On the banks of Mali's Niger River, Soumana Natomo and his family gather for a communal dinner of millet porridge with tamarind juice. In the USA, the Ronayne-Caven family enjoys corndogs-on-a-stick with a tossed green salad and in the UK the Baintons are eating bacon and eggs and chocolate fudge cake with cream. This age-old practice of sitting down to a family meal is undergoing unprecedented change as rising world affluence and trade, along with the spread of global food conglomerates, transform diets worldwide. In HUNGRY PLANET, the creative team behind the best-selling Material World, Women in the Material World, and MAN EATING BUGS presents a photographic study of families from around the world, revealing what people eat during the course of one week. Each family s profile includes a detailed description of their weekly food purchases; photographs of the family at home, at market, and in their communities; and a portrait of the entire family surrounded by a week s worth of groceries. To assemble this remarkable comparison, photojournalist ! Peter Menzel and writer Faith D Aluisio traveled to 24 countries and visited 30 families from Bhutan and Bosnia to Mexico and Mongolia. The resulting series of photographs and facts is a 30-course feast of visual and quantitative information. Featuring essays on the politics of food by Marion Nestle, Charles C. Mann, and Alfred W. Crosby, and photo-essays on international street food, meat markets, fast food, and cookery, this captivating chronicle offers a riveting look at what the world really eats.

美国摄影记者Ｐｅｔｅｒ Ｍｅｎｚｅｌ和作家Ｆａｉｔｈ Ｄ’Ａｌｕｓｉｏ在２００５年出版了纪实摄影集《Ｈｕｎｇｒｙ Ｐｌａｎｅｔ》（饥饿的星球），他们走访了２４个国家，采访了３０个家庭约６００人，记录他们一周的食物消费。这３０个家庭被要求购买他们日常一周需要消费的食物，花费算在Ｐｅｔｅｒ Ｍｅｎｚｅｌ和Ｆａｉｔｈ Ｄ’Ａｌｕｓｉｏ的账上，然后，将这些食物按照一定的顺序巧妙地摆放好，和家人一起照张“全家福”。在书中，图片旁被附上注释，主要为图片拍摄地所在的国家的关于食物的一些说明，如这个国家的平均肥胖率、烟草的人均消费量、吃汉堡包的频率等。

差异在书中是如此明显。一个四口之家的德国家庭一周的食物开支高达５００美元，而住在难民营的２位母亲和４个孩子的一周食物支出不足２美元。食物种类和各自所占的比例也暗藏信号，还有营养配搭、风俗习惯，足够细心，你甚至可以研究出一本食谱进化论。政治化的食谱，地域性食物的全球化，人与人之间的关系，巨大的差异，拼贴出来的题目，就是“饥饿的星球”。