After enjoying What I Eat so much, I checked at the library if Menzel and D'Aluisio had written any other books on food. I'm not sure why, but Hungry Planet was shelved with the kids books, even though it is essentially the same concept - families' food-for-a-week, rather than individuals' food-for-a-day.
It was enlightening in a different way than What I Eat. What I eat had more recipes, Hungry Planet has more country facts, and it really lays a family bare to make them put up everything they eat in a week. The hypocrisy of the American families, touting healthy eating when their foods include corn dogs, Nutri-Grain bars, tons of pop, chips, instant freezer-foods. It made me take a harsh look at my kitchen, and I truly believe I eat at least half as much junk as any of them, and that I am much more selective of my processed foods. But it certainly made me want to look one more time at how much processed food I eat, and what I can cut out.
I think the biggest one is that the kids always eat boxed breakfast cereal or hot cereal for breakfast. We pick the relatively healthy ones (Cheerios, Mini-Wheats, Corn Flakes, and Special K top the list, along with Quaker Oatmeal with plain oats added), but it's still always boxed cereals. After all the recent evidence around egg cholesterol not being so bad, I wonder if I should start making them eggs and toast for breakfast (we get our bread from an awesome local bakery that uses excellent ingredients). Hmmm.
In other news, I have been following through on my desire to expand my culinary repertoire around especially south/southeast Asian foods at home. I made the best dal of my LIFE (At Home with Madhur Jaffrey - check it out), and have gone on Pinterest and pinned a ton of foods to try: Sambar curry, ful, tah-chin, pho, bhorta. So excited for my culinary adventures!
I'm too lazy to post a picture of Hungry Planet - it's after 11pm and this book is due back at the library tomorrow. It was a good read, but if I was going to pick one, What I Eat was more inspiring to me than Hungry Planet. Either way, they are both an excellent photo atlas of how diverse the food of the world is, and I love eating around the planet!
Title: Hungry Planet - What the World Eats
Authors: Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio
Published: I have no idea - the book really doesn't seem to say
Pages: 277
Total Books Blogged: 28
Total Pages: 7874
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