Foods around the World

Take a look at the average cost of a week's worth of foods around the world.



If you want a little more detail on how and why nutrition has changed read this article.


Anything about this that surprises you?
General comments? Reply to this

The book that those photos come from, Hungary Planet is actually quite good. But I disagree with the Time's articles general tone that changing cuisines means that culture and heritage is necessarily being "lost." These types of nostalgic decries rest on the presumption that culture, cuisine, and even nations are static, fixed entities impervious to change. I somewhat disagree with the suggestion that:

those cultural exchanges have exploded, leading to something closer to cultural homogenization. That's bad for not only the preservation of national identities but the preservation of health too

I've read some very well researched works that counter this notion of cultural homegenization. If you look at the way McDonald's, for instance, is used and interpreted is Beijing, Moscow and the anytown USA, you're going to run across some striking differences. While the food might be recognizable, the way it is incorporated into culture is completely different.

Health - well now perhaps. But main issues with famines everywhere and food scarcity in many places are the result of political actions. I would suggest that it is cheap corn and grain subsidies exported from the U.S that undercuts local African farmers' profit, disrupting an agrarian economy thus restricted cash circulation. And that is problematic. Now this idea that industrialization is inherently bad and that folks can't get real food but can always get Coke (and that this is somehow aberrant) speaks of this idea rooted in Maslaw's Hierarchy that "the poor" shouldn't desire or want for anything other than basic necessities, and that if they do, it is the result of poor education and a not knowing better rather than a conscious choice on how to spend income.

Are new food technologies changing the way we eat? Yes. But so did agriculture, refrigeration and water sanitation. The "meal away from home" was instituted in order to adapt to changes in processing, factories and other labor shifts when it became impractical to travel home for the day. And you see that as far back as the 17/18th century. Were people decrying it then? Naturally. But we would never think of restaurants as detrimental to food culture - now they very much defined food culture in parts of the world.

So while I think this article brings some interesting observations to light, it also has a few holes. But awesome to see references to Carole Counihan and Ken Albala unexpectedly! Each have some excellent books on food culture and food history, and the later at least is a real amusement. Ever so witty, but well informed.
Reply to this

Glad to do it! Naturally I am compelled to also mention that a "health and medical" view is also a very specific culturally constructed lens through which to view eating habits. While we accept a biomedical framework as "natural" this is not to say that the rest of the world will accept and agree with it so readily - or that the motivations for providing such information are necessarily free of bias, hidden interests and that all parties will agree on what makes "better health" (can you guess who was the squeaky wheel in all my nutrition classes?)

What is really interesting is to look how nutrition has changed over the years - even in American/Western Europe. Jessica Murdy has an interesting book on how our concepts of "proper nutrition" developed entitled Measured Meals - how we got stuck on quantification. Just as we look back at medical advice 100 years ago and think "Wow, they knew nothing!" and wonder if our descendants will be doing the same to us... Reply to this

I've actually been in the midst of a long list-serv discussion (among other discussions) about the adoption of industrialized for and this push-back to the "local home cooked." Makes perfect sense to me why prepared food seems to so attractive - stuck in "drudgery" for years, woman are no longer forced to spend hours and hours, mixing this, kneading that, cutting and chopping and preparing endless meals. Now it's all prepared at the store. Leads to an increase in free time. These items were consider modern, cosmopolitan and signs of progress (much like the way McDonald's is viewed in China) back when they were introduced.

Now we're just seeing another pendulum swing. One must wonder if the process of shopping and cooking fresh foods would be imbued with such conceptions of "joy" and "pleasure" if the act of consumption these products weren't already bestowed with signs of culture and social significance.

I get annoyed with arguments that point to processed food as the sole cause of obesity. I used to eat fast-food and soda with abandon - but I was also very physically active and remained in great shape. I might suggest it is car culture, or suburbia, the notion that outdoor spaces are 'dangerous' for kids, that exacerbates the calorie-density of cheep food in America. Food in and of itself doesn't cause anything, but rather the social and cultural circumstances in which is it used and consumed (unless you want to take a very Latour-ian stance, and argue that all materiality is equal and that food is simply exerting more dominance over the material body. Hmmm....what a interesting framework to think of the "obesity epidemic"! That just opened up a whole new set of thoughts) Reply to this

Anything about this that surprises you?

Im surprised by how much that German family of 4 spend per week on food. We as a family of 3 dont spend nearly as much.

The second article probably explains why we dont spend as much as the average family here in Germany on food. I am pretty good with cooking, and being able to make good food, from natural ingredients costs a lot less than buying ready made items. People sometimes give me a hard time about not having a full time paying job and adding my tax to the huge income tax my boyfriend already pays here. Well, at least according to the second link above, I am saving us money on food bills and causing us to live longer. Reply to this