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What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets
A stunning photographic collection featuring portraits of 80 people from 30 countries and the food they eat in one day.
In this fascinating study of people and their diets, 80 profiles are organized by the total number of calories each person puts away in a day. Featuring a Japanese sumo wrestler, a Massai herdswoman, world-renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria, an American competitive eater, and more, these compulsively readable personal stories also include demographic particulars, including age, activity level, height, and weight. Essays from Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham, journalist Michael Pollan, and others discuss the implications of our modern diets for our health and for the planet. This compelling blend of photography and investigative reportage expands our understanding of the complex relationships among individuals, culture, and food.
In this fascinating study of people and their diets, 80 profiles are organized by the total number of calories each person puts away in a day. Featuring a Japanese sumo wrestler, a Massai herdswoman, world-renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria, an American competitive eater, and more, these compulsively readable personal stories also include demographic particulars, including age, activity level, height, and weight. Essays from Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham, journalist Michael Pollan, and others discuss the implications of our modern diets for our health and for the planet. This compelling blend of photography and investigative reportage expands our understanding of the complex relationships among individuals, culture, and food.
335 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
13 people are currently reading
1482 people want to read
About the author
Peter Menzel
26 books46 followersPeter J. Menzel is an American freelance photojournalist and author, best known for his coverage of scientific and technological subjects. His work has appeared in many national and international publications including National Geographic, Forbes, Fortune, Wired, Geo, Stern, Paris Match, Life and Le Figaro. In conjunction with his wife, writer/producer Faith D'Aluisio, Menzel has also published six books including Material World: A Global Family Portrait (1994); Women in the Material World (1996); Man Eating Bugs: The Art & Science of Eating Insects (1998); Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species ; Hungry Planet: What The World Eats (2005). He is the founder of Peter Menzel Photography and Material World Books.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 132 reviews
November 17, 2015
I've been reading Menzel's books in age-order, and this one is pretty recent. In "Hungry Planet" we looked at a family's week's worth of food, and here we move to what a person eats in a day. There's 80 people (plus more in the last pages, including a chimpanzee *lol*), with the calorie range from 800 to 12 300. We revisit three persons from "Hungry Planet": Abdel Kerim Aboubakar in Chad refugee camp, Maria Ermelinda Nyme Sichigalo in Ecuador, and Emil Madsen in Greenland (I think these were arranged at the same time as previous book's family displays were done).
Each one has the foods listed, with total calorie count; plus age (not always given), height and weight. The monk in Tibet remains nameless for protective reasons. There is two microloans persons from Kenya and Bangladesh. Many countries are represented twice or more (USA certainly get many). Some say that there's too many 'special' occupations involved, but featuring just office workers isn't really that exicting in my opinion. Ordinary can be too well known.
Items on the list that weren't food or drink: medicine (incl. one guy with a inhaler), cigarettes, vitamins and other supplements, a glass of urine (the person's own and quite clear kind), chewing gum, and qat (a stimulant herb).
In calorie count one has to take note of these things: sex, age, money/life situation (fe. refugee or a runaway would have it different from one with stable family), activity level (both at work and in free time), specific diets (fe. vegetarian, losing weight for weight surgery), certain health levels (like with the war veteran in a wheelchair). Often I pondered on how healthy each individual's display was, what was needed and what could be taken away. Interesting :9 One should note that calories change every day since most won't eat the same every day anyway, and seasons make their mark also. Only the calorie-restrictor guy could keep the calories exactly the same (but then he looks like it *cough*).
The meals are also not just breakfast-lunch-dinner. Some don't have breakfasts. Or they have something througout the day, or eat only once a day. The space station guy's meals were also interesting. The friar in Rome has his daily holy host wafer included in the list XD The Latvian voice teacher ate imported Finnish swiss cheese, which made me smile; it tastes a lot different from the one I had while spending a schoolyear in France 8D
There are some essays in-between: what we cook, on calories, portion sizes, food and the need for active life, food taboos, why home cooking is necessary to keep in our life, and how to go eating in a better way (some suggestions). Included is also once again the statistics page.
I think this is Menzel's best book: the pictures are less dark and I could get some ideas from the pics and essays. If one had to have only one of his books, this would be it. Recommended.
