Hungry Planet: the full review.
Feb. 11th, 2007 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI promised in my January books post that I would talk in greater detail about the strong reactions I had to Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.
There's no way to not be fascinated by a book like this. Pictures of thirty different familes from 24 countries, posed with a week's worth of food - plus a detailed accounting of what the foods are; what they cost, in local and in U.S. currency; whether they are purchased, homegrown, or hunted; and what each family member's favorite is. Most of the families provided a recipe or two. All were photographed purchasing, preparing, and eating food. And there are short, largely food-and-drink-centered essays about each family.
The families chosen present interesting contrasts: the aboriginal family from the Australian outback followed by a white, upper-middle-class, urban Australian family; both of these followed by a family of subsistence farmers in Bhutan. Two Chinese families, one from Beijing and one from a rural district. A family of refugees from Darfur who are now living in a U.N. refugee camp in Chad, followed by a family native to Chad.
And there are some fascinating diets on display. Take the Inuit family in Greenland, for example: a week's worth of food includes 26.5lbs musk ox, 9.9lbs frozen walrus, 8.8lbs arctic geese, 3.3lbs polar bear, and some little auks, along with some hot dogs. The entire week's worth of fruits and vegetables for the family of five consists of 1.4lbs canned oranges, a can of fruit cocktail, a pound of onions, a jar of spaghetti sauce, and some dried mushrooms. Then there is the refugee camp family, whose 2100-calorie diet has been determined with scientific precision by the U.N.: they get 15oz of sorghum, 1/4 cup dried beans, lentils, or peas, 1/4 cup corn/soy blend, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, a tablespoon of sugar, and a teaspoon of salt, per person, per day. They work to earn a few extra cents - enough to buy a few ounces of dried fish, a few limes, a pound of onions, some garlic, dried peppers, dried vegetables, and ginger. The refugee family spends $1.23 a week on food; their rations, if bought locally, would cost $24.37. The German family, in comparison, spent nearly three times that amount on beverages alone.
The book is at its best when it lets you draw your own conclusions and comparisons. Unfortunately, there is also editorial text. In an interview, photographer/author Peter Menzel said that he decided to do the book because every time he returned to the U.S. from Africa, Americans looked fatter to him. The thesis of the book is that Third World people, given the opportunity, start to eat more like First World people do - and that that's bad. No, awful. No, an enormous nutritional disaster. The editorial text is thick with handwringing about obesity, diabetes, cholesterol, fast food, and globalization. It reaches its smuggest and most sanctimonious point in the epilogue, when Menzel lectures us about the way that he and his co-author D'Aluisio eat: "When dining out, especially in the U.S., we often order two salads, and then order one main dish to share." Whatever.
As I first read the book, I just made a mental note that, when I recommended it to other people, I should suggest that they skip over the authors' moralizing. It wasn't until I finished the book that I started to realize what was completely absent. None of the families interviewed said anything about hunger or malnutrition. None of them mentioned rationing food within the family, or having times that there wasn't enough to go around. For all the dozens of references to obesity in the accompanying editorial pieces, there was not a single corresponding mention of kwashiorkor or other nutritional deficiency diseases.
The world Health Organization says,
Do I still recommend the book? Yeah, but I'd be conscious of what they aren't showing you as well as what they are. It's still worth it for the Australian sheep station guy reminiscing about how all your buddies come 'round when you've got a porcupine cooking, and the two co-wives in Mali giving their advice about how polygamous families can get along better, and the 96-year-old Okinawan lady who has trouble comprehending that some people don't grow their own vegetables, and the Polish guy from Konstancin-Jeziorna who opened up a sushi bar.
And yeah, the pictures. The pictures are just amazing.
(See five of the "big picture" photos and four of the accompanying food lists in this NPR story.)
There's no way to not be fascinated by a book like this. Pictures of thirty different familes from 24 countries, posed with a week's worth of food - plus a detailed accounting of what the foods are; what they cost, in local and in U.S. currency; whether they are purchased, homegrown, or hunted; and what each family member's favorite is. Most of the families provided a recipe or two. All were photographed purchasing, preparing, and eating food. And there are short, largely food-and-drink-centered essays about each family.
The families chosen present interesting contrasts: the aboriginal family from the Australian outback followed by a white, upper-middle-class, urban Australian family; both of these followed by a family of subsistence farmers in Bhutan. Two Chinese families, one from Beijing and one from a rural district. A family of refugees from Darfur who are now living in a U.N. refugee camp in Chad, followed by a family native to Chad.
