What I Eat – Part 1

Shahnaz Begum, a mother of four, outside her home with her microloan-financed cows and her typical day’s worth of food outside her home in the village of Bari Majlish, an hour outside Dhaka. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her day's worth of food for a typical day in December was 2000 kcals. She is 38 years of age; 5 feet 2 inches tall; and 130 pounds. This mother of four was able to earn enough to build several rental rooms next to her home. She and her tenants share a companionable outdoor cooking space and all largely cook traditional Bangladeshi foods such as dahl, ruti (also spelled roti), and vegetable curries. Her cows eat a pile of water hyacinths gathered by her son from a pond beyond the haystack. She and her family don't drink the milk that helps provide their income. MODEL RELEASED

Ruma Akhter, a seamstress and one of over 6,000 employees at the Ananta Apparels company in Dhaka, Bangladesh with her typical day’s worth of food. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her day's worth of food for a typical day in December was 1800 kcals. She is 20 years of age; 5 feet tall; and 86 pounds. While nearly half of Bangladesh’s population is employed in agriculture, in recent years the economic engine of Bangladesh has been its garment industry, and the country is now the world’s fourth largest clothing exporter, ahead of India and the United States. Dependent on exports and fearing international sanctions, Bangladesh’s garment industry has implemented rules outlawing child labor and setting standards for humane working conditions. MODEL RELEASED

Marble Moahi, a mother living with HIV/AIDS, in the family kitchen in Kabakae Village, Ghanzi, Botswana with her typical day’s worth of food and antiretroviral medications. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her day's worth of food on a typical day in March was 900 kcals. She is 32 years of age; 5 feet, 5 inches tall; and 92 pounds. Despite a decline in new HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa, this region of the world remains the most heavily impacted by HIV/AIDS. MODEL RELEASED.

João Agustinho Cardoso, a fisherman, in his floating house on a branch of the Solimoes River with his typical day’s worth of food in Manacapuru, Brazil. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of food for a typical day in the month of November was 5200 kcals. He is 69 years of age; 5 feet 2.5 inches tall and 140 pounds. João’s new house has no electricity and the toilet is simply the end of the big balsa wood logs the house is floating on. There is, however, running water, and plenty of it, in the half-mile-wide branch of the river they live on. Unfortunately the water is not potable, but it is teeming with fish, including piranha, which can make swimming during the early morning or evening worrisome. The curimata in the photo is just one of dozens of species that makes its way onto João’s table. Absent from his daily diet are any alcoholic or caffeinated beverages, eschewed by his Seventh-day Adventist religion. MODEL RELEASED.

Solange Da Silva Correia, a rancher’s wife, with family members in their house overlooking the Solimoes River, with her typical day’s worth of food. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her day's worth of food on a typical day in the month of November was 3400 kcals. She is 49 years of age; 5 feet 2.5 inches tall; and 168 pounds. She and her husband, Francisco (sitting behind her, at right), live outside the village of Caviana with three of their four grandchildren in a house built by his grandfather. They raise cattle to earn income—and sometimes a sheep or two to eat themselves—but generally they rely on their daily catch of fish, and eggs from their chickens, for animal protein. They harvest fruit and Brazil nuts on their property and buy rice, pasta, and cornmeal from a store in Caviana. They also purchase Solange’s favorite soft drink made from guarana—a highly caffeinated berry indigenous to the country. MODEL RELEASED.

Willie Ishulutak, an Innuit soapstone carver in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada with one day's typical food, and drink. (From the book What I Eat, Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of food on a typical day in the month of October was 4700 kcals. He is 29 years of age; 5 feet, 9 inches and 143 pounds. Carving is one of the few traditions of the Inuit that has made the leap into the wage-earning modern world. Willie says he can complete two or three pieces in a day, then sell them in the evening at bars and restaurants in Iqaluit for $100 ($93 USD) each, and sometimes more. MODEL RELEASED.