Each one has the foods listed, with total calorie count; plus age (not always given), height and weight. The monk in Tibet remains nameless for protective reasons. There is two microloans persons from Kenya and Bangladesh. Many countries are represented twice or more (USA certainly get many). Some say that there's too many 'special' occupations involved, but featuring just office workers isn't really that exicting in my opinion. Ordinary can be too well known.
Items on the list that weren't food or drink: medicine (incl. one guy with a inhaler), cigarettes, vitamins and other supplements, a glass of urine (the person's own and quite clear kind), chewing gum, and qat (a stimulant herb).
In calorie count one has to take note of these things: sex, age, money/life situation (fe. refugee or a runaway would have it different from one with stable family), activity level (both at work and in free time), specific diets (fe. vegetarian, losing weight for weight surgery), certain health levels (like with the war veteran in a wheelchair). Often I pondered on how healthy each individual's display was, what was needed and what could be taken away. Interesting :9 One should note that calories change every day since most won't eat the same every day anyway, and seasons make their mark also. Only the calorie-restrictor guy could keep the calories exactly the same (but then he looks like it *cough*).
The meals are also not just breakfast-lunch-dinner. Some don't have breakfasts. Or they have something througout the day, or eat only once a day. The space station guy's meals were also interesting. The friar in Rome has his daily holy host wafer included in the list XD The Latvian voice teacher ate imported Finnish swiss cheese, which made me smile; it tastes a lot different from the one I had while spending a schoolyear in France 8D
There are some essays in-between: what we cook, on calories, portion sizes, food and the need for active life, food taboos, why home cooking is necessary to keep in our life, and how to go eating in a better way (some suggestions). Included is also once again the statistics page.
I think this is Menzel's best book: the pictures are less dark and I could get some ideas from the pics and essays. If one had to have only one of his books, this would be it. Recommended.
February 12, 2011
I really liked Material World: A Global Family Portrait and Hungry Planet and was excited to read this one too, another book by the same primary author as the other two and also sharing the same co-author as the other food based book. I wasn’t as enthusiastic about this book as I was about the others.
It turns out I find it tedious to read the details of people’s daily food intake. Readers get the details! I’m shocked at how many calories most people eat; even when I was active multiple hours a day I couldn’t eat that much food and stay at the weights many of these people do. The book goes from least amount of calories to most; most people’s diets I did not find all that appealing and I never really got hungry or had cravings while reading, as I sometimes do when food is mentioned in books. Food by meals/snacks and water and cigarettes (when applicable) were shown and listed.
Luckily, there were other things focused on in the book, sort of. I found people’s occupations and family & social life more interesting that how many calories and what foods they ate, and I’m glad a story about each person was included. I was also quite disappointed that despite some of the emphases of the contributors, veganism wasn’t really represented and vegetarianism was barely represented. I guess I should have been surprised but I’d have loved to see one vegan and two or three true vegetarians; I think there was one of the latter.
The short essays throughout were okay. My favorite essay was “Moving the Idle Masses” by Mary Collins, who writes about getting moving and how she was impacted by a bicycle accident; I’ve been dealing with a sports injury for almost 7 years now, so this one touched close to home.
Learning some details about others’ lives, people who live in various cultures and have different standards of living, from affluence to poverty, and most somewhere in-between, kept my interest, but another focus would have probably kept me more engrossed, although this is a good companion book to the two books linked above.
I liked that the authors’ diets for a day are shown at the end. I could have done without the chimp. I liked that it’s made clear that these stats are a snapshot: one particular day’s worth of food, supposed to be representative of the typical weekday, for 80 + people. The stats by country at the end are interesting, different records for different countries, taking into account their unique situations.
Seeing photos of what people eat was not as fascinating as I thought it would be, and was often disgusting for me. Animals, absurdly processed food, etc. Americans (overall) don’t come across that well. It’s amazing what the human body can take and keep going, something I’ve thought about a lot over the years because I’ve eaten plenty of junk in my life and have also overeaten during some periods of my life. The globalization of food was often, although not always, apparent. It is a visually beautiful book, if you don’t mind seeing lots of dead animals on plates and some animals being killed too. The photos of the people and the look into their lives make this a worthy project, but it just wasn’t for me.
