Hungry Planet: What the World Eats [Hardcover]

Peter Menzel (Author), Faith D'Aluisio (Author), Marion Nestle (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2005

On the banks of Mali's Niger River, Soumana Natomo and his family gather for a communal dinner of millet porridge with tamarind juice. In the USA, the Ronayne-Caven family enjoys corndogs-on-a-stick with a tossed green salad. This age-old practice of sitting down to a family meal is undergoing unprecedented change as rising world affluence and trade, along with the spread of global food conglomerates, transform diets worldwide. In HUNGRY PLANET, the creative team behind the best-selling Material World, Women in the Material World, and MAN EATING BUGS presents a photographic study of families from around the world, revealing what people eat during the course of one week. Each family's profile includes a detailed description.



 

 

 

 

 

  Awards

2006 James Beard Cookbook of the Year The Splendid Table Book of the Year

2005 Harry Chapin Media Award

finalist for the 2006 IACP Cookbook Award Reviews

"Arresting, beautiful, enlightening and infinitely human, this is a collection of full-page photos of families around the world surrounded by what they eat in a single week -- from Bhutan to San Antonio. Read the illuminating statistics and the essays. This is a book for the family and for the classroom. You won't see the same old "aren't we better than them" attitude, nor will you be shamed. This book reminds us that what we eat is the simplest, yet most profound, thread that ties us together."—Lynne Rossetto Kasper, Host of American Public Media's Public Radio Program, The Splendid Table“the politics of food at its most poignant and provocative. A coffee table book that will certainly make coffee interesting.”—Washington Post“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. This is a beautiful, quietly provocative volume.”—Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review*“This book of portraits reveals a planet of joyful individuality, dispiriting sameness, and heart-breaking disparity. It's a perfect gift for the budding anti-globalists on your list”—Bon Appetit “[A] unique photographic study of global nutrition”        —USA Today “Grabs your attention for the startlingly varied stories it tells about how people feed themselves around the world. Its contents are based on detailed research, beautifully photographed, presented with often disturbing clarity.”                                                     —Associated Press "The world's kitchens open to Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, the intrepid couple who created the series of books called Material World.... As always with this couple's terse, lively travelogues, politics and the world economy are never far from view."                                 —New York Times Book Review  “illuminating, thought-provoking, and gloriously colorful”                                                  —Saveur Magazine “Richly colored and quietly composed photographs....Hungry Planet is not a book about obesity or corporate villains; it's something much grander. Its premise is simple to the point of obvious and powerful to the point of art.”                                                                     —Salon.com “A fascinating nutritional and gustatory tour.”                                                                —San Jose Mercury News

“A grand culinary voyage through our modern world...a lushly illustrated anthropological study.”                                                                                                                 —San Francisco Bay Guardian

“The talked-about book of the season...the stories are fascinating.”                                    —Detroit Free Press

“Unique and engaging”                                                                                              —Delta Airlines Sky magazine

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's an inspired idea--to better understand the human diet, explore what culturally diverse families eat for a week. That's what photographer Peter Menzel and author-journalist Faith D'Alusio, authors of the equally ambitious Material World, do in Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, a comparative photo-chronicle of their visits to 30 families in 24 countries for 600 meals in all. Their personal-is-political portraits feature pictures of each family with a week's worth of food purchases; weekly food-intake lists with costs noted; typical family recipes; and illuminating essays, such as "Diabesity," on the growing threat of obesity and diabetes. Among the families, we meet the Mellanders, a German household of five who enjoy cinnamon rolls, chocolate croissants, and beef roulades, and whose weekly food expenses amount to $500. We also encounter the Natomos of Mali, a family of one husband, his two wives, and their nine children, whose corn and millet-based diet costs $26.39 weekly.

We soon learn that diet is determined by largely uncontrollable forces like poverty, conflict and globalization, which can bring change with startling speed. Thus cultures can move--sometimes in a single jump--from traditional diets to the vexed plenty of global-food production. People have more to eat and, too often, eat more of nutritionally questionable food. Their health suffers.

Because the book makes many of its points through the eye, we see--and feel--more than we might otherwise. Issues that influence how the families are nourished (or not) are made more immediate. Quietly, the book reveals the intersection of nutrition and politics, of the particular and universal. It's a wonderful and worthy feat. --Arthur Boehm

From Publishers Weekly

Starred 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. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Material World (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580086810
• ISBN-13: 978-1580086813
• Product Dimensions: 12.5 x 1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #46,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > International
  • #28 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Travel
  • #49 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Photo Essays

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Menzel is brilliant once again, October 9, 2005

By 

B. Emory (Wilmington NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hungry Planet: What the World Eats (Hardcover)

As a huge fan of Peter Menzel's works, I preordered this book and was incredibly excited for its arrival. Not only was the photography and descriptions of the families brilliant, but Menzel included excerpts from leading nutritionists, scientists, environmentalists, and my own personal heroes among them Michael Pollen. I especially enjoyed the articles entitled Diabesity and Slow Foods. Another brilliant aspect is the pertinent facts about the countries that the familes come from, which include not only geographics, population density, and life expectancies but also number of McDonald's, the % of obese and overweight, and the consumption of alcohol and cigarettes.

Menzel and D'Alusio were also keen to write personal experiences in the countries they visited- the shock of seeing Ramen noodles in Papua New Guinea, or eating dugo (my aunt's personal favorite) congealed swine blood in Manilla. Their facts, and photography, along with their personal experiences opened my awareness to many different cultures as did the first 4 books that they have collaborated on before this.
Well done once again

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars gorgeous yet informative photos; interesting text, October 7, 2005

By 

Philip Greenspun (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hungry Planet: What the World Eats (Hardcover)

I first saw these images in a museum in Napa California. They had been enlarged to almost 2'x3' in size and were stunning. I like the book, better, however, because you can look deeper at each culture and the text is fascinating. This is a great book for showing young people the variety of life experienced in different parts of the world. I bought copies for all of my nephews and cousins.

56 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars i was in the book, July 9, 2006

By 

Tyrone (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hungry Planet: What the World Eats (Hardcover)

My name is Tyrone Demery and i am the younger son from the Revis family.
doing the book was an amazing and lucky experience. You really never understand how much food you really eat until it's ALL layed out on your kitchen counter.