Over the Counter #25

What I Eat by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio was the latest book to catch my eye as it passed over my counter and under my scanner this week.

I loved this one! And must admit - I did spend some extra time at the counter browsing....

From the publisher Ten Speed Press:

Eighty people, 30 countries, one day’s food, and another extraordinary book.  In vivid photographs and thought-provoking text, this remarkable book chronicles a three-year around-the-world journey and delivers a fascinating portrait of what individuals eat over the course of one day.

With camera and notebooks in hand, Peter and Faith visited thirty countries and a dozen U.S. states to interview, shop, cook, and eat with a wide variety of individuals—from a bike messenger in Japan and a Maasai herdswoman in Kenya to a traditional baker in Iran, a model in the U.S., and a bullfighter in Spain. They even traveled out of this world to interview a former NFL player turned astronaut, who was photographed while orbiting the Earth with his daily meal floating around him.

“You are what you eat” has never been as fully visualized as it is in What I Eat’s eighty photographic portraits, which feature the food and beverages (including vitamins, supplements, and cigarettes) that each person consumes in a day, plus demographic particulars such as age, occupation, activity level, height, and weight. The food is the focal point of each profile, which details every item consumed and the total resulting calorie count. The numbers are at times expected, at other times surprising, and always fascinating.

From Australia to Ecuador, Greenland to Israel, and Kenya to Yemen, Peter and Faith have literally traveled to the ends of the earth to amass this collection of beautiful photography and sensitive reportage. What I Eat offers a look at the compelling implications of the modern diet on our health and planet while expanding our understanding of the complex relationships among individuals, culture, and food.

Adding controversy and context to the profiles are compelling essays that approach food politics and our endless obsession with diet from fresh new angles. The comparative nature of this project reveals the similarities as well as the extreme differences in the ways in which people approach and consume food around the world."