Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

Last week, I received a forwarded email from a friend, and the only reason I opened it was because the subject was "World Food Consumption" so it seemed like something I should read. You may have seen it too, it's floating around.

The email comes from a book called Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio and features a selection of photos from the book of families with a week's worth of groceries based on their diet.

Here, on the left, is the Revis family (USA) who spend $341.98/week on food. On the right is the Aboubakar family (Chad) who spend $1.23/week on food. These are two extremes of the spectrum. It's interesting, though to also look at not just what the families spend, but what kind of food they eat. It is not just the Americans eating the processed foods.

The email only had a handful of the thirty families Menzel profiled in the book. Each is fascinating both for what they ate, and what they did not eat. Take a close look at the photos. Many of the other families in the book, "rich" and "poor" drank soda and ate packaged foods. Here are a few more, from kindo.com.

For more on the Hungry Planet project, you can read and listen to a 2005 story from NPR's All Things Considered or visit Peter Menzel's website.

Comments (11)

Time.com featured this as a photoessay on their Web site. It was one of the most intriguing photoessays I saw last year. It certainly made me think twice about my own consumption! The three-part installment is archived here: http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?D=what the world eats&sid=11837AB1F2CD&Ntt=what the world eats&Ntk=WithBodyDate&Ntx=mode matchallany&N=44&Nty=1

I just took a quick glance at Part I of the Time photo essay. It figures that the two U.S. families have lots processed crap in their kitchen.

Not just the U.S., it seems, but all the families in "advanced" nations seem to have boxed and bottled foodstuff of some sort. I love the diversity in the culture of food, but it's also alarming. There's been a lot of discussion on how closely quality of diet and household finances are tied together. I never denied that the financially strapped would go for the quick, cheap, and easy, but I wonder how that would change if those unhealthy choices simply weren't available.

I got the same forward and have been waiting to post it on my blog...just haven't had the time. But instead I just 'shared' your item in Google Reader so my friends/fam/readers can see it...you saved me some work :)

Thanks for sharing it, I think many people can learn from this.

thanks for the links and for sharing... this is really fascinating!

I find it depressing to see how soft drinks and mass-produced sugary foods and white breads have taken hold across the globe... although it was heartening to note that the west Europeans buy wine, beer and mineral water, and not pop.

Actually, nearly all of the Westernized families had soda on their tables. I think only one family did not have any and yet they had a ridiculous amount of other sugary foods.

Those photographs create a crystal clear picture of why it will be extremely difficult to change American food culture. All that garbage is processed, loaded with sugar and sodium, cheap meat, crap. They have big smiles on their faces. I'm not going to be the one to tell them to start eating vegetables. That would be un-American.

No, it's not just Americans eating the processed foods our English and German relatives are mostly in the same boat. No surprise there.

Nope, I'm afraid we can't really drag many other countries down with us on this one.

From a design perspective, the photographs are great color palettes for the respective cultures. The Western world with their bright, poppy packages, the Eastern world with earthy grain tones, bright fruits, silver fish.

This really made me stop and think when I saw how little the less developed countries ate each week - I am ashamed at how much food we throw away each week - and the photo of the woman sifting the sand to find grains was just heartbreaking

I, too, remember seeing this TIME photoessay last year. I found it absolutely fascinating - and shocking, appalling, embarrassing, and mind-boggling. To paraphrase a quote (that I absolutely love) from a long-ago episode of the Paul Reiser/Helen Hunt sitcom "Mad About You:" There's no food in your food!

There is a book that I read 11 years ago in business school, I think called Who Will Feed China?, that said if everyone in China decided to drink beer on the same day, it would wipe out the entire year's grain production in Norway. I don't know how much grain Norway produces, but frankly, that concept scares the hell out of me as more countries try to adopt a Westernized diet. We should probably eat more like them instead.....We in the US are masters of marketing junk. And I'm in marketing.