Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

I found this all very much by accident. A friend forwarded me an email that contained photographs of families with a week’s supply of groceries. She no doubt thought that i would find this book and ‘photographic essay‘ interesting from a photographic and creative point of view—and I do. But more interesting to me, is what these families eat over the period of a week and just how incredibly different their diets are.

This family from the North Carolina seems to have spent half of their weekly budget on fast food. The photo features prominently their pizzas, soft drinks and snack foods and I suspect this isn’t too far from the ‘average’ American’s diet, where convenience and fast food are common. It also shows how much it costs to pay for the convenience of fast food. 

Compare this to say the photo of the family from Ecuador and the contrasts are startling. It seems obvious that as a nation we are spending more money on food that is less healthy than the food our “third world” neighbors are eating. Are we deluding ourselves when we think that America is the greatest and most advanced country in the world? Look at the photos; you be the judge.