What the World Eats

Hello again! Thanks for coming back to see more about how food matters to me. This post is not just about me. It's about families from around the world and what their weekly diets consist of. Today I analyzed pictures and captions from the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Manzel and Faith D'Aluisio. I've posted a link below so you can follow along with me as I describe what I have noticed and what my thoughts were as I clicked through each image.

Hungry Planet: What the World Eats link: http://time.com/8515/hungry-planet-what-the-world-eats/

A common theme that I started to notice was that wealthier families from more developed countries have much more processed food and sweets compared to that of more traditional and native families who had a greater amount and variety of fresh meats and vegetables.

Image 5: Family from Chad. They spend $1.23 on food for the week!!! That is incredible. I know that there is no way I could spend only $1.23 and have enough food to get me through the week.

Image 8: Now looking at the family from Mexico you can tell they have a much larger budget for food. On the back table you can count twelve 2 liters of soda! That's almost two per day.

Images 10,13,15,20,25: I really appreciated that these families included their pets in the picture as well as what the pet eats. In image 20 I think the family from Luxemborg is holding up the chicken to show that they raise their own chickens, as well as it being noted in the caption that chicken is a favorite food in their diet.

Image 23: This family from Mali gets enough food to feed 15 members of their family using $26.39!!! I think it would be interesting to see if my wife and I could only spend that much money on a week's worth of groceries for us. 

Image 24: This family from Canada said that watermelon is one of their favorite foods but I don't see it anywhere in the photo. Let me know if you see it, okay? =]

Images 14 and 17: I noticed that both of these families included tobacco products as part of their weekly diet. I found that really interesting. My wife and I don't use and tobacco products so I would have never thought to include something like that. Does anyone reading this use tobacco and would you think to include that in your diet?

After being deployed to Afghanistan and visiting several countries in southeast Asia I have had an amazing chance to experience different cultures and the way they eat. I think these pictures give a good snap shot of just how vastly different food is used and acquired throughout the world. Thanks again for stopping by and taking the time to read my thoughts. I'm sure I'll see you again soon!