Neil Jones, the Director of Operations at the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, with one day's worth of his typical food in the skypod of the tower. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of food on a typical day in June was 2600 kcals. He is 44 years of age; 6 feet, 2 inches tall and 220 pounds. The viewing platform is above the world’s highest revolving restaurant, which revolves 360 degrees. The award-winning restaurant has awe-inspiring views and, for a tourist destination, surprisingly excellent food. The pricey entrance and elevator fee of about $25 per person is waived if you eat at the restaurant, making it cheaper to have lunch than to just see the sights. MODEL RELEASED.

Muna Ali, a Somali student living in the suburb of Scarboro, Ontario, Canada with her day's worth of food. (From the Project What I Eat.) Her family immigrated from Somalia. MODEL RELEASED.

Construction welder Huang Neng, with his typical day’s worth of food in Pudong’s Lujiazui Central Green Park in Shanghai, China. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of food on a typical day in June was 4300 kcals. He is 36 years of age; 5 feet, 6 inches tall and 136 pounds. The migrant welder has worked on a dozen trophy skyscrapers on the Huangpu River in Pudong New Area, across the river from old Shanghai. His current project is the Zhongrong Jasper Tower, at far right, which will top out at 48 floors—a short-statured building compared to its neighbors. MODEL RELEASED.

Xu Zhipeng, a freelance computer graphics artist and Internet gamer, with his typical day’s worth of food in his rented chair at the Ming Wang Internet Café in Shanghai, China. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of food in June was 1600 kcals. He is 23 years of age; 6 feet, 2 inches and 157 pounds. He lives at his computer station, day and night, sleeping there when he’s tired and showering once a week at a friend’s apartment. His longest continuous game lasted three days and nights. When he tires of gaming at the café he reads fantasy books. “It’s nice to rest your eyes on a book,” he says, even though he’s reading it online. China has more than 300 million Internet users—a number close to the entire population of the United States.

Chen Zhen, a university student, with her typical day’s worth of food on Nanjing East Road in Shanghai, China. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her typical day's worth of food in June was 2600 kcals. She is 20 years of age; 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 106 pounds. Although she doesn’t care for noodles or rice, a special rice roll is her favorite snack: black glutinous rice wrapped around youtiao (fried bread), pickled vegetables, mustard greens, and flosslike threads of dried pork. Zhen and her friends eat at KFC about three times a week, something they couldn’t afford without the company’s coupons. Meanwhile, her father and grandparents, who live in a tiny apartment in northeast Shanghai, go without meat during the week so they can afford to share a special meal with Zhen on her weekend visits. MODEL RELEASED.

Lan Guihua, a widowed farmer, in front of her home with her typical day’s worth of food in Ganjiagou Village, Sichuan Province, China. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her day's worth of food on a typical day in June was 1900 kcals. She is 68 years of age; 5 feet, 3 inches tall; and 121 pounds. Her farmhouse is tucked into a bamboo-forested hillside beneath her husband’s grave, and the courtyard opens onto a view of citrus groves and vegetable fields. Chickens and dogs roam freely in the packed-earth courtyard, and firewood and brush for her kitchen wok are stacked under the eaves. Although homegrown vegetables and rice are her staples, chicken feathers and a bowl that held scalding water for easier feather plucking are clues to the meat course of a special meal for visitors. In this region, each rural family is its own little food factory and benefits from thousands of years of agricultural knowledge passed down from generation to generation. MODEL RELEASED.

Maria Ermelinda Ayme Sichigalo, a farmer and mother of eight with her typical day’s worth of food in her adobe kitchen house in Tingo village, central Andes, Ecuador. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her typical day's worth of food in the month of September was 3800 kcals. She is 37 years of age; 5 feet, 3 inches tall; and 119 pounds. With no tables or chairs, Ermelinda cooks all the family’s meals while kneeling over the hearth on the earthen floor, tending an open fire of sticks and straw. Guinea pigs that skitter about looking for scraps or spilled grain will eventually end up on the fire themselves when the family eats them for a holiday treat. Because there is no chimney, the beams and thatch roof are blackened by smoke. Unvented smoke from cooking fires accounts for a high level of respiratory disease and, in one study in rural Ecuador, was accountable for half of infant mortality. MODEL RELEASED.

