What we eat

Picturing our diets

By Culinate staff

August 6, 2010

The online magazine Good recently published a graph by Visual Economics of what an average American eats — and it’s hardly appetizing. Consider these nuggets: about a gallon of soda each week; 29 pounds of French fries each year; and 47 percent more sodium than is recommended.

For more depictions of what Americans — as well as people from dozens of other countries — eat, check out What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets, the soon-to-be-released book by the Hungry Planet team, Faith D’Aluisio and Peter Menzel. Using photographs and text, the wife-and-husband team show what 80 people, from Illinois to India, eat in a day. (Just so you know: Set aside some time for this book, as you might not be able to put it down.)