Discover Global Eating Habits with Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

Emmanuel Maicas: This book contains photos of families around the world with a week worth of the food they eat. These portraits are fascinating. Everyone will learn a lot from them. I bought this book several years ago, showed it to many people, they all loved it. I misplaced it, so I just bought another copy because I cannot imagine my living room without it.

Canada on May 09, 2022

Mom.of.3: How can you not love this book!? We use this for my 4th grader's homeschool geography curriculum and love it. I only wish they would go around the world again and do a revised edition (I realize this is not an easy feat so I am partially kidding!) It is such a great book, even though it was made in the late 90's I believe it is still valid and opens doors for conversations and insight into other cultures with your child or even as a parent. I do wish there was an update of it because of inflation, but you can still see the different prices and compare the p-rice of food in one country to another to get a feel for how the standard of living varies depending on where you are in the world. Great book! Highly, highly recommend!!!!

United States on Oct 07, 2021

S: Expensive for a used book for one semester.

Canada on Oct 03, 2021

lee: Everyone should read this book. I teach high school and I am amazed at the questions and conversations this book brings into my room. So many American students have never really thought about their food situation versus other countries. But it's more than that. This book helps me teach empathy and is rich with details about other cultures and places without being preachy. The author generously tells the stories with rich pictures of the people and places he visited. There is so much in it to contemplate. Parents could share it with younger children and it still reads well for adults who just want to explore the world around them from a completely unique and refreshing perspective. Well done.

United States on Mar 28, 2021

Nicole: Quality of textbook is what I expected and I recommend it.

Canada on Feb 14, 2021

Literary Omnivore: One of the most interesting books I have looked through in a long time! The authors feature 30 or so families from around the world, in each case showing the family along with what they buy for a week's worth of groceries. The differences in eating habits, both among countries and within countries, was fascinating. I was especially curious to see which countries ate the most fruits and vegetables, and which ate the most packaged foods and sugary foods. The authors even show a couple of families from refugee camps and from desperately poor countries; it was amazing to see how little many people must survive on. The differences in the types of grains people eat was also interesting, and how much or how little meat. There are even some recipes included in the book. I recommend the book highly. I think both adults and children would enjoy it and it would definitely be something that parents could discuss with their kids in terms of healthy eating, poverty vs. wealth and so on.

United States on Dec 15, 2020

F. Nott: schön

Germany on Sep 21, 2020

Julia: I've seen photos from this book online for a long time and finally bought it. It does not disappoint. As some have noted, even though some of the data in it is now outdated (published in 2006), it's still an eye-opening read. The families they interviewed were all endearing in their own ways, and all seemed to have their own happiness and struggles. It really does make me feel grateful for my own life. I have to admit that I bought this book because I thought that people's lives in other countries were "unusual", but then realized that perhaps to most of the world, it is rather my life in Silicon Valley that is unusual!

United States on Jan 27, 2020

Mrs D: I saw an excerpt from this book in a national newspaper and immediately wanted to buy it. I have not been disappointed. It is a unique and fascinating concept-the author takes random families from around the globe and photographs them with their weekly food shopping. If you are interested in food, travel and people then you must buy this book. Not only does it have many large beautiful colour photographs but it is a good read too. With each family that they stayed with in the book we learn a little about them and their lives, their struggles and get a recipe that they make with regularity. It is an eye opener, to see the amount of money spent in western countries on food, mainly processed, and to compare it with the meagre rations of the refugees in Chad. A beautiful coffee table book aswell as a very interesting read.

United Kingdom on Jun 02, 2013

William B. Grant: The Hungry Planet, What the World Eats, by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, is an excellent book. I saw the photo exhibit at Copia in Napa in early 2005 and was taken by the wonderful photographs of families from around the world behind a table or blanket on the ground with their week's supply of food. There was also an analysis of the food content and cost. As one who studies the role of food in health and disease, I could see how what was on the table or blanket was related to the health of the family or, more generally, the entire country. There was, for example, the portly Australian family with the mother who had suffered a stroke near age 50 years, sitting behind a table piled high with over 50 pounds of meat plus 4 gallons of dairy products, 4 gallons of sugar-laden drinks, etc., but very few "healthy" foods. It was very easy to see why she was over weight and developed a stroke. The Chinese village family, on the other hand, had only 20 pounds of meat but 47 pounds of fruit and over 50 pounds of vegetables, and they were much thinner. The foreword by Marion Nestle, one of America's leading nutritionists, discussed the ills of overeating easily possible in today's world....

United States on Oct 10, 2005