I will say that I’ve been having a hard time reading, and I’ve been incredibly aware of my on-deck and to-read books piling up, those I’m obligated to read and those I really want to read, so that might have impacted my enjoyment. But, I was reading another non-fiction book at the same time I was reading this and I thoroughly enjoyed that book, so I just think this wasn’t the best book for me to try to read cover to cover. Maybe it would have been more appealing as a coffee table book I dabbed into occasionally. When I have time, I’ll try to read other members’ reviews, because I’m certainly rating this very low compared to most Goodreads members, and I tend to be a high rater. 32 gave it 5 stars, 39 gave it 4 stars, only 2 others gave it 3 stars, only 1 gave it 2 stars (I almost made it 2 of us) and nobody gave it only 1 star. I think I’d have liked this much better if I was discussing it with others. There is a lot to say about inequities, culture, food habits, cultural importance of food choices, etc.
It turns out I find it tedious to read the details of people’s daily food intake. Readers get the details! I’m shocked at how many calories most people eat; even when I was active multiple hours a day I couldn’t eat that much food and stay at the weights many of these people do. The book goes from least amount of calories to most; most people’s diets I did not find all that appealing and I never really got hungry or had cravings while reading, as I sometimes do when food is mentioned in books. Food by meals/snacks and water and cigarettes (when applicable) were shown and listed.
Luckily, there were other things focused on in the book, sort of. I found people’s occupations and family & social life more interesting that how many calories and what foods they ate, and I’m glad a story about each person was included. I was also quite disappointed that despite some of the emphases of the contributors, veganism wasn’t really represented and vegetarianism was barely represented. I guess I should have been surprised but I’d have loved to see one vegan and two or three true vegetarians; I think there was one of the latter.
The short essays throughout were okay. My favorite essay was “Moving the Idle Masses” by Mary Collins, who writes about getting moving and how she was impacted by a bicycle accident; I’ve been dealing with a sports injury for almost 7 years now, so this one touched close to home.
Learning some details about others’ lives, people who live in various cultures and have different standards of living, from affluence to poverty, and most somewhere in-between, kept my interest, but another focus would have probably kept me more engrossed, although this is a good companion book to the two books linked above.
I liked that the authors’ diets for a day are shown at the end. I could have done without the chimp. I liked that it’s made clear that these stats are a snapshot: one particular day’s worth of food, supposed to be representative of the typical weekday, for 80 + people. The stats by country at the end are interesting, different records for different countries, taking into account their unique situations.
Seeing photos of what people eat was not as fascinating as I thought it would be, and was often disgusting for me. Animals, absurdly processed food, etc. Americans (overall) don’t come across that well. It’s amazing what the human body can take and keep going, something I’ve thought about a lot over the years because I’ve eaten plenty of junk in my life and have also overeaten during some periods of my life. The globalization of food was often, although not always, apparent. It is a visually beautiful book, if you don’t mind seeing lots of dead animals on plates and some animals being killed too. The photos of the people and the look into their lives make this a worthy project, but it just wasn’t for me.
I will say that I’ve been having a hard time reading, and I’ve been incredibly aware of my on-deck and to-read books piling up, those I’m obligated to read and those I really want to read, so that might have impacted my enjoyment. But, I was reading another non-fiction book at the same time I was reading this and I thoroughly enjoyed that book, so I just think this wasn’t the best book for me to try to read cover to cover. Maybe it would have been more appealing as a coffee table book I dabbed into occasionally. When I have time, I’ll try to read other members’ reviews, because I’m certainly rating this very low compared to most Goodreads members, and I tend to be a high rater. 32 gave it 5 stars, 39 gave it 4 stars, only 2 others gave it 3 stars, only 1 gave it 2 stars (I almost made it 2 of us) and nobody gave it only 1 star. I think I’d have liked this much better if I was discussing it with others. There is a lot to say about inequities, culture, food habits, cultural importance of food choices, etc.
October 9, 2012
I didn't read every word of this book, but I read some of it and looked at all the pictures. It's VERY interesting. It shows the food different people eat in one day and about their life.
November 2, 2016
Read it. Fascinating! The amount of food and the calories and the weights of the people included do not always seem to match. Rice and cornmeal and milk and tea and coffee and water. They are all over. The diets are so varied and diverse from culture to culture, from person to person, though not necessarily at all varied within a single diet. Enjoyed all the photographs and the snippets of personal details. Fun and informative read.
