What is eaten in one week

Amber, what a great reminder for us to count our blessings and pay attention to what we consume.  It breaks my heart to realize how very little some of us have to eat.  I have been committed to working to end hunger since I was in high school.  Thanks for sharing this.

The $ value is relative as the currencies are different; but what is interesting is how much healthier and natural food seems as you go down the line! Less processed, more like…food! Sicily had that too, of course.

and then suddenly in Chad… I can see what you're saying mamakat; your commitment is wonderful.

I think these pictures will also show our different perspectives. Thanks for sharing this Amber.

A lot to drink in the top photos.  Only basic drinks like milk, water as you down and of course a lot of water comes from the fruits and vegetables.

Amber, my brother just sent me this email, I'm so glad you posted it here, thanks.
Love,
Sandra

Amber, thank you for sharing this. I'm not even sure what to say other than - wow.

i am always fascinated by things like this…i gave copies of  “material world” to my daughter's school so the kids could see visual representations of how people live around the world and hopefully draw their own conclusions…send me the link for these if you can!

Peter Menzel
“Hungry Planet”
http://www.menzelphoto.com/hungryplanet/

I believe in proper attribution. It's actually from a Ten Speed Book (A Hungry Planet by Peter Menzel) that shows 30 families.

Go to this website for more info:
http://www.menzelphoto.com/hungryplanet/index2.html

Publishers Weekly Review:
For their enormously successful Material World, photojournalist Menzel and writer D'Aluisio traveled the world photographing average people's worldly possessions. In 2000, they began research for this book on the world's eating habits, visiting some 30 families in 24 countries. Each family was asked to purchase–at the authors' expense–a typical week's groceries, which were artfully arrayed–whether sacks of grain and potatoes and overripe bananas, or rows of packaged cereals, sodas and take-out pizzas–for a full-page family portrait. This is followed by a detailed listing of the goods, broken down by food groups and expenditures, then a more general discussion of how the food is raised and used, illustrated with a variety of photos and a family recipe. A sidebar of facts relevant to each country's eating habits (e.g., the cost of Big Macs, average cigarette use, obesity rates) invites armchair theorizing. While the photos are extraordinary–fine enough for a stand-alone volume–it's the questions these photos ask that make this volume so gripping. After considering the Darfur mother with five children living on $1.44 a week in a refugee camp in Chad, then the German family of four spending $494.19, and a host of families in between, we may think about food in a whole new light. This is a beautiful, quietly provocative volume.

I wonder how much that food costs as a percentage of their weekly pay–and the same costs, say, 20 years ago.   I would suspect that the food that family in Chad purchases is not as cheap as it looks–no doubt due to the political repression and unrest in that part of the world.  The good news, though, is that I suspect that food today costs a lower percent of one's pay than it did 20 years ago.

All in all, I think that this is a reminder that, while we still have a LONG way to go in alleviating poverty, and affluence tends to bring waste, affluence also means fewer people starve!

We are blessed!