Camel broker Saleh Abdul Fadlallah with his day's worth of food at the Birqash Camel Market outside Cairo, Egypt. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of food on a typical day in the month of April was 3200 kcals.  He is 40 years of age; 5 feet, 8 inches tall; and 165 pounds. Contrary to popular belief, camels’ humps don’t store water; they are a reservoir of fatty tissue that minimizes the need for heat-trapping insulation in the rest of their bodies; the dromedary, or Arabian camel, has a single hump, while Asian camels have two. Camels are well suited for desert climes: their long legs and huge, two-toed feet with leathery pads enable them to walk easily in sand, and their eyelids, nostrils, and thick coat protect them from heat and blowing sand. These characteristics, along with their ability to eat thorny vegetation and derive sufficient moisture from tough green herbage, allow camels to survive in very inhospitable terrain. MODEL RELEASED.

George Bahna, an engineering company executive and martial arts instructor with his day's worth of food at his apartment home in Zamelek, Cairo, Egypt that he shares with his brother. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of food on a typical day in the month of April was 4000 kcals. He is 29 years of age; 5 feet, 11 inches tall and 165 pounds. George eats four to five times a day but doesn’t worry about gaining weight because he’s active, working out in a special room in his flat and at the private Gezira Sporting Club near his apartment. The Nile River bisects the cacophonous metropolis of Cairo, home to 17 million people, many of them very poor. Although Egypt’s stock market and gross domestic product have risen steadily for the past four years, the standard of living for the average Egyptian has not. The government continues to provide food subsidies for those in need, creating a sizable budget deficit. MODEL RELEASED.

Nicolas Vinatier, 34, Restaurant owner in Paris, France, with a day's worth of food. Height: 1.83 meters; weight 86.2 kilos. MODEL RELEASED.

Jill McTighe, a mother and school aide, with a day's worth of food on a bingeing day, in her kitchen in Willesden, northwest London, United Kingdom. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her day's worth of food on a "bingeing" day in the month of September was 12300 kcals. The calorie total is not a daily caloric average. Jill is 31 years old; 5 feet, 5 inches tall; and 230 pounds. Honest about her food addiction replacing a drug habit, Jill joked about being a chocoholic as she enthusiastically downed a piece of chocolate cake at the end of the photo session. Her weight has yo-yoed over the years and at the time of the picture she was near her heaviest; walking her children to school every day was the sole reason she didn’t weigh more. She says this photo experience was a catalyst for beginning a healthier diet for herself and her family. “Do I cook? Yes, but not cakes. I roast. Nothing ever, ever is fat-fried!” MODEL RELEASED. [Use of Jill McTighe images must be used contextually only and use cleared with Peter Menzel Photography on a case by case basis.]

Brewmaster Joachim Rösch with all the food he eats in a typical day at Ganter Brewery in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his day's worth of food in March was 2700 kcals. He is 44 years of age; 6 feet, 2 inches tall; and 207 pounds. Joachim’s job requires him to taste beer a number of times during the week, and unlike in wine tasting, he can’t just taste then spit it out: “Once you’ve got the bitter on the back of your tongue, you automatically get the swallow reflex, so down the chute you go,” he says. MODEL RELEASED.

Robina Weiser-Linnartz, a master baker and confectioner with her typical day’s worth of food in her parent’s bakery in Cologne, Germany. (From the book What I Eat; Around the World ion 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her day's worth of food in March was 3700 kcals. She is 28 years of age; 5 feet, 6 inches tall; and 144 pounds. She’s wearing her Bread Queen sash and crown, which she dons whenever she appears at festivals, trade shows, and educational events, representing the baker’s guild of Germany’s greater Cologne region. At the age of three, she started her career in her father’s bakery, helping her parents with simple chores like sorting nuts. Her career plan is to return to this bakery, which has been in the family for four generations, in a few years. She will remodel the old premises slightly to allow customers the opportunity to watch the baking process, but plans to keep the old traditions of her forebears alive. MODEL RELEASED.

