Module 11: What the World Eats by Faith D'Aluisio and Peter Menzel

"How would one week's worth of food in Chad or India stack up against one week's worth in Greenland, Mexico, the United States, Egypt, or France?"

murraylibrary.org

Citation
D'Alusio, F. and P. Menzel.  (2008).  What the world eats.  Berkeley, CA:  Tricycle Press.


Summary
The author and photographer, Peter Menzel, traveled to twenty-one countries and ate with twenty-five families around the globe in order to discover "what the world eats."  In each country, they visited one or two families (two in the countries with large populations, three in the United States) and asked them about their eating habits.  For each country, the family is photographed with a week's worth of food, and a detailed grocery list is provided on the facing page.  The grocery list includes either the price or market value of every item on the list, as well as the brand names and amounts of each.  A brief, two- to three-page narrative follows, explaining how the family acquires, prepares, and partakes of meals, with photos to supplement the text.  There is also a factbox for each country, outlining statistics such as the city population, prevalence of diabetes, or percent of citizens living on less than $2 a day.  Personal recipes are occasionally included.  Special sections provide photos or graphs and charts comparing all twenty-one countries to each other, addressing such things as kitchens, population density, mean consumption, literacy rate, and life expectancy.  


My Impressions
The book is visually appealing, with numerous photographs, tables, maps, and charts to illustrate key points discussed in the text, which is long enough to be thorough, but not too long as to be intimidating.  I really enjoyed looking at the each country's week's worth of groceries, going back and forth between the family photo and the grocery list.  It was fascinating to compare the amount of money spent in a week in each country, as well as the other various statistical figures.  The narratives were somewhat inconsistent, with each one covering a slightly different aspect of that family's eating habits.  This did help to break up the potential monotony of twenty-five identical entries, and made for interesting reading, but somewhat limited the academic appeal of the text.  I did notice a hint of an agenda in the book's discussions, but there was no judgement passed on any family.  Nutrition is an important issue, but it felt somewhat out of place in the book.    I would recommend the book primarily for recreational reading, but it could also be useful for a report on a featured country in the upper elementary and middle school grades.


Reviews
Publisher's Weekly
"Adapted from last year's Hungry Planet, this brilliantly executed work visits 25 families in 21 countries around the world. Each family is photographed surrounded by a week's worth of food and groceries, which Menzel and D'Aluisio use as a way of investigating not only different cultures' diets and standard of living but also the impact of globalization: why doesn't abundance bring better health, instead of increased occurrences of diabetes and similar diseases? These points are made lightly: delivered almost conversationally, the main narrative presents friendly, multigenerational portraits of each family, with meals and food preparation an avenue toward understanding their hopes and struggles. A wealth of supporting information--lush color photographs, family recipes, maps, sidebars, etc.--surrounds the text (superb design accomplishes this job harmoniously) and implies questions about global food supplies. Pictures of subsistence farmers in Ecuador cultivating potatoes from mountainous soil form sharp contrasts with those of supermarkets in a newly Westernized Poland. Fact boxes for each country tabulate revealing statistics, among them the percentage of the population living on less than $2 per day (47% in China, where the average daily caloric intake is nonetheless 2,930 per person); the percentage with diabetes; number of KFC franchises. Engrossing and certain to stimulate. All ages."


[Review of the book What the world eats by F. D'Alusio and P. Menzel].  (2008).  Publisher's Weekly, 255(35), 53.  Retrieved from http://www.publishersweekly.com.


School Library Journal
"Gr 6 Up --D'Aluisio and Menzel have adapted their Hungry Planet (Ten Speed, 2005) for younger readers in this visually stunning photographic collection that portrays families from 21 countries, each surrounded by a week's worth of food. Each entry includes a detailed list of the groceries with the equivalent cost in U.S. dollars, notes on methods of food preparation and preservation, fast facts about the country, and an engaging article discussing the family members, their lifestyles and employment, health issues, and food traditions and sources, enhanced by "Photographer's Field Note" and "Family Recipe" sidebars. Bright color photographs in varying sizes depict the wide array of kitchens, markets, and homes found in the cross-section of countries. The juxtaposition of the Aboubakar family of six, living in a refugee camp in Chad on $1.22 a week, and the Revis family of four in North Carolina, spending $341.98 a week on groceries, is jaw-dropping, although the author carefully avoids drawing any judgments about the subjects' choices or circumstances. Additional chapters, scattered through the alphabetical-by-country arrangement, include statistics on population, life expectancy, literacy and fertility rates, access to safe water, and obesity. A fascinating volume for browsing, What the World Eats will be useful for students in classes ranging from world cultures to economics to math to geography to current events."


Burner, J.A.  (2008).  [Review of the book What the world eats by F. D'Alusio and P. Menzel].  School Library Journal, 54(7), 111.  Retrieved from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com.

Suggested Library Uses

• The book would make an excellent centerpiece to a display about countries around the world or about food in general.
• It might be interesting to have families in the state or city volunteer for a similar exhibit at the library, or for libraries around the country to work together to show "What the US Eats."  One would need to be especially careful about obtaining patrons' permission and explaining what personal information would be published.    
• The book could be used to supplement a weekly or monthly exploration of a different country or culture.  

Find it @ your library - Albany County Public Library
J 641.3 M529W


Notes
Publisher's Weekly Best Children's Books, 2008
School Library Journal Best Books, 2008
Booklist Best Books for Young Adults, ALA, 2009
YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, ALA, 2009