What The World Eats Now
Is love, sweet love. And also, food. This fascinating Time magazine photo essay depicts families from all over the world along with examples of the foods they eat in a week. (It also lists what a week’s worth of food costs them.) Lots of processed foods in America, lots of fruits and veggies in Mexico, and not much of anything if you live in Chad.
Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07
Favorite foods: fried potatoes with onions, bacon and herring, fried noodles with eggs and cheese, pizza, vanilla pudding
To depict the Netherlands, I will have to take a picture of my parents next to some veal croquettes, pannekoeken, patat, Heineken, and hash.
Thanks for the link, Shannonk!
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Food, International
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Yeah, but those Germans were spending a lot of that on wine and beer.
It truly is amazing to see what people eat and how much or little food people are getting in different places.
Croquettes. Oh yeah….happiest day of my life?? Walking through Albert Heijn and discovering vegetarian croquettes in the freezer. Now I can keep up with the Dutch boyfriend! :)
Absolutely fascinating; thanks for the link.
I’d say the British family could give the American families a run for the money when it comes to processed foods.
That Chad picture was heartbreaking.
Oh…Dutch food is the bomb! Their mayonnaise is heavenly (especially on French fries). My Dutch family (which I don’t have, except in an adjunct capacity through my college roommate would also have to have Advocaat, a big wheel of that hard, old cheese with caraway seeds in it and some of that weird, pink marshmallow candy that is supposed to look like ham.
This photo essay was totally fascinating. Was the high German food cost really all from beer/wine? Those people spend some MONEY on food. Good thing their wages are so good.
That is my favorite cheese in the whole world! I see it in the stores as Leyden cheese, but we called it koumijne kaas. (I have no idea how to spell that first word; that’s a guess based on pronunication.)
That was really interesting and made me wonder what I eat in a week. I spend probably $70-100 (NZ) on food a week, I think, but I don’t eat that much worth of food a week; like I usually am topping up on yogurt mix or oatmeal or soy sauce or something, but I’ll eat that same bag o’ oats over four or five weeks. I wonder how they decided how to measure a week’s worth of food?
I’m amazed by the sheer amount of packaging that some of the families must go through.
Thank you, Mo!! I had no idea what that cheese was called. I called up my local cheese boutique and they actually have it (as Leyden cheese). Woot!
Now if I could only find a place that sells Advocaat, I will be set. I tried making it one time (whipped eggs, sugar, vodka over vanilla ice cream with magic shell and whipped cream) and it was still tasty, but not quite the same as the bright yellow stuff from the bottle.
This was part of a larger issue a few weeks ago called The Science of Appetite. Lots of interesting articles about why we crave certain foods and the physiology of appetite.
I find it amazing the sheer numbers of processed foods the American, British and German families consume next to their second- and third-world counterparts.
“I find it amazing the sheer numbers of processed foods the American, British and German families consume next to their second- and third-world counterparts.”
Mmmm hmmm. And strikingly little commentary on the relationship between massive processed food volume and the 120-hour workweek. Not that I’m not watching too much Top Chef, reading too much Bourdain, and engaging in my own brand of workaholism, but still …
One of the things I’m sort of sensing about our culture is the only people who eat well are the chefs, and the only people with the “ideal” exercised bodies and VO2 max are the “diet and exercise professionals”. I’m not quite sure what that all means. When I figure it out I’ll get back to y’all.
‘Scuse me. I’ll get back to all y’all.
I don’t know where you can find Advocaat; maybe there’s a Dutch store near you? My mom loves it too!
That is fascinating.
Mind you, not much of the British family’s shopping basket coincides with mine… except the broccoli… though I did eat pizza for tea today, so I’m not claiming any high nutritional ground or anything.
That was really cool – I can’t believe how much Coke was behind the Mexican family, or how much bread on the Sicilian family’s table. It’s also funny how the larger families all seemed to have less food. I’d love to do this with my groceries for a week and see what we really eat… Mind you, we don’t do much processed food, and we eat a crapload of fruit, so I think it’d be different than the “typical” American family shown in the photoessay.