What I Eat: Around The World In 80 Diets (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
Photographers Menzel and D'Aluisio have outdone themselves - again - with their fantastic new book What I Eat. Their incredible work was first brought to my attention through their book Material World. The husband and wife pair bring make the most mundane exotic and riveting. By getting ordinary people to open up and share their lives, they give us a glimpse of how other people live. In earlier books, Menzel and D'Aluisio have gotten their subjects, everyday people in every corner of the world, to spread their earthly possessions out for scrutiny and photos. Here we can see the daily diets of street child in Bangladesh, a Chinese farmer and a Japanese sumo wrestler, mixed with the more mundane and familiar American diets. What I found truly shocking was the almost total lack of fruits and vegetables in the western diets. The thin and healthy looking folks from Asia and other regions have a diet chock-full of vegetables, fruits and fish. On average, they are 50 lbs smaller than Western people. A wonderful combination of beautiful photos and education. This book collects a diverse number of "typical" diets of both men and women of different socio-economic statuses throughout the world. Each biography includes an image of the person with their typical meal, the dietary analysis of the meal and a brief essay about the culture and his/her life. The book includes a few teenagers and a variety of weirder diets, the urine drinker as an example. the book is highly recommended for teens and adults who want a light coffee table read to skim. Perfect for the older school age kid and older.
What do You think about What I Eat: Around The World In 80 Diets (2010)?
Their usual excellent array of fascinating facts, insights, observations. I love what these two do.
—bren
Really cool look at how people eat around the world - found it fascinating and great photographs
—Andrew
