What the world eats in a week

Posted June 8th @ 3:17 pm by Andy Print This Post

There’s an amazing photo essay at Time.com vividly showing what 15 families from around the world eat each week.

The contrasts between rich and poor nations are predictable but striking. The difference in the quantity of food is most obvious. But also interesting to me is the difference in quality of food—the healthiest-looking diets don’t correspond to the wealthiest countries. (Granted, I’m generalizing based on a handful of photos.)

I love photo essays like this—they’re a great way to make a point or get people thinking.

(Spotted via BoingBoing.)

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4 Comments

Virginia
June 9, 2007 at 03:35

Just a note – Look carefully. These photos were arranged in a certain way. For certain families, the vegetables and lean meats were placed in the front, while for other families these foods were hidden behind candies, chips, and other processed foods. Given how much our U.S. American culture moralizes food choices and uses “healthy” and “unhealthy” as code for “good” and “bad,” I am wary of how people interpret projects like these. Can we simply observe the diversity in human experience and ways of living without judging? Issues of wealth distribution are certainly important, but can we address those without making cultural foodways a character issue?

andai
June 9, 2007 at 13:49

Virginia. I must disagree with what you said for two reasons.
First, I looked at all of the 15 pictures and you cannot definitely say that all of the ‘western’ families had the veggies and lean meats hidden behind processed foods. If you look at the family from California for example, you notice they don’t even have a lot of vegetables (and those they are placed towards the front) yet they do have a lot of processed foods. Also the Family from North Carolina has a couple of tomatoes, grapes and apples placed in the middle.
Second, if you look at the families from Chad and Ecuador, they don’t have any processed food and the reason for this I would say is that in many developing countries, processed foods are very expensive so many families simply do not buy processed foods at all. My feeling is that the families are placing towards the front the stuff that they value the most, but I cannot say that with any authority…

Anna
June 9, 2007 at 20:37

This photo collection is taken from the Hungry Planet book, which I have just returned to the public library. Each family’s food is listed in detail, next to their photograph, along with the cost and approximated costs of food raised domestically. Andy was correct in his summation about the western diets not being the best.

danr
June 13, 2007 at 07:44

What’s striking is not just the different amounts, but the different size of the families that amount is distributed amongst. Some families seem to have twice as much food as other families twice their size (or more).

I also thought the picture of the German family had the best visual aesthetics in its presentation. Says something about that German engineering?

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