2. Solange Da Silva Correia, a rancher’s wife, with
family members in their house overlooking the
Solimoes River, with her typical day’s worth of
food. (From the book What I Eat: Around the
World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her
day's worth of food on a typical day in the
month of November was 3400 kcals. She is 49
years of age; 5 feet 2.5 inches tall; and 168
pounds. She and her husband, Francisco
(sitting behind her, at right), live outside the
village of Caviana with three of their four
grandchildren in a house built by his
grandfather. They raise cattle to earn income—
and sometimes a sheep or two to eat
themselves—but generally they rely on their
daily catch of fish, and eggs from their
chickens, for animal protein. They harvest fruit
and Brazil nuts on their property and buy rice,
pasta, and cornmeal from a store in Caviana.
They also purchase Solange’s favorite soft drink
made from guarana—a highly caffeinated
berry indigenous to the country.

3. Abdel Karim Aboubakar, a Sudanese refugee, with
his day's worth of food in the Breidjing Refugee
Camp in eastern Chad near the Sudanese border.
(From the book What I Eat; Around the World in 60
Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of food on
a typical day in the month of November was 2300
kcals. He is 16 years of age; 5 feet 9.5 inches tall; and
110 pounds. He escaped over the border from the
volatile Darfur region of Sudan into eastern Chad
with his mother and siblings, just ahead of the
Janjawiid militia that were burning villages of
ethnically black African Sudanese. Like thousands of
other refugees, they were accepted into the camp
program administrated by the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Their meals are markedly similar to those they ate in
their home country—there's just less of it. They eat a
grain porridge called aiysh, with a thin soup flavored
with a dried vegetable or sometimes a small chunk
of dried meat if Abdel Karim's mother has been able
to work in a villager's field for a day or two.

4. Alamin Hasan, a porter at the Kamalapur Railway Station in
Dhaka, Bangladesh, with his day's worth of food. (From the
book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric
value of his day's worth of food on a typical day in December
was 1400 kcals. He is 12 years of age; 4 feet, 7 inches tall;
and 68 pounds. His father left the family a few months ago,
and his mother is struggling under the weight of a house
loan that couldn't be paid back. Alamin says that there
wasn't enough to eat, which is why he jumped atop a train
in the railway station in Rangpur and traveled south to
Dhaka to find work. He sleeps on a bench along with many
other young boys in the same straights. He buys food from
the local sidewalk vendors who cater to the impoverished in
the city. They charge him about 20 Taka (0.30 USD) for a
plate of rice and vegetable curries. He can earn about 50 to
80 Taka a day carrying bags, but there is always the danger
that older boys and official train coolies will beat him and
steal his money. He went to sleep one night a week after he
arrived, and awakened to find that the 50 Taka in his pocket
had been stolen.

6. Willie Ishulutak, an Innuit soapstone carver in
Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada with one day's typical
food, and drink. (From the book What I Eat,
Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric
value of his day's worth of food on a typical
day in the month of October was 4700 kcals.
He is 29 years of age; 5 feet, 9 inches and 143
pounds. Carving is one of the few traditions of
the Inuit that has made the leap into the wage-
earning modern world. Willie says he can
complete two or three pieces in a day, then sell
them in the evening at bars and restaurants in
Iqaluit for $100 ($93 USD) each, and
sometimes more.

8. Marble Moahi, a mother living with HIV/AIDS,
in the family kitchen in Kabakae Village,
Ghanzi, Botswana with her typical day’s worth
of food and antiretroviral medications. (From
the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80
Diets.) The caloric value of her day's worth of
food on a typical day in March was 900 kcals.
She is 32 years of age; 5 feet, 5 inches tall; and
92 pounds. Despite a decline in new HIV
infections in sub-Saharan Africa, this region of
the world remains the most heavily impacted
by HIV/AIDS.

10. Maria Ermelinda Ayme Sichigalo, a farmer and
mother of eight with her typical day’s worth of
food in her adobe kitchen house in Tingo
village, central Andes, Ecuador. (From the book
What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The
caloric value of her typical day's worth of food
in the month of September was 3800 kcals.
She is 37 years of age; 5 feet, 3 inches tall; and
119 pounds. With no tables or chairs,
Ermelinda cooks all the family’s meals while
kneeling over the hearth on the earthen floor,
tending an open fire of sticks and straw.
Guinea pigs that skitter about looking for
scraps or spilled grain will eventually end up on
the fire themselves when the family eats them
for a holiday treat. Because there is no
chimney, the beams and thatch roof are
blackened by smoke. Unvented smoke from
cooking fires accounts for a high level of
respiratory disease and, in one study in rural
Ecuador, was accountable for half of infant
mortality.