January 13, 2019
I find these books intriguing. The idea of exploring different parts of the world, different kinds of people, different access to foods, and different lifestyles can lead to eye-opening. I wish there was less commentary from the authors in how they view the person’s food choices and bodies, but there is much to learn here.
Read
March 18, 2022A wonderful peek into different cultures and different walks of life through the lens of the food we eat.
January 24, 2018
Great photos and insights into culture, food, and individual people all over the planet. Makes one think about her/his own caloric intake...
August 8, 2011
This was the most fascinating picture, non-fiction book I think I have ever read. Coffee table size with great pictures of 80 people around the world and the food that they eat in one day and why. The book is in order of the least calories (800 for a Maasai Herder woman in Kenya) to the most (12,300 for a lady in Great Britain). My two favorites were the 12 year old runaway train porter in Bangladesh (1400) and the Latvian Beekeeper (3100). You come away from this book realizing Americans really don't know how lucky we are to our availability to food and the looming health care crisis because of abuse to that availability. Lots of fun facts along the way (did you know that Kenya exports more black tea than any other country? and that there is a slum the size of Central Park in New York where one million people live in Nairobi, Kenya) Can you imagine trying to find something to eat there? Anyway, a great read and can't recommend it highly enough. It is an real eye opener in what you personally put in your mouth every day.
February 21, 2018
If you are interested in food, eating and the world, then this is the book for you. Chock full of gorgeous photos and interesting people and places, this book gives you great insight into what and how much people eat around the world. Unfortunately I learned that despite what everyone tells us, very few people in the world really eat vegetables! Even the vegetarians in India who they feature eat primarily grains and dried beans. That said three are a few Americans featured whose diets are just awful-full of commercial "fake" foods. Many of the food pictured were enticing and they made me hungry! There are a few negatives with the book, primarily that it is so LARGE which makes it difficult to read every place but a table. I also wish there were more maps to locate where the people live-there is only one world map which only identifies countries not cities. I also thought that the calorie count should have been supplemented with a bit of nutritional data as some of the people from less-developed countries had sufficient calories but not the protein, fat and vitamin content.
January 20, 2011
This fascinating book closely documents the average daily food intake of 80 people from around the world. It is amazing to read the range and volume of food some people eat - though each is given a short bio describing who they are, what they do for a living, and where they live. I am still trying to decide who in this book I most identify with - I think it may be Menzel and his wife, Faith D'Aluisio. It definitely made me stop and think about what I eat, when I eat, and wondering how many calories do I consume on average.
October 29, 2012
This is another great book---this series doesn't disappoint. The book is composed of snapshots of a person's diet, meant to represent a typical day's food choices and total calories. It took a while to get through this book, a lot of information is provided on what is eaten, calories, and for some subjects additional details on their daily life (activity levels, etc). However it's interesting information and the photos are great.
January 27, 2016
Fascinating look at the daily eating habits of 80 people, beautiful photographs and profile stories on each, interspersed with topical essays from the likes of Michael Pollan. A book 'for those who like to travel, eat and meet interesting people' as said by the husband and wife team who spent 3 years travelling creating and self-funding this project. Wonderful to read now, and again to reflect on in 10, 20 or 30 year's time when the world has continued to change
October 21, 2016
This is such a fun book! I loved seeing a daily portion of food around the world. I loved seeing how things differ from what I eat daily, or even others in the United States eat daily compared to other countries. We are so blessed to not have to boil every drop of water that goes into our mouths! A lot of research went into this book, Kudos to Mr Menzel for a great book!
July 3, 2011
This book exemplifies photo journalism at its best. It shows the rich diversity of cuisines and peoples of the earth. What we eat in one day is pictured with the subject. Also, this book gives a narrative of their life, country, and current events. Very intresting and fun read.
August 14, 2017
I enjoyed the earlier book where they showed what families around the world ate so when I saw this one I had to read it too. Makes me feel like my diet isn't complete crap. Bit too much meat and bread but not too much junk. More produce than many, but I count myself fortunate to be able to afford enough wholesome food. They do include some people dependent on food aid in bad times included so if you're feeling life is rough... It really isn't so bad if you have had enough to eat today, can read, have internet access and time enough to use Goodreads instead of trying to get enough to eat...
1 bagel, lightly buttered. I'd guess a tablespoon of butter.
1 skewer of chicken from a vendor at the local farmer's market.
