Hungry Planet Voyeurism

I finally got Hungry Planet from the library (it has a long waiting list). The basic idea of the book is that a writer and a photographer traveled the world, spent time with many different families, and documented what they ate and a little bit of their life for a week. Then they took a picture of the family's weekly food consumption, itemized it, and calculated the money spent. They were quite thorough, including alcohol and cigarettes, condiments, snacks, and prepared foods as well as the starches, dairy, meats, and veggies.

Just reading this book is a voyeuristic indulgence: I almost feel guilty sneaking a look at other people's lives like this. It's a lesson in geopolitics as well as culture, cuisine, and consumption.

I have been on a food consumption monitoring kick myself, so I'm more aware than normal of what we actually eat and what it costs us. It seems that our average meal does indeed hover close to $2.oo for the two of us, not including beverages. We generally consume inexpensive home-cooked meals and splurge occasionally on more expensive home-cooked meals. Restaurants are a rare indulgence, fast-food chain consumption is basically non-existent, and a take-out pizza is a weekly or bi-weekly treat. We splurge on wine and beer, although I'm still out of wine, so I've been drinking Amontillado sherry instead (bottling tomorrow, thank goodness). In general, my eyes have been opened to how little we normally spend on decent food.

Now this book is a different sort of eye opener. The range of foods people consume and the amounts of money people spend are one of the best illustrations of the nature of global distributions systems that I've encountered. As income increases, choice increases, and so seemingly does the opportunity for obesity (diabesity in the book). It's not the meager supplies or off putting diets of millet porridge 3 meals a day from the Sudan that surprise me, but the astounding consumption of fizzy drinks.

It would bore me to write about it, and bore you to read what I've written about it. You really must just get the book and take a look at it. But don't let your husband see that you've got it or he'll just casually ask to look at it and not give it back for a very long time, and then only after you've glared at him and cleared your throat a few times. I'm guessing that might happen...