What the World Eats

An interesting photo essay at Time Magazine, chronicling what families around the world eat in one week, and how much it costs them.

I think it's interesting how little fresh fruit and vegetables are in the American's diets, even compared to other first-world families, like the German family. The Mongolians even appear to have more, which is something if you've ever been to Mongolia, I hear. Notice that the Mexicans are the heaviest, and also have the most coca-cola lined up in the background. (In a tangential note, because I think Mexican Coke has sugar and not high-fructose corn syrup, a study recently found that fructose causes your body to store more calories as fat, and that, compared with somebody who drank no fructose, drinking fructose as much as four hours before a meal causes the body to store the meal as fat. One more reason to stay away from processed food, especially in America.)

The Egyptian family is astounding as well, in that they feed all of those people for only sixty-something dollars a week. The Tibetan family feeds a lot as well for only five dollars, but Tibet is a pretty poor area. (They actually may not be Tibetan, I have no idea where that city is, but wherever they're from, it's clear they're fairly poor.)

I was also fascinated by what the people had in their house, what room was chosen as being the best to display things in, what furniture was there, and the level of accumulation of other stuff. Big ups on the Germans for their library.