Emil Madsen, a seal hunter, with his typical day’s worth of food on the sea ice in front of his sleeping sled dogs near Cap Hope village, Greenland. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his typical day's worth of food in May was 6500 kcals. He is 40 years of age; 5 feet, 8.5 inches tall; and 170 pounds. Armed with two rifles, a shotgun, and generations of survival knowledge passed on by his father (also a seal hunter), Emil is ready and able to feed himself and his family. Sunny days in May bring 24-hour daylight at this latitude near the Arctic Circle—midday temperatures above freezing cause the ice to retreat or break off into Scoresby Sound, seen behind him. Although wild game is his favorite, Emil packs bread, jam, margarine, coffee, tea, sugar, and onions on his hunting trips. He uses a kerosene stove, rather than burning seal fat, as was traditional, to cook his food and to melt snow for water. Seal hunter Emil Madsen, 40, is one of the few full-time hunters on the sparsely populated eastern coast of Greenland, and even he does extra duty as an indigenous part-owner in a travel agency. He is teaching one of his sons to run his own team of dogs and to hunt the seals, polar bears, walrus, musk ox, and sea birds that he brings home to the table. Greenland is a Danish protectorate and therefore a lot of packaged Danish food finds its way to the cold island nation. Such food figures prominently on the Madsen's dinner table, as it does for many present-day Greenlanders. MODEL RELEASED.

Munna Kailash, a bicycle rickshaw driver, with his typical day's worth of food outside the small home that he and his wife Meera share with their children in Varanasi—in India's Uttar Pradesh province. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his typical day's worth of food in the month of April was 2400 kcals. He is 45 years old; 5 feet, 6 inches; and 106 pounds. When he comes home for lunch he normally drinks a cup of tea, takes a short nap, and then heads back out into the steamy heat to find other patrons to cart from one location to the next, a job he does seven days a week. MODEL RELEASED.

Shashi Kanth, a call center worker, with his day's worth of food in his office at the AOL call center in Bangalore, India. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) He is 23 years of age; 5 feet, 7 inches; and 123 pounds. Like many of the thousands of call center workers in India, he relies on fast-food meals, candy bars, and coffee to sustain him through the long nights spent talking to Westerners about various technical questions and billing problems. He took a temporary detour into the call center world to pay medical and school bills but finds himself still there after two years, not knowing when or if he will return to his professional studies. MODEL RELEASED.

Mohammad Riahi with his typical day's worth of food and his parents behind him at their spacious home in Yazd, Iran. (Mohammad Riahi is one of the people interviewed for the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) Mohammad, who is 30 years of age, will live at home with his parents until he marries. TK calories. MODEL RELEASED.

Akbar Zareh with his typical day’s worth of food at his bakery in the province of Yazd, Iran. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his typical day's worth of food in December was 4900 kcals. He is 48 years of age; 5 feet. 3 inches tall; and 143 pounds. The son of a baker, he began working full-time at age 10 and regrets that he didn’t attend school and learn how to read and write. By working 10 hours a day, every day of the week, he has sent his four children to school so they don’t have to toil as hard as he does. The product of his daily labor is something to savor—his fresh, hot loaves are as mouthwatering and tasty as any in the world. After baking in the tandoor clay ovens, most of the rounds of fresh bread are dried and broken into bits and sold as cracker bread. MODEL RELEASED.

Atefeh Fotowat, a high school student and aspiring fashion designer with her typical day’s worth of food at her home in the city of Isfahan, Iran. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of her typical day's worth of food in December was 2400 kcals. She is 17 years of age; 5 feet, 4.5 inches tall; and 121 pounds. Her father, a renowned miniaturist painter, is seated on the couch, along with her mother and her brother, a university student. Together, they exemplify the educated Iranian upper middle class in Isfahan, Iran’s third largest city, famous for art and Islamic architecture. Atefeh’s relaxed repose and her attire, combining jeans and headscarf, show her ease with foreigners yet respect for tradition. She aspires to turn her fashion designing avocation into a vocation by becoming a designer after college. MODEL RELEASED.