2 handfuls of blackberries.
handful of grapes.
large serving, 1/2 a dinner plate in size, of fresh green beans.
small bowl of noodle soup, about a cup.
1 skinless chicken thigh.
2 small homemade cornmeal muffins, roughly equal in mass to the bagel.
tablespoon of honey
about 6 ounces of lemonade and 12 ounces of nonfat milk.
tablespoon or so of olive oil from cooking.
literally 1 bite of chocolate
Now if I managed to drop about 1/2 the bread and animal products for another couple servings of produce I'd have a pretty good diet... I do know how to cook fairly well and don't eat a ton of packaged foods like a lot of these folks do.
It's a fascinating read. Take a look and honestly 'fess up to what you ate today :-)
1 bagel, lightly buttered. I'd guess a tablespoon of butter.
1 skewer of chicken from a vendor at the local farmer's market.
2 handfuls of blackberries.
handful of grapes.
large serving, 1/2 a dinner plate in size, of fresh green beans.
small bowl of noodle soup, about a cup.
1 skinless chicken thigh.
2 small homemade cornmeal muffins, roughly equal in mass to the bagel.
tablespoon of honey
about 6 ounces of lemonade and 12 ounces of nonfat milk.
tablespoon or so of olive oil from cooking.
literally 1 bite of chocolate
Now if I managed to drop about 1/2 the bread and animal products for another couple servings of produce I'd have a pretty good diet... I do know how to cook fairly well and don't eat a ton of packaged foods like a lot of these folks do.
It's a fascinating read. Take a look and honestly 'fess up to what you ate today :-)
November 27, 2021
I found this very much in the vein of Material World and Hungry Planet, which my son and I sometimes read to get a sense of different places around the world.
I’ve been slowly consuming this book for several months now. It is such a beautiful way to travel the world (from my couch) and get to know how others eat and what they choose and what they value.
I especially was moved by the rabbi in Israel whose own faith does not require that he eat vegetarian, but who keeps a vegetarian household so that all guests who enter will be comfortable eating there. I was struck by how few calories some people consume in a day out of lack. I was surprised by how many people around the world eat radishes for breakfast! I was also surprised by the popularity of butter tea in different regions. I loved the idea of a German Bread Queen.
This book was about food, but one can get glimpses into the private lives of women who might be otherwise not seen. I really appreciated the authors’ treatment of women.
I love how this look at diets around the world helped me see food in new ways.
I think, if given the chance to eat a meal with any one of the books featured eaters, I would pick Vyacheslav and his family. I would love to try his wife’s soup and to see the home of this art restorer - filled with treasures!
I’ve been slowly consuming this book for several months now. It is such a beautiful way to travel the world (from my couch) and get to know how others eat and what they choose and what they value.
I especially was moved by the rabbi in Israel whose own faith does not require that he eat vegetarian, but who keeps a vegetarian household so that all guests who enter will be comfortable eating there. I was struck by how few calories some people consume in a day out of lack. I was surprised by how many people around the world eat radishes for breakfast! I was also surprised by the popularity of butter tea in different regions. I loved the idea of a German Bread Queen.
This book was about food, but one can get glimpses into the private lives of women who might be otherwise not seen. I really appreciated the authors’ treatment of women.
I love how this look at diets around the world helped me see food in new ways.
I think, if given the chance to eat a meal with any one of the books featured eaters, I would pick Vyacheslav and his family. I would love to try his wife’s soup and to see the home of this art restorer - filled with treasures!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 6, 2021
It took me 2.5 years to finish this book cos it was my breakfast book for all that time. I kept it on my kitchen table and I read it a few times a week when I have the time to sit down and have my breakfast without rush. I'm one of those people who are super interested in diets, food consumption and what people have in their fridge. If I'm waiting in a line in a supermarket, I am gonna lowkey spy on what the person in front of me is buying. XD So needless to say, this book is all kinds of perfect for me.
The photos were stunning and interesting, and also the short stories about their lives and their diets were fascinating. The essays about food culture are very interesting to read too. What I didn't expect is how I discover my own problems with food as I read on. I was fine enjoying the book up until the diet went above 3500 calories. I noticed I started 'fixing' their diets then. I would find myself thinking thoughts such as 'this would be a great diet if only those sugary drinks would be taken off the table' etc. I soon realize I'm projecting my own insecurities and restricted mindset around food. I've been calorie counting for years and only this year, I'm attempting to stop doing that while still remaining on a relatively healthy diet myself. It has been challenging and especially this year as I was nearing the end of this book and the calories were getting crazy high, it had many unexpected results... I found myself slowly releasing and relaxing the tight grip I have had on my own diet. I'm not sure why but somehow seeing people eating those amounts and still be okay, it made me stress about me less.
