What the World Eats

During my morning blog round-up I stumbled across this super interesting photo-essay from Time magazine, on Green L.A. Girl's blog. The subject of the essay is 16 families from around the world, what they eat weekly, and how much is costs them. The photos are from the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio (which I now have to get my hands on). The book basically chronicles what the world eats and explores global forces that are affecting diets around the world, or something along those lines. It also gives a detailed breakdown of the food that each family eats so that you don't have to spend all morning scrutinizing the pictures, like I have (Do those Sicilians eat a lot of persimmons, or are those just really persimmon colored tomatoes?) Prepare for a full review once I get my hands on it.

Anyway, I absolutely love pictures, especially pictures that capture culture. Since food, and foodways are fundamental elements of culture, a whole pictorial essay of how people eat is bound to get me a little excited (an inner-anthropological-dork glow if you will.)

So here is the essay.......right here. I am most intrigued by the disparity between the African family living in a refugee camp who spend approximately $1.23 a week on food and the German family that spend over $500 dollars a week on food (mmmmm, beer). And please don't get me started on the lack of vegetables in the U.K. family's and the U.S. family's weekly stash. And Jesus H, some cultures really like their frickin' Coke. And can I just, for a second, point out the STRONG correlation between a higher processed foods and boxed meals content and larger grocery bills (juice and Hamburger Helper ain't cheap, eat your grains). But I digress. Check the essay out. It's interesting, especially if you are like me and thoroughly enjoy grocery day because you get to visually pick apart baskets in the check out line, just to see how other people eat.