Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

By Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio

Book Overview

The 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 eating habits worldwide. HUNGRY PLANET profiles 30 families from around the world--including Bosnia, Chad, Egypt, Greenland, Japan, the United States, and France--and offers detailed descriptions of weekly food purchases; photographs of the families at home, at market, and in their communities; and a portrait of each family surrounded by a week's worth of groceries. Featuring photo-essays on international street food, meat markets, fast food, and cookery, this captivating chronicle offers a riveting look at what the world really eats. The paperback edition of the 2006 James Beard Book of the Year featuring a photojournalistic survey of 30 families from 24 countries and the food they eat during the course of one week. Winner of the 2006 James Beard Award for writings on food, finalist for the 2006 IACP Cookbook Award for food reference/technical, and winner of the 2005 Harry Chapin Media Award. Includes more than 300 photographs plus essays on the politics of food by Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, Charles C. Mann, Alfred W. Crosby, Francine R. Kaufman, Corby Kummer, and Carl Safina. The hardcover edition has sold 40,000 copies.Awards 2006 James Beard Cookbook of the YearThe Splendid Table Book of the Year 2005 Harry Chapin Media Award finalist for the 2006 IACP Cookbook Award Reviews"The photos are at once charming and astonishing in their honesty."--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel"A treasure trove of information . . . The photographs alone are worth the price of admission."--Travel Girl"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 bo

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0984074422
• ISBN13: 9780984074426
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Material World
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 3.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 12.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

i was in the book

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.

Beautiful, accessible, and important

This captivating book can be enjoyed on many levels: as a portfolio of lush photography, as a perceptive journalistic analysis of the intersections between politics and nutrition, and as a collection of intimate portrayals of daily lives. If you are interested in how people live, you will love this book.

Love the family recipes

Aside from beautiful photography and a clean edit (both things we might expect from this pair), I was especially drawn to the family recipes. They connected me to the stories on a more basic historic level, made me look back to the photos for reference, and made me hungry to try them out myself. I think I might have to wait for a trip to St. Lawrence Island to work up the Greenlandic Seal stew, though I'm ready to get on a flight now.

The Hungry Planet: Food for Thought

The Hungry Planet, What the World Eats, by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, is an excellent book. I saw the photo exhibit at Copia in Napa in early 2005 and was taken by the wonderful photographs of families from around the world behind a table or blanket on the ground with their week's supply of food. There was also an analysis of the food content and cost. As one who studies the role of food in health and disease, I could see how what was on the table or blanket was related to the health of the family or, more generally, the entire country. There was, for example, the portly Australian family with the mother who had suffered a stroke near age 50 years, sitting behind a table piled high with over 50 pounds of meat plus 4 gallons of dairy products, 4 gallons of sugar-laden drinks, etc., but very few "healthy" foods. It was very easy to see why she was over weight and developed a stroke. The Chinese village family, on the other hand, had only 20 pounds of meat but 47 pounds of fruit and over 50 pounds of vegetables, and they were much thinner. The foreword by Marion Nestle, one of America's leading nutritionists, discussed the ills of overeating easily possible in today's world. The photos, which go way beyond those seen at Copia, showing more about every day life in the cities and villages, and the text, explaining the role of food and agriculture, are excellent. For the scientifically minded, there are data on health and food in the back of the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the role of food in health and disease and life.

Menzel is brilliant once again

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