Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Book Recommendation: Hungry Planet




I don't usually recommend books on this blog, but I do read a lot of cooking-related books. I am a huge library aficionado, and I usually walk out of there with a huge stack of cookbooks to page through. This book caught my eye, although it's not exactly a cookbook. Hungry Planet does contain some recipes, but mainly it's a photo book that shows families from around the world with a week's worth of food. It's interesting to compare the family from a refugee camp in Chad to a family in North Carolina - their ideas of a week's worth of food are very different!

If you know me in real life, you've probably already heard me talk about this book. I found it so interesting because I have always felt that one of the best ways to get to know someone is to get to know their eating habits. This book is a glimpse into the lives of people all around the world, and the authors make it very interesting. Plus it makes you re-think your own eating habits! It really got me thinking about what would our food supply for a week look like - what would the proportion of prepared to fresh food look like?


If you have later-elementary aged kids, this would be a fantastic book to go through with them. The pictures of the families with their food make it very easy to understand how people from around the world eat differently. Plus, the look on your kid's face when they discover that people in Ecuador eat guinea pigs will be priceless!!

A synopsis, reviews, and an excerpt from Hungry Planet are all available at Amazon.com.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Look out Howie!

Sounds like a very interesting book. I'll have to look for it at our library.

Jacki said...

No Equadorian is getting near my Howie!!