Apart from my own revelations, it's a stunning book that really captures the beauty of diversity both in people and in the food that they eat. I recommend this book to everyone who loves food.
The photos were stunning and interesting, and also the short stories about their lives and their diets were fascinating. The essays about food culture are very interesting to read too. What I didn't expect is how I discover my own problems with food as I read on. I was fine enjoying the book up until the diet went above 3500 calories. I noticed I started 'fixing' their diets then. I would find myself thinking thoughts such as 'this would be a great diet if only those sugary drinks would be taken off the table' etc. I soon realize I'm projecting my own insecurities and restricted mindset around food. I've been calorie counting for years and only this year, I'm attempting to stop doing that while still remaining on a relatively healthy diet myself. It has been challenging and especially this year as I was nearing the end of this book and the calories were getting crazy high, it had many unexpected results... I found myself slowly releasing and relaxing the tight grip I have had on my own diet. I'm not sure why but somehow seeing people eating those amounts and still be okay, it made me stress about me less.
Apart from my own revelations, it's a stunning book that really captures the beauty of diversity both in people and in the food that they eat. I recommend this book to everyone who loves food.
November 27, 2018
What I Eat Around the World in 80 diets by Peter Menzel & Faith D’Aluisio is a very interesting book that looks at the eating habits of people around the world. The first individual in the book eats only 800 calories on one day and the last individual ate 12300 calories in one day. It is important to note that the numbers are what was eaten on one day, not an average. Still it is amazing to read and see about the great variety of human diets.
Food is something most of us love, and something everyone can relate to. My favorite part of this book was the pictures. There are pictures of the individual and their food. These next to the stories about the individual make for a powerful sense of connection between reader, author, and the individual. This is a great book for anyone who is interested in food, travel, cultures, and the variety of the human species.
Food is something most of us love, and something everyone can relate to. My favorite part of this book was the pictures. There are pictures of the individual and their food. These next to the stories about the individual make for a powerful sense of connection between reader, author, and the individual. This is a great book for anyone who is interested in food, travel, cultures, and the variety of the human species.
February 26, 2024
As with all the books I have read by these authors, I also really enjoyed this one. It's broken down into 80 different pictures of 80 different people with what they eat in one day and the amount of calories they consumed. Details are given on everything they ate, what month the photo was taken, what country and then some details about their lives. It starts with the lowest amount of calories (800) and ends with around 12,000. It was fascinating to see what people eat and to see that calories consumed do not tell the full story. Someone who ate what I would consider a large amount of calories was no where near as heavy as someone else who ate far less but weighed more. In addition, I appreciate reading about the lives of the individuals.
February 20, 2025
One of my favourite books we kept in the cafe growing up . can’t be certajn how many times I read this . a few favourite meals & their stories and people . the cycling man who drank wine & the McDonald’s (or was it Burger King) worker in the mall of America , the beekeeper The images & stories have stayed with me forever
July 19, 2020
Fascinating, eye opening book about what people around the world eat--from the person who survives on 800 calories a day (but not by choice) to the person ingesting 12,000 calories a day! Filled with interesting pictures, facts, human interest stories and essays.
July 23, 2023
the authors travel around the world, interviewing people and photographing and cataloging a representation of their daily food and beverage intake. It's arranged by total daily calories consumed...fewest to most. This book is a cultural eye-opener. Recommended.
March 8, 2021
The subtitle is perfect: Around the World in 80 Diets (with accompanying photos)
February 20, 2024
Fascinating!
July 14, 2025
I love Menzel's books so much. Incredibly unique way to learn more about the world, interspersed with excellent essays and beautiful photography.
September 25, 2025
I loved this book! It took me about 3 weeks to read it cause I picked it up here and there but it was fascinating.
