What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets

A photographic collection featuring portraits of 80 people from 30 countries and the food they eat in one day by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio

Ecuador, The Mountain Farmer
Name: Maria Ermelinda Ayme Sichigalo
Age: 37; Height: 5′ 3″; Weight: 119 pounds
Caloric value of food this day: 3800 calories

BREAKFAST: Empanadas (fried turnovers) filled with cheese, 8.1 oz. Chapo (toasted barley and wheat flours, mixed with instant coffee, panela [hard brown sugar], and hot water), 7.5 oz. Panela mixed with hot water, 6.4 fl. oz.
LUNCH: Barley flour, added to water to make barley flour soup, 10.6 oz. Boiled potatoes with carrots and green beans, 1.4 lb.
DINNER: Salad of lettuce, potato, and carrot, 15.2 oz. Green plantain, 3.5 oz. Yellow plantain, 7.8 oz.
SNACKS AND OTHER: Roasted potatoes, 1.4 lb. Machica (toasted barley and wheat flours), added to hot water and eaten throughout the day, 4.6 oz. Water from a nearby spring, for cooking, 2.1 qt.

A subsistence farmer and mother of eight, Maria Ermelinda Ayme Sichigalo prepares all of the family’s meals while kneeling on an earthen floor, cooking over an open fire of sticks and straw. The hard manual labor of farming and shepherding at an elevation above 11,000 feet, as well as cooking and caring for the children, requires a substantial number of calories. Her family doesn’t eat the animals they raise — only sell them to buy what they don’t grow or have on hand.

Iran, The Baker
Name: Akbar Zareh
Age: 48; Height: 5′ 3″; Weight: 143 pounds
Caloric value of food this day: 4900 calories

BREAKFAST: Hard-boiled eggs (2), 4.2 oz. Sabzi khordan (fresh herb mix) with radishes, 3.2 oz. Nan-e taftoon (light, crusty flat bread), 10 oz. Black tea, 8.5 fl. oz., with sugar, 2 tsp.
SNACKS THROUGH THE DAY, GRABBED AS HE WORKS: Khoshk yazdi (flat cracker bread, the type he bakes to sell, eaten fresh), 1.5 lb. Tomatoes, 5.3 oz.; Grapes, 13.8 oz. Pomegranate, from the tree outside his bakery, 15.3 oz.
DINNER: Kabab koobideh (lamb kebab), 5.2 oz. White rice, 14 oz. Yogurt, 10.6 oz. Nan-e taftoon, 10 oz.
LATE EVENING: Whole milk, hot, 6.8 fl. oz.
THROUGHOUT THE DAY: Boiled water, 3.2 qt.

Working alone in his small bakery, Akbar Zareh is a perpetual motion machine throughout the day, seven days a week, fueling himself with his own flat bread and quick snacks of vegetables and fruit.

Yemen, The Home Maker
Name: Saada Haidar
Age: 27; Height: 4′ 11″; Weight: 98 pounds
Caloric value of food this day: 2700 calories

EARLY MORNING: Qishir (sweet, tea-like coffee made from coffee bean husks), 4.1 fl oz.
BREAKFAST: Ful (fava beans), cooked with onion, tomato, and ground chilies, 5.6 oz. Khubz (wheat flour flat bread), 3.7 oz. Black tea, 3.4 fl. oz. with sugar, 1 tsp.
MIDMORNING SNACK: Khubz, 1.8 oz. with tahini, 0.9 oz., and feta cheese, 0.9 oz.
LUNCH: Saltah (spicy meat and vegetable stew. In this recipe: mutton, eggplant, tomato, and onion stew with hot chilies and hulbah, a foamy fenugreek topping), 8.7 oz. Rice, spiced with cumin and cardamom, 10.6 oz. Fresh tomato relish, 4.4 oz. Lahuuh (a fermented flat bread, similar to a pancake), 3.9 oz. Salad of cucumber, onion, carrot, tomato, cilantro, parsley, and lime juice, 5.8 oz. Green onion, 1.3 oz. White radish, 1.8 oz. Black tea with sweetened condensed milk, 3.2 fl. oz.
DINNER: Scrambled eggs with tomato and onion, 3.8 oz. Maluuj (bread made from millet and wheat flours), 5 oz. Black tea, 3.4 fl. oz., with sugar, 1 tsp.
SNACKS AND OTHER: Mango, 8.7 oz. Banana, 4.1 oz. Cantaloupe, 3 oz. Honeydew, 3.2 oz. Papaya, 4.1 oz. Qafuu’a (bread made from wheat and lentil flours; one-third of the full round shown is eaten), 4.1 oz. Calf meat on bone, 9.2 oz. (not included in calorie total as this is eaten only once a week) Bottled water, 1.6 qt.

The caloric value of Saada Haidar’s day’s worth of food in Yemen’s capital city — 2700 — is much more than she used to eat in her rural village six hours south.

Namibia, The Pastoralist
Name: Viahondjera Musutua, a Himba tribeswoman
Age: 23; Height: 5′ 8″; Weight: 160 pounds
The caloric value of her food this day: 1500 calories*

FIRST MEAL OF THE DAY: Cornmeal porridge, 1.7 lb. with sour whole milk, 11.3 fl. oz.
SECOND MEAL: Cornmeal porridge, 1.8 lb. with sour whole milk, 11.3 fl. oz.
THROUGHOUT THE DAY: Sour whole milk, 26.3 fl. oz. Bird plums (not pictured as she ate what she had picked before the photo was taken), 3.5 oz. Water from nearby river, 12 fl. oz.

A Himba family’s wealth is computed in cattle but family members seldom eat a cow or goat themselves, except on special occasions. Viahondjera Musutua’s staple foods are milk she ferments herself, for preservation, and corn meal porridge.