And there are some fascinating diets on display. Take the Inuit family in Greenland, for example: a week's worth of food includes 26.5lbs musk ox, 9.9lbs frozen walrus, 8.8lbs arctic geese, 3.3lbs polar bear, and some little auks, along with some hot dogs. The entire week's worth of fruits and vegetables for the family of five consists of 1.4lbs canned oranges, a can of fruit cocktail, a pound of onions, a jar of spaghetti sauce, and some dried mushrooms. Then there is the refugee camp family, whose 2100-calorie diet has been determined with scientific precision by the U.N.: they get 15oz of sorghum, 1/4 cup dried beans, lentils, or peas, 1/4 cup corn/soy blend, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, a tablespoon of sugar, and a teaspoon of salt, per person, per day. They work to earn a few extra cents - enough to buy a few ounces of dried fish, a few limes, a pound of onions, some garlic, dried peppers, dried vegetables, and ginger. The refugee family spends $1.23 a week on food; their rations, if bought locally, would cost $24.37. The German family, in comparison, spent nearly three times that amount on beverages alone.
The book is at its best when it lets you draw your own conclusions and comparisons. Unfortunately, there is also editorial text. In an interview, photographer/author Peter Menzel said that he decided to do the book because every time he returned to the U.S. from Africa, Americans looked fatter to him. The thesis of the book is that Third World people, given the opportunity, start to eat more like First World people do - and that that's bad. No, awful. No, an enormous nutritional disaster. The editorial text is thick with handwringing about obesity, diabetes, cholesterol, fast food, and globalization. It reaches its smuggest and most sanctimonious point in the epilogue, when Menzel lectures us about the way that he and his co-author D'Aluisio eat: "When dining out, especially in the U.S., we often order two salads, and then order one main dish to share." Whatever.
As I first read the book, I just made a mental note that, when I recommended it to other people, I should suggest that they skip over the authors' moralizing. It wasn't until I finished the book that I started to realize what was completely absent. None of the families interviewed said anything about hunger or malnutrition. None of them mentioned rationing food within the family, or having times that there wasn't enough to go around. For all the dozens of references to obesity in the accompanying editorial pieces, there was not a single corresponding mention of kwashiorkor or other nutritional deficiency diseases.
The world Health Organization says,
"Chronic food deficits affect about 792 million people in the world (FAO 2000), including 20% of the population in developing countries. Worldwide, malnutrition affects one in three people and each of its major forms dwarfs most other diseases globally (WHO, 2000). [...] Malnutrition in all its forms increases the risk of disease and early death. Protein-energy malnutrition, for example, plays a major role in half of all under-five deaths each year in developing countries (WHO 2000).Where were those families in Hungry Planet? I suspect that some of the diets described were nutritionally insufficient, but there was no mention of that in the accompanying essays. The evils of soft drinks and McDonald's for the Western families, sure. The dangers of Third Worlders starting to eat more meat and sugar, yes. The perils of not enough protein and calories? Nowhere. Eventually that absence left (please pardon the expression) a bad taste in my mouth.
Do I still recommend the book? Yeah, but I'd be conscious of what they aren't showing you as well as what they are. It's still worth it for the Australian sheep station guy reminiscing about how all your buddies come 'round when you've got a porcupine cooking, and the two co-wives in Mali giving their advice about how polygamous families can get along better, and the 96-year-old Okinawan lady who has trouble comprehending that some people don't grow their own vegetables, and the Polish guy from Konstancin-Jeziorna who opened up a sushi bar.
And yeah, the pictures. The pictures are just amazing.
(See five of the "big picture" photos and four of the accompanying food lists in this NPR story.)
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 12:05 am (UTC)"You are weak, misled (or evil), and a bad example to the world" is a much more self-satisfying lecture for him to give than "two billion of your neighbors are malnourished" (even if he doesn't then discuss the roles of First World governments and corporations or what the reader can do to help, if anything). Eating salad can be satisfying on a number of levels, flavor not least among them, and lets him feel superior in public; cooking rice and beans at home, and sending the difference in cost between that and the meal out to Oxfam is more difficult.
Did those Malian women have any advice that I wouldn't already be aware of?
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 12:24 am (UTC)They do mention that the daily per-person ration is given to families to divide as they see fit, and that 2100 calories is not that much for an adult male doing physical labor all day, but way more than a toddler who is still breastfeeding needs.
I was surprised that the ration was as high as 2100 calories, actually, and by the description of how orderly and precise the food and water distribution process was.
Another interesting thing that was mentioned in the refugee family's chapter is that sometimes the rations given to refugees are better than the food available to people in the surrounding region. Then the U.N. has to supplement food for the local residents too - or else the position of the refugee camp becomes untenable.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 12:26 am (UTC)