January 12, 2013
Reading this book is like taking a voyage around the world without leaving your chair. The book first caught my attention because 1) it was huge! 2) it was about food (one can figure that a book dedicated to food can't be half-bad, huh?) 3) the whole cover had like three words and the rest was filled up with pictures and 4) it would count as informational. Just for me, as an individual, it's rather hard for an informational book to drag me into its clutches--only the best of the best can do that. But this book and I were already off to a pretty good start just judging by its cover (yes, one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but one does it anyway), so I decided to give it a try.
If you share such uncertain feelings about informational books, this is the book for you. If you absolutely LOVE informational books, this is also the book for you. And if you downright ABHOR informational books, I sincerely hope you will change your mind after reading this. This book is a cake (if I may) perfectly baked with 3 cups of photographs and whipped with some text for good measure. I feel as if I meet somebody new on every single page, and through them I am able to experience a part of their culture. As I am taken back and forth from mountain to sea to village to marketplace to home to camp to work, a parade of sounds and scents march into my ears and nose, and I can feel thin cool air blowing into my hair, hot wafts of oven air engulfing me, people bustling all around me. But then, with the call of my name, I am once again sitting in my chair at home, reading.
After finishing this book, I have gained so much perspective on not only the meals and food of others around the world, but a snapshot into their lives as well. My perceptions of food have changed quite a bit, and I can clearly place my own food profile alongside other people's, and compare with those who are less fortunate than I am, and those who eat in gross exaggeration. When one speaks of food nowadays, modern society associates it with calorie counting and weight watching. This book brings back the intriguing and delightful face of food that we have missed for a long time. I strongly encourage you to read this book, in the hopes that you will find in quite entertaining and learn much from it.
If you share such uncertain feelings about informational books, this is the book for you. If you absolutely LOVE informational books, this is also the book for you. And if you downright ABHOR informational books, I sincerely hope you will change your mind after reading this. This book is a cake (if I may) perfectly baked with 3 cups of photographs and whipped with some text for good measure. I feel as if I meet somebody new on every single page, and through them I am able to experience a part of their culture. As I am taken back and forth from mountain to sea to village to marketplace to home to camp to work, a parade of sounds and scents march into my ears and nose, and I can feel thin cool air blowing into my hair, hot wafts of oven air engulfing me, people bustling all around me. But then, with the call of my name, I am once again sitting in my chair at home, reading.
After finishing this book, I have gained so much perspective on not only the meals and food of others around the world, but a snapshot into their lives as well. My perceptions of food have changed quite a bit, and I can clearly place my own food profile alongside other people's, and compare with those who are less fortunate than I am, and those who eat in gross exaggeration. When one speaks of food nowadays, modern society associates it with calorie counting and weight watching. This book brings back the intriguing and delightful face of food that we have missed for a long time. I strongly encourage you to read this book, in the hopes that you will find in quite entertaining and learn much from it.
May 11, 2011
I have recently become an obsessive calorie counter, so this book was super interesting. (Obesessive to the point that I know that I ate 930 calories of the hot fudge birthday cake that I baked for myself yesterday. It was worth it though. Way worth it.) The book is arranged in ascending calorie order, so people who eat the least are at the front and the big eaters are deeper in the book. I was suprised to find that typically I eat more than only three of the eighty people in this book. Huh?! I'm an American and my BMI ride the line between normal and overweight! Oh well. My genes suck.
There are extensive lists of everything that people ate on the "typical" day that was surveyed, but not specific calorie breakdowns for each item. That's ok, except in one instance: the woman who drinks a glass of her own urine each morning as a cleansing ritual. I WANT TO KNOW HOW MANY CALORIES A GLASS OF URINE HAS!
The one downfall of this book is the size. It is a coffee table size book, which almost made me not check it out from the library. No coffee table book on this planet is interesting, beyond just looking at the pictures. I've never read more than a paragraph in one of those monsters. Despite that, this was exceedingly interesting. The other problem was that when I would lay in bed at night, the book was so heavy that it made my stomach gurgle and growl while I read. :)
There are extensive lists of everything that people ate on the "typical" day that was surveyed, but not specific calorie breakdowns for each item. That's ok, except in one instance: the woman who drinks a glass of her own urine each morning as a cleansing ritual. I WANT TO KNOW HOW MANY CALORIES A GLASS OF URINE HAS!
