'What I Eat: Around The World In 80 Diets' Shows Stunning Portraits Of Daily Meals

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/28/what-i-eat-around-the-world-in-80-diets_n_5043024.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

The different kinds of foods people eat around the world are endlessly fascinating. We at HuffPost Taste want to know what other countries eat for breakfast when we're shoveling down a bowl of cereal or enjoying our eggs and bacon. We're curious aboutthe way people eat and which customs are taboo, and what people consider "healthy eating." We want to know what kids are eating for lunch and what governments arefeeding their soldiers.

Photojournalist Peter Menzel and writer Faith D'Aluisio have satiated our curiosity in a new way, breaking down what individuals from all over the world eat in one day. In "What I Eat: Around The World In 80 Diets," Menzel and D'Aluisio document a stunning array of individuals' daily sustenance. The subjects of 'What I Eat' run the gamut from a coal miner and a call center operator to a sumo wrestler.

The book is arranged by the number of calories each individual consumes. Context from D'Aluisio accompanies each portrait, and essays from food experts such as Michael Pollan appear throughout the book.

This isn't the first book from husband and wife team Menzel and D'Aluisio. Their James Beard award-winning book "Hungry Planet," came out in 2007 and documented what families from around the world eat over the course of a week.

On choosing to lay out food consumption at the individual level, Menzell told NPR: "I want people to understand their own diets better — and their own chemistry and their own biology. And make better decisions for themselves."

Below are some examples of the 80 portraits found in "What I Eat: Around The World In 80 Diets."

• Bruce Hopkins, a Bondi Beach lifeguard (3,700 kcals)
  © Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com
  "Bruce Hopkins, a Bondi Beach lifeguard, with his typical day's worth of food in Sydney, New South Whales, Australia. The caloric value of his day's worth of food on a typical day in the month of February was 3700 kcals. He is 35 years of age; 6 feet tall, and 180 pounds. Hopkins eats moderately, rarely if ever eats fast food, and drinks alcohol only when he and his wife go to dinner with friends."
• Marble Moahi, a mother living with HIV/AIDS (900 kcals)
  © Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com
  "Marble Moahi, a mother living with HIV/AIDS, in the family kitchen in Kabakae Village, Ghanzi, Botswana with her typical day's worth of food and antiretroviral medications. The caloric value of her day's worth of food on a typical day in March was 900 kcals. She is 32 years of age; 5 feet, 5 inches tall; and 92 pounds."
• Willie Ishulutak, an Innuit soapstone carver (4,700 kcals)
  © Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com
  "Willie Ishulutak, an Innuit soapstone carver in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada with one day's typical food, and drink. The caloric value of his day's worth of food on a typical day in the month of October was 4700 kcals. He is 29 years of age; 5 feet, 9 inches and 143 pounds."
• Sitarani Tyaagi, an ascetic Hindu priest (1,000 kcals)
  © Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com
  "Sitarani Tyaagi, an ascetic Hindu priest, with his typical day's worth of food at an ashram in Ujjain, India. The caloric value of his typical day's worth of food in the month of April was 1000 kcals. He is 70 years of age; 5 feet, 6 inches tall; and 103 pounds. Sitarani Tyaagi is one of thousands of ascetic Hindu priestscalled Sadhus that walk the country of India and receive food from observant Hindus."
• Maria Ermelinda Ayme Sichigalo, a farmer and mother of eight (3,800 kcals)
  © Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com
  "Maria Ermelinda Ayme Sichigalo, a farmer and mother of eight with her typical day's worth of food in her adobe kitchen house in Tingo village, central Andes, Ecuador. The caloric value of her typical day's worth of food in the month of September was 3800 kcals. She is 37 years of age; 5 feet, 3 inches tall; and 119 pounds. With no tables or chairs, Ermelinda cooks all the family's meals while kneeling over the hearth on the earthen floor, tending an open fire of sticks and straw."
• Curtis Newcomer, a U.S. Army soldier (4,000 kcals)
  © Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com
  "Curtis Newcomer, a U.S. Army soldier, with his typical day's worth of food at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in California's Mojave Desert. The caloric value of his day's worth of food in the month of September was 4,000 kcals. He is 20 years old; 6 feet, 5 inches tall; and 195 pounds. During a two-week stint before his second deployment to Iraq, he spends 12-hour shifts manning the radio communication tent (behind him)."
• Viahondjera Musutua, a Himba tribeswoman (1,500 kcals)
  © Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com
  "Viahondjera Musutua, a Himba tribeswoman, sits outside the house at her father's village with her youngest son and her typical day's worth of food." Her two meals of the day consist of cornmeal porridge with sour whole milk and she'll drink sour whole milk throughout the day.
• Aivars Radzins, a forester and beekeeper (3,100 kcals)
  © Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com
  "Aivars Radzins, a forester and beekeeper, wearing his bee-kleeping clothes, with a smoker and his typical day's worth of food in his backyard in Vecpiebalga, Latvia." Breakfast is sour rye bread with honey and butter; a hard-boiled egg; homemade pork meatballs and coffee. Dinner is fried homemade pork meatballs, boiled potato and onion with sour cream, two kinds of salad, more rye bread and Lauku Kvass.
• Mariel Booth, a professional model and New York University student (2,400 kcals)
  © Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com
  "Mariel Booth, a professional model and New York University student, at the Ten Ton Studio in Brooklyn with her typical day's worth of food. The caloric value of her day's worth of food on a day in the month of October was 2400 kcals. She is 23 years of age; 5 feet, 9.5 inches tall; and 135 pounds. At a healthier weight than when modeling full-time, she feels good but laments that she's making much less money."
• _____________
• More at the link.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Harpa Timsah

[Crashed~N2~Me 970]

Nice Post!

