

What the World Eats - jamongkad
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519_1373664,00.html

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decode
I prefer this version, since it lists each item in the pictures, as well as
breaking down the expenditures by category:

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5005952>

Some interesting bits:

The German family spends more on vitamins than any other category. The family
from Chad gets $24.37 worth of free rations from relief organizations. Almost
half of the Americans' expenditures are on Fast Food and Beverages.

~~~
eru
Those crazy Germans with their vitamin pills. They should just drive over to
the Netherlands once a year, and buy their drugs there. It's way cheaper than
in Germany.

Also all the bottled water is just crazy. German tap water is excellent in
quality in all areas, and I like the taste in most areas I sampled. And never
ever drink the Flensburger malt beer (unless you find a version that uses
actual sugar and not sweetener).

The frozen pizza from Dr Oedtker is quite good. But for most other stuff, they
could as well have bought it at Aldi for cheaper, instead of going for the
higher priced branded items.

I guess I should stop ranting.

~~~
sedachv
They also consume a ridiculous amount of bread (+pasta), dairy and sugary
beverages. And probably then wonder why they get fat.

~~~
jules
First, they aren't fat.

Second, how can you judge this without knowing how much calories they burn?

~~~
sedachv
Ignore the kids, look at the adults. They're not morbidly obese, but they are
carrying excess fat. Without a change in diet, or adopting the training regime
of a competitive athlete (do you know how many calories you need to burn every
day to stay lean on that kind of diet?), this is likely to trend to obesity as
they age.

~~~
jules
_I_ am not criticizing their diet. Look at their picture:

[http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2007/hungry_planet/1...](http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2007/hungry_planet/15.jpg)

These people are NOT obese. They are not super lean either, but for their age
this looks like a perfectly healthy weight. In fact they are relatively lean
compared to the other families.

~~~
sedachv
Look at photographs of people 60, 80, 100 years ago. The relative perception
of obesity in the US is extremely distorted. The average male is 5 feet 9
inches (176cm) and 195 pounds (88 kilograms). That is overweight. The adults
in the photo are also overweight.

~~~
jules
I'm not from the US, and neither are the people we're talking about. These
people look like they weigh less than 88 kilograms, which I agree would be
obese for 176cm.

Are you obese (by your own standards)?

~~~
sedachv
Can you at least bother to look up the definition of the key words before
arguing?

Obese: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity>

Overweight: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overweight>

~~~
jules
Oh I wasn't aware that there were testable definitions. Then I consider it
unlikely that the adults in the German family are either obese or overweight.
On what are you basing your claim that their BMI is greater than 25 kgm^-2?

~~~
eru
Also BMI is getting phased out in favour of ratio between circumferences of
hips and belly. It has much better correlation with lots of diseases than BMI.

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hristov
Kudos to those Germans for putting their beer front and center.

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petercooper
With a couple of exceptions, they've picked some rather wealthy, atypical
families. I start putting my rant hat on if we go over $90 in a week and
that's double what I know some people spend each week. We're in the UK, 3
strong, have a reasonable diet with good meals each day and several treats.
We'd all weigh 500lbs if we spent $500 a week on food (or be permanently glued
to the toilet after eating non-stop fruit)..!

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autarch
It would've been very interesting to see some examples of people who've chosen
to eat diets that are _not_ the standard diet for their country. In
particular, I'd like to see what vegans, raw foodists, Atkins dieters, and so
on are eating.

I think the contrast between an American vegan and "Standard" American diet
would be pretty interesting.

~~~
byrneseyeview
My girlfriend and I did it. We are fairly close to the paleo diet, although in
this case there's some Matzo for passover.

<http://eruv.livejournal.com/190127.html>

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chipsy
This is the second time I'm looking at these photos. They're very memorable.

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ciudilo
People drink Coke everywhere...

~~~
gcheong
A breakdown of per-capital consumption of Coca-cola products worldwide:

[http://www.thecoca-
colacompany.com/ourcompany/ar/pdf/2009-pe...](http://www.thecoca-
colacompany.com/ourcompany/ar/pdf/2009-per-capita-consumption.pdf)

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ubernostrum
Do I want to know what a "mayonnaise sandwich" is?

~~~
viggity
would you rather have a mayonnaise sandwich or "Pig's knuckles with carrots,
celery and parsnips".

I think I may go for the mayonnaise sandwich.

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joubert
Instead of cereal, some of these families should eat real food for breakfast.

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viggity
the Ecuadorians _love_ their hats, don't they?

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sliverstorm
I want to live in Sicily.

Also, good god. The North Carolina example is an assault of colors on my eyes.

~~~
mitjak
Don't worry, it's all corn under wraps.

