Thursday, February 19, 2009

What The World Eats


Ever since TIME captured Obama's charisma through their brilliant behind-the-scenes photography on the campaign trail, I've been really impressed by the consistently provocative images their photographers manage to capture.


That's probably more true than ever this week, given the first set of photographs by Peter Menzel that form the multi-part project entitled "What the World Eats."


The e-exhibit goes around the world positioning families in front of a spread of food consisting of their weekly intake, providing the total cost and country below. Not only are the products and nutritional values staggeringly different from country to country, but food costs and presumptive breakdowns are fascinating as well.


Take a look at which countries drink more soda. Notice that although the Japanese families eat far more packaged food than expected--interesting, no? If I had to choose, I'd be torn between Italy and Mexico--so many fruits and vegetables (and let's not even mention all that delicious bread in the Italy picture!).


Perhaps my favorite observation--Nissin Cup Noodles in Japan. Aren't those made in the States? And Kosher? They're outsourcing ramen from us??? Click here to find out which photos belong where, check out some more great photos, and see the full stats.


Correction: Turns out this project wasn't done specifically by Time. Rather, Time ran the photos which were created for this book, called Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. Check out that book here, or check here for some more info. The kind folks with Peter Menzel request that if you continue to share these photos, that you please credit with "Photographs by Peter Menzel from the book 'Hungry Planet.'" Thanks!

4 comments:

fda said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
fda said...

Hi there.
The project was not a Time Magazine Project. Time Magazine licensed the right to publish some of the images from the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats (Ten Speed Press) by Peter Menzel & Faith D'Aluisio.
Hungry Planet won best book of the year in 2005, from the James Beard Foundation. In October of 2008 we published a children's edition called What the World Eats (Tricycle Press, Berkeley) based on the same work. While we greatly appreciate Time Magazine (And ABC News, and Smithsonian, and tens of European and Asian Magazines excerpting the work), only Geo Magazine in Germany agreed to sponsor any of the original work to help us meet our financial obligations. Books like these are very expensive to produce and we get no outside or corporate funding). Please correct your post. Thanks in advance, Fdaluisio

JKI @ Menzel Photography said...

Hello,

I work for Peter Menzel photography. We have come across your blog, eatmywords and would like to address a few issues. We are happy to see that you enjoyed Peter Menzel and Faith D'Auluiso's book "Hungry Planet" images. "Hungry Planet" was a book that was featured on TIME magazine's website, not done for it. I see that you have linked your page to TIME's page; we ask that you add a link to www.menzelphoto.com. Also, there is no meta data attached to these images. Metadata is data that is attached to the images that has all the important information about the photograph, including the copyright and caption information. Please re-post them with that information so that if they are pulled off your site copyright information is attached to them and the source/author will be acknowledged. You can find them on TIME's website and the information will be attached.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. Please email me when you have completed your web revision or if you have other questions.

Jennie Kimmel
Assistant
Menzel Photography
www.menzelphoto.com
http://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Planet-What-World-Eats/dp/1580086810

SamJJJ said...

wow that is some intersting pics!