It's a "breath of fresh air" amidst all the = which race - succeeds or fails - the most - threads.

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

Thank you! I find it very interesting. I am surprised how much people eat, honestly. Except for those where I am surprised how little they eat! I wonder if 2000 calories a day as suggested by the US gov is more unrealistic than I thought.

More:

Takeuchi Masato, a professional sumo wrestler (3,500 kcals)

© Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com

"Takeuchi Masato, a professional sumo wrestler whose ring name is Miyabiyama (meaning "Graceful Mountain"), with his day's worth of food in the team's practice ring in Nagoya, Japan." He eats 3,500 kcals a day. Lunch is fried chicken, chanko nabe (traditional sumo wrestler's stew) with pork, vegetable tempura, cabbage egg and stewed chicken and white rice.

Shashi Kanth, a call center worker (3,000 kcals)

© Peter Menzel www.menzelphoto.com

"Shashi Kanth, a call center worker, with his day's food in his office at the AOL call center in Bangalore, India. He is 23 years of age; 5 feet, 7 inches; and 123 pounds. His average daily intake is about 3,000 calories. Like many of the thousands of call center workers in India, he relies on fast-food meals, candy bars, and coffee to sustain him through the long nights spent talking to Westerners about various technical questions and billing problems."

Edited March 31, 2014 by Harpa Timsah

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

I guess people really do like to fight more than they like to talk...

[Operator 1,926]

I liked your post. The pictures were nice.

...and you got away with posting nipple. I did that once by accident and it was reported.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Operator

[Crashed~N2~Me 970]

I was surprised to see Mr. Graceful Mountain consumed so few Kcals...& comparing his diet to the others.. he should be slimmer

So I got around to it today - to read a bit on a typical Sumo Wrestler diet.

I found this = http://www.intermartialarts.com/article/sumo-wrestler-diet/ Most sites had it at 20,000 but other sites listed the average intake of 5,000 calories (minimum) per day.

Now...I'm not familiar with "Kcals" terminology - so I read up on the difference (even though I notice the article kept using calories and Kcals - 1 & the same). I found this = http://www.livestrong.com/article/436625-what-are-kcal-calories/

& according to that Livestrong article - a Kcal = 1,000 calories...right?

So..this article has me a bit confused (which is not difficult to do but) - With all the interchanging of Kcals / Calories yet matched to the same number....

Which is it?

Is the Indian call center hippie eating 30,000 calories a day..? or 3,000 calories per day....?

&...seems to me...along with physical exertion and age appropriate metabolic rate...genetics must have something to do with overall shape & size...body fat count. Perhaps more of a driver than intake and exercise....?

Edited April 1, 2014 by Crashed~N2~Me

[Novembro 1,763]

I love seeing the variations in meals/food from country to country. I also want to eat them all.

Except maybe the sour whole milk....

[Harpa Timsah 13,258]

I think we know food as Kcals but we just say "calories." So 3K calories is 3K calories, no conversion needed No one could eat 30K calories in a day!

I agree the sour milk is disgusting. Even the poor aids lady had a more diverse diet though she eats less. Someone should feed her!

It is interesting how many of these people eat about 3K+ calories, yet only the sumo wrestler is fat. I don't know why, maybe genetics? Maybe his exercise isn't very strenuous? I am amazed at how much that Ecuadorian lady eats and she sits in the kitchen all day.

[Crashed~N2~Me 970]

Farming is hard work. I was always amazed while watching my Grandfather pound down the amount of food he ate. He would smile & say "Meat and Potatoes turns into Gasoline - inside the belly of a Farmer". He was fit & very energetic well in his 80s. Grandma would complain about the dirty old man chasing her around the house & Grandpa would chuckle at our bemusement. You the Man! GP!!

But...the Ecuadorian = 3800 calories @ 37 years of age; 5 feet, 3 inches tall; and ONLY 119 pounds...? ...I'm jelly.

[~happyndinlove~ 540]

Nice Post!

It's a "breath of fresh air" amidst all the = which race - succeeds or fails - the most - threads.

(( ))

Edited April 3, 2014 by ~happyndinlove~

[BatmanUSA 105]

I am glad to see someone else drinks sour milk... my wife saves it and uses it when she bakes... I thought it was disgusting, but I ate it, it was very good and I didn't get sick.....

thanks for posting this