The one downfall of this book is the size. It is a coffee table size book, which almost made me not check it out from the library. No coffee table book on this planet is interesting, beyond just looking at the pictures. I've never read more than a paragraph in one of those monsters. Despite that, this was exceedingly interesting. The other problem was that when I would lay in bed at night, the book was so heavy that it made my stomach gurgle and growl while I read. :)
August 13, 2016
The authors traveled around the world, finding ordinary (and not-so-ordinary) people who were willing to be interviewed and photographed with their day's worth of food.
I really enjoyed this book! The photography was great, and the cross-section of the world - organized by calories per day - ranged from a Kenyan herdswoman to a British stay-at-home mom, from an Egyptian executive to an Icelandic fisherman. It was an excellent demonstration of the lessons of the small world - both in the ways that food really is similar everywhere, and the differences that we don't expect. Also, it made me really hungry.
The only parts I didn't like were the essays, by well-known food-adjacent writers, that were scattered between the photos. While no nonfiction writing can be truly objective, the main text of the book did a very good job at just trying to present the subjects' lives as they were - any opinions about the morality of food were the subjects' opinions, and varied greatly from subject to subject. And then I would land on an essay, often intended to be persuasive, that was absolutely soaked in Western capitalism's particular unhealthy relationship with food. Many of them were, in fact, taking as given things that I have learned to take with enough grains of salt to make umeboshi, and compared to the main text of the book, the unexamined moral prejudices around food were particularly jarring.
So I suggest you read the main text and skip the supplementary essays.
I really enjoyed this book! The photography was great, and the cross-section of the world - organized by calories per day - ranged from a Kenyan herdswoman to a British stay-at-home mom, from an Egyptian executive to an Icelandic fisherman. It was an excellent demonstration of the lessons of the small world - both in the ways that food really is similar everywhere, and the differences that we don't expect. Also, it made me really hungry.
The only parts I didn't like were the essays, by well-known food-adjacent writers, that were scattered between the photos. While no nonfiction writing can be truly objective, the main text of the book did a very good job at just trying to present the subjects' lives as they were - any opinions about the morality of food were the subjects' opinions, and varied greatly from subject to subject. And then I would land on an essay, often intended to be persuasive, that was absolutely soaked in Western capitalism's particular unhealthy relationship with food. Many of them were, in fact, taking as given things that I have learned to take with enough grains of salt to make umeboshi, and compared to the main text of the book, the unexamined moral prejudices around food were particularly jarring.
So I suggest you read the main text and skip the supplementary essays.
December 31, 2012
At first glance, this book has a simple premise: to illustrate what people eat on a typical day. But it gets more complicated than that. You know those kids books about “how children live around the world?” It’s like that, but better.
The book is organized in order of calorie count — from a Maasai herder during a drought (800) to a binge-eating British woman (12,300). For each of the 80 people in the book (plus 20 more on the book’s website), there is a detailed list of what they ate on that day, the calorie count, and the height and weight of the person.
The best part, for me, is everything else. How a runaway child porter in Bangladesh survives day to day. The daily routine of a Chinese acrobat. How astronauts deal with meals on the International Space Station. The Chicago high-rise ironworker who eats mostly processed foods. The Tibetan yak herders who depend on their animals for housing, heating, food, and drink (butter tea, anyone?). The young student who works at Mall of America and only has time for fast food. The cooking and training routine at a Japanese sumo club. Interspersed throughout the books are half a dozen essays about food. My favorite is the one about food taboos, by Ellen Ruppel Shell.
Twenty profiles didn’t make it into the book but are available at http://aroundtheworldin80diets.com/.
The book is organized in order of calorie count — from a Maasai herder during a drought (800) to a binge-eating British woman (12,300). For each of the 80 people in the book (plus 20 more on the book’s website), there is a detailed list of what they ate on that day, the calorie count, and the height and weight of the person.
The best part, for me, is everything else. How a runaway child porter in Bangladesh survives day to day. The daily routine of a Chinese acrobat. How astronauts deal with meals on the International Space Station. The Chicago high-rise ironworker who eats mostly processed foods. The Tibetan yak herders who depend on their animals for housing, heating, food, and drink (butter tea, anyone?). The young student who works at Mall of America and only has time for fast food. The cooking and training routine at a Japanese sumo club. Interspersed throughout the books are half a dozen essays about food. My favorite is the one about food taboos, by Ellen Ruppel Shell.
Twenty profiles didn’t make it into the book but are available at http://aroundtheworldin80diets.com/.
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