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.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 05:22 am (UTC)I would be appalled at any book proporting to talk about food and nutrition which utterly fails to mention the following indemic problems in developing countries:
* iron deficiency in pregnant women (especially in malaria zones) - I once saw a pregnant woman in Niamey, Niger without ANY blood in the lining of her eyelid. She was the wife of our driver.
* vitamin A deficiency - a primary cause of blindness and death in under 5s. Also, Vitamin A deficiency in pregnant women causes night blindness - so common in much of the world that nightblindness is considered a common condition of pregnancy.
* Iodine deficiency - linked directly to cretinism.
* zinc deficiency.
* undernourisment in the recently weaned - in Mali, young children are the last to eat - they get the dregs of the bowl, after the men and their guests, after the women and the older children. By that time, there is only rice left - no meat, no veg. The most at risk are those recently weaned - the 2 to 3 year olds.
The organization I worked for created a method of determining the likelihood of certain types of malnourisment based on the availability and frequency of certain foods known to be rich in certain minerals/vitamins - i.e. if everyone eats mangos all the time, less likely they are to have vitamin A deficiency.
While it is certainly possible to be malnourished on a western diet, the fact is that most of our food is fortified - iodine in our salt, vitamin D and C and so forth in our milk - that we rarely do see true malnourishment on the same scale. We also do not see a complete lack of food very often, except in extreme cases of neglect.
I'd frankly be afraid to read the book - I think it would make me mad. I really really hate "western is bad, developing countries are good" simplistic arguments, especially when I have seen for myself what the average person in those countries actually eats (and eaten it myself).
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 06:33 pm (UTC)Yes. Kwashiorkor actually means "displaced child" in one of the West African languages - meaning a child who has lost their place at the breast because of the birth of another child. Those are the kids with protein deficiencies.
Um, I mean,
...Or something. Okay, I can't keep that up.
I really really hate "western is bad, developing countries are good" simplistic arguments, especially when I have seen for myself what the average person in those countries actually eats (and eaten it myself).
Did you see the MDC thread about the adopted HIV+ child from Ethiopia who wouldn't eat American cooking, especially fruits and vegetables? Most of the people posting to the thread literally could not manage to understand, no matter how many times the mother explained, that a traditional Ethiopian diet might not be nutritionally adequate for someone with HIV. Obviously this girl's native diet must provide every nutrient in ample quantities! Otherwise, why would it be the native diet? People were even advising the mother against trying to get the child to eat American food, "because her native diet must be so much healthier." It was insane.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 10:30 pm (UTC)heh, you have heard part of my rant about the "if they do it in Africa, it must be great" approach. If it is so great, how come their child mortality rates are so high?
And in terms of "evil brutal amercian culture". Um, in Senegal, I was handed a stick by a local and instructed to beat children who were harassing us. None of the children were older than 8. When I hesitated, the guy took the stick back and started to demonstrate by hitting the kids on the head, hard (the kids ran away, of course). I don't think he even knew any of the children. When I recounted the story to other Senegalese, I was told this was excellent advice and that any adult should feel the obligation to discipline any child at any time - meaning with a stick. THIS is what the African proverb "It takes a village to raise a child" means.
I love West Africa. I love the people and the culture. However, there are many elements I would never want to incorporate into my own lifestyle.
I missed the thread about the HIV+ child from ethiopia. Wow, that would be really insane. Glad to have missed it, really. Though it would have been very very tempting to pull out some of the global health nutritional data which shows inherent insufficiencies in many diets around the world. 'course, I dunno where I put them...
I did see you on the thread about parental rights and the constitutional amendment. I was glad to see another reasonable person... : ) I admit, I lost my temper.