.
I saw this post yesterday on Kottke’s blog. I’m going to get the book and spend some time looking through it with my kids — a great way to show them how different people live, so we can appreciate our own table — and maybe make some improvements to our diet (more fruit!). I’m curious to know: which table would you most like to join? For me, I’d choose the table with the Mexican family…. or maybe the Saudis. Or maybe the African family in the camp — to learn how to appreciate every mouthful.
Jill, aside from all that Coke in the back, I liked the looks of the Mexican table. So much fresh fruit! Of course, I love Mexican food and lived there for a year, so I know how good it would be to eat it all the time! I’d be happy to try any of the tables that had all the whole foods and unprocessed stuff, actually. Seeing all the packaged food amassed like that was pretty depressing.
one of the more interesting things in the book is the food statistics that they provide for each country. if you look, then you’ll see that basically every country’s obesity rate has increased from thirty/fourty years ago. the other thing to note is that junk food consumption is linked to how much disposable income a family has. fresh fruit and vegetables seem to be a convenience thing – on the farm you have plenty of access to vegetables and other farmers.
Interestingly, there was less variation in price among different countries than I had expected. The obvious exceptions being the remote third world areas in Bhutan, Peru, and Africa. In most places, access to food is obviously not a problem. It may not be cheap, but it’s relatively abundant. Now if we can only dedicate ourselves to solving problems in these other areas of the world…