12. Shahnaz Begum, a mother of four, outside her
home with her microloan-financed cows and
her typical day’s worth of food outside her
home in the village of Bari Majlish, an hour
outside Dhaka. (From the book What I Eat:
Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric
value of her day's worth of food for a typical
day in December was 2000 kcals. She is 38
years of age; 5 feet 2 inches tall; and 130
pounds. This mother of four was able to earn
enough to build several rental rooms next to
her home. She and her tenants share a
companionable outdoor cooking space and all
largely cook traditional Bangladeshi foods such
as dahl, ruti (also spelled roti), and vegetable
curries. Her cows eat a pile of water hyacinths
gathered by her son from a pond beyond the
haystack. She and her family don't drink the
milk that helps provide their income.

14. Xu Zhipeng, a freelance computer graphics
artist and Internet gamer, with his typical day’s
worth of food in his rented chair at the Ming
Wang Internet Café in Shanghai, China. (From
the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80
Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of
food in June was 1600 kcals. He is 23 years of
age; 6 feet, 2 inches and 157 pounds. He lives
at his computer station, day and night,
sleeping there when he’s tired and showering
once a week at a friend’s apartment. His
longest continuous game lasted three days and
nights. When he tires of gaming at the café he
reads fantasy books. “It’s nice to rest your eyes
on a book,” he says, even though he’s reading
it online. China has more than 300 million
Internet users—a number close to the entire
population of the United States.

16. George Bahna, an engineering company
executive and martial arts instructor with his
day's worth of food at his apartment home in
Zamelek, Cairo, Egypt that he shares with his
brother. (From the book What I Eat: Around
the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his
day's worth of food on a typical day in the
month of April was 4000 kcals. He is 29 years
of age; 5 feet, 11 inches tall and 165 pounds.
George eats four to five times a day but
doesn’t worry about gaining weight because
he’s active, working out in a special room in his
flat and at the private Gezira Sporting Club
near his apartment. The Nile River bisects the
cacophonous metropolis of Cairo, home to 17
million people, many of them very poor.
Although Egypt’s stock market and gross
domestic product have risen steadily for the
past four years, the standard of living for the
average Egyptian has not. The government
continues to provide food subsidies for those
in need, creating a sizable budget deficit.

17. Coco Simone Finken, a teenage vegetarian who lives
in the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada with her
day's worth of food. (From the book What I Eat:
Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of
her day's worth of food on a typical day in the month
of October was 1900 kcals. She is 16, 5' 9.5" and 130
pounds. The family doesn’t own a car, buys organic
food if it’s not too expensive, and grows some of
their own vegetables in their front yard.

18. Marcus Dirr, a master butcher with one day's worth
of food in his shop in Endingen, Germany, near
Freiburg im Breisgau. (From the book What I Eat:
Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of
his typical day's worth of food in March was 4600
kcals. He is 43 years of age; 5 feet, 9 inches tall; and
160 pounds. Germans are among the biggest meat
eaters in Europe, but eat slightly less meat than in
decades past.

20. Huang Neng сonstruction welder , with his
typical day’s worth of food in Pudong’s Lujiazui
Central Green Park in Shanghai, China. (From
the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80
Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of
food on a typical day in June was 4300 kcals.
He is 36 years of age; 5 feet, 6 inches tall and
136 pounds. The migrant welder has worked
on a dozen trophy skyscrapers on the Huangpu
River in Pudong New Area, across the river
from old Shanghai. His current project is the
Zhongrong Jasper Tower, at far right, which will
top out at 48 floors—a short-statured building
compared to its neighbors.

22. Neil Jones, the Director of Operations at the
CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, with one day's
worth of his typical food in the skypod of the
tower. (From the book What I Eat: Around the
World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his
day's worth of food on a typical day in June
was 2600 kcals. He is 44 years of age; 6 feet, 2
inches tall and 220 pounds. The viewing
platform is above the world’s highest revolving
restaurant, which revolves 360 degrees. The
award-winning restaurant has awe-inspiring
views and, for a tourist destination,
surprisingly excellent food. The pricey entrance
and elevator fee of about $25 per person is
waived if you eat at the restaurant, making it
cheaper to have lunch than to just see the
sights.

24. Chen Zhen, a university student, with her
typical day’s worth of food on Nanjing East
Road in Shanghai, China. (From the book What
I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The
caloric value of her typical day's worth of food
in June was 2600 kcals. She is 20 years of age;
5 feet, 5 inches tall and 106 pounds. Although
she doesn’t care for noodles or rice, a special
rice roll is her favorite snack: black glutinous
rice wrapped around youtiao (fried bread),
pickled vegetables, mustard greens, and
flosslike threads of dried pork. Zhen and her
friends eat at KFC about three times a week,
something they couldn’t afford without the
company’s coupons. Meanwhile, her father
and grandparents, who live in a tiny apartment
in northeast Shanghai, go without meat during
the week so they can afford to share a special
meal with Zhen on her weekend visits.

