A few months ago, Time magazine did a superb photo essay on “What the World Eats.” I thought the essay was worth the subscription cost alone. They took pictures of families from as near as North Carolina and California to far-flung locations like Cairo, Kuwait, Sicily and Bargteheide (I had to look that one up; for those curious, it is in Germany). The photo includes the family members and a spread of all the food that they ate for the week. Underneath each photo is how much money the family spent on food for the week and their favorite foods or family recipe.
I found it eye-opening on so many levels, and it has been clipped to our refrigerator ever since. Such a powerful message in many ways, both for us and our kids.
If you missed the photo essay, you can check out all sixteen family pictures right here. I’d love to know what you think. 
Photo from Time, Inc.
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Nothing really surprised me about this… other than the fact that there were so few veggies and fruits from the CA family. I mean, they live in CA… I’m jealous!
I saw this article and thought it was amazing the difference in quantity, quality, type, and price of food. The American family was pretty sparse on veggies. I think this shows our disparity in health. However, other parts of the world are starting to adopt our eating habits as well…just check out the amounts of drink in, I think, Mexico!
I too noticed that the CA family lacked fruits and veggies in their weekly meals. And the amount of Coke in the photo of the Mexican family! It was eye-opening to see the differences in types of things people eat and how much they spend a week…from $500 to not much more than a few dollars! I’d like to try this with my husband.
Not too surprising, but definitely a wonderful illustration of the way people eat all over the world. I noticed the popularity of processed food in America, and the influence of American fast food globally. The Italian family certainly consumed a lot of bread. Pizza is popular everywhere, and it doesn’t look like many people make it from scratch! Heck, I love coal-oven pizza here in NYC.
That was fascinating. I was amazed at the amount of processed foods and the amount of soft drink/juices in most of the pictures. It was interesting to see the difference in quality of foods as well as the quanities consumed by such varied groups. Thanks for sharing this Cate.