Hungry Planet is a magnificent book. Hovering between the poetical and the political, it is elegant, meticulous, beautifully photographed and with text that is thought-provoking. In its dispassionate, deceptively simple presentation of contemporary food habits around the world, this fascinating book raises questions without asserting any bias. "Producing and consuming food is one of humankind's oldest and most basic activities, but the signs of change are everywhere," states author Faith D'Aluisio in the introduction to Hungry Planet.
Photojournalist Peter Menzel and writer Faith D ’Aluisio (husband and wife) traveled to 24 countries and visited 30 families from the poverty-stricken nations to the most affluent. The pair profiled families and the foods they consumed in a period of one week in these wildly disparate nations of the world. Each family was photographed in the market, in the kitchen, within their community. Ultimately they were photographed surrounded by a week's worth of foodstuffs, often an eye-popping photo illustrating the world-wide embrace of prepared foods. The dissimilarities are evident, but the similarities between us all, no matter the level of affluence are striking, even startling.
With careful documentation, D'Aluisio tallies the cost of eating in each family for that week of along with a general discussion of how the food is raised and used, complete with a family recipe. A sidebar of facts relevant to each country's eating habits provokes comparison of world cultures. Her accompanying essays, the observations made by one who is a traveler, not a tourist, are acute and penetrating but recorded without judgment.
Text and photographs combine to produce a remarkably thoughtful book. We meet, for example, the Cabañas family of Manila and see them surrounded by fresh fruits and vegetables that cost $7.17 a week, a bounty of fresh fish with some eggs and meat, at 19.72 per week, the largest of their expense. There is rice and bread. But there are a series of coca-cola bottles and tucked in the corner is a jar of Cheez-Whiz. Their week's expenses total $49.42
In the developed world, we meet The Melanders from Germany whose food expenses for four total $500.07 relatively well divided between the food groups but with a additional cost of almost $100.00 worth of vitamins. One notes that except where poverty is the most extreme, packaged cookies and candies have gripped the world as have soft drinks, primarily coca-cola.
Hungry Planet is a quietly political book. The authors do not discuss politics, we arrive at that independently. But throughout the book are essays by noted writers such as Corby Kummer, Marion Nestle, Charles C. Mann, and Alfred W. Crosby, all of whom respond to the photos and commentary of the book with the questions it has raised for them.
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