Slide Show: What The World Eats

I've always been fascinated with documentary photography, and via Talking Points Memo I found this great Time magazine slide show called What the World Eats, which shows what different families from around the world eat for a week. The photos were taken by Peter Menzel for a book by the same title, which includes 30 families in 24 countries.

I tend to think that different peoples and countries still retain very distinct ethnic foods and local cuisine -- and they do -- buy when I look at these, I'm struck more by the similarities: the breads, the Coca-Cola, the abundance of packaged food.

The biggest difference from one photo to the next is quantity. It may look like the family from Cairo eats the same amount of food as the one from California -- until you realize that the spread on the table will feed 12 Egyptians in a week, while the California family only has four to feed.

-Mark