26. Bruce Hopkins, a Bondi Beach lifeguard, with
his typical day’s worth of food in Sydney, New
South Whales, Australia. (From the book What
I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The
caloric value of his day's worth of food on a
typical day in the month of February was 3700
kcals. He is 35 years of age; 6 feet tall, and 180
pounds. Hopkins eats moderately, rarely—if
ever—eats fast food, and drinks alcohol only
when he and his wife go to dinner with friends.

27. Cao Xiaoli, a professional acrobat, balances on one
hand with her day's worth of food at Shanghai Circus
World in Shanghai, China. (From the book What I Eat:
Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of
her day's worth of food on a typical day in June was
1700 kcals. She is 16 years of age; 5 feet, 2 inches
tall; and 99 pounds. Cao Xiaoli lives in a room with
nine other girls. She started her career as a child,
performing with a regional troupe in her home
province of Anhui. Now she practices five hours a
day, attends school with the other members of her
troupe, and performs seven days a week. She says
what she likes best about being an acrobat is the
crowd’s reaction when she does something
seemingly dangerous.

29. Lan Guihua, a widowed farmer, in front of her
home with her typical day’s worth of food in
Ganjiagou Village, Sichuan Province, China.
(From the book What I Eat: Around the World
in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her day's
worth of food on a typical day in June was
1900 kcals. She is 68 years of age; 5 feet, 3
inches tall; and 121 pounds. Her farmhouse is
tucked into a bamboo-forested hillside
beneath her husband’s grave, and the
courtyard opens onto a view of citrus groves
and vegetable fields. Chickens and dogs roam
freely in the packed-earth courtyard, and
firewood and brush for her kitchen wok are
stacked under the eaves. Although homegrown
vegetables and rice are her staples, chicken
feathers and a bowl that held scalding water
for easier feather plucking are clues to the
meat course of a special meal for visitors. In
this region, each rural family is its own little
food factory and benefits from thousands of
years of agricultural knowledge passed down
from generation to generation.

31. João Agustinho Cardoso, a fisherman, in his
floating house on a branch of the Solimoes
River with his typical day’s worth of food in
Manacapuru, Brazil. (From the book What I
Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric
value of his day's worth of food for a typical
day in the month of November was 5200 kcals.
He is 69 years of age; 5 feet 2.5 inches tall and
140 pounds. João’s new house has no
electricity and the toilet is simply the end of
the big balsa wood logs the house is floating
on. There is, however, running water, and
plenty of it, in the half-mile-wide branch of the
river they live on. Unfortunately the water is
not potable, but it is teeming with fish,
including piranha, which can make swimming
during the early morning or evening
worrisome. The curimata in the photo is just
one of dozens of species that makes its way
onto João’s table. Absent from his daily diet
are any alcoholic or caffeinated beverages,
eschewed by his Seventh-day Adventist
religion.

33. Jill McTighe, a mother and school aide, with a
day's worth of food on a bingeing day, in her
kitchen in Willesden, northwest London,
United Kingdom. (From the book What I Eat:
Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric
value of her day's worth of food on a
"bingeing" day in the month of September was
12300 kcals. The calorie total is not a daily
caloric average. Jill is 31 years old; 5 feet, 5
inches tall; and 230 pounds. Honest about her
food addiction replacing a drug habit, Jill joked
about being a chocoholic as she
enthusiastically downed a piece of chocolate
cake at the end of the photo session. Her
weight has yo-yoed over the years and at the
time of the picture she was near her heaviest;
walking her children to school every day was
the sole reason she didn’t weigh more. She
says this photo experience was a catalyst for
beginning a healthier diet for herself and her
family. “Do I cook? Yes, but not cakes. I roast.
Nothing ever, ever is fat-fried!”

35. Brewmaster Joachim Rösch with all the food
he eats in a typical day at Ganter Brewery in
Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. (From the
book What I Eat: Around the World in 80
Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of
food in March was 2700 kcals. He is 44 years of
age; 6 feet, 2 inches tall; and 207 pounds.
Joachim’s job requires him to taste beer a
number of times during the week, and unlike
in wine tasting, he can’t just taste then spit it
out: “Once you’ve got the bitter on the back of
your tongue, you automatically get the
swallow reflex, so down the chute you go,” he
says.

36. A stunning photographic collection featuring
portraits of people from 30 countries and the
food they eat in one day. In this fascinating
study of people and their diets, 80 profiles are
organized by the total number of calories each
person puts away in a day. Featuring a
Japanese sumo wrestler, a Massai
herdswoman, world-renowned Spanish chef
Ferran Adria, an American competitive eater,
and more, these compulsively readable
personal stories also include demographic
particulars, including age, activity level, height,
and weight. Essays from Harvard primatologist
Richard Wrangham, journalist Michael Pollan,
and others discuss the implications of our
modern diets for our health and for the planet.
This compelling blend of photography and
investigative reportage expands our
understanding of the complex relationships
among individuals, culture, and food.
What the World Eats By Peter Menzel And Faith D'Aluisio,