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Ever wondered how you rank with the rest of the world in the amount of money you spend on food in a week? I got this email and it has some great pictures along with the amount of cash each family spends in feeding themselves for a week all around the world.
Guess how much money refugees from Darfur spend in a week at Briedjing Camp for food?
Scroll down to find out.
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Živio! Halo! Hallo! Bonjour! Ciao! - To everyone from around the world visiting this post. Please take a minute to tweet this post on Twitter, "like it" on StumbleUpon, share it on Facebook or just forward it to your family and friends. Thank you!
1. Germany - $500 a week for food
2. North Carolina, USA - $341.98 a week for food
3. Japan - $317.25 a week for food
4. Italy - $260 a week for food
5. Great Britain - $253 a week for food - I wonder if the dog on the table is part of the diet?!?
6. Kuwait - $221.45 a week for food
7. Mexico - $189.09 a week for food
8. California, USA - $160 a week for food - Apparently it’s cheaper to eat on the West Coast of the U.S.A than the East Coast. See North Carolina above.
9. Beijing, China - $155.06 a week for food
10. Poland - $151 a week for food
11. Egypt - $68.53 a week for food
12. Mongolia - $40 a week for food
13. Ecuador - $31.55 a week for food
14. Bhutan - $5 a week for food
15. Breidjing Camp - $1.23 a week for food!!! {Sudanese refugees in Chad}
You can also view the photoset here on Flickr.
From the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio www.menzelphoto.com.
*Disclaimer: I am not the owner of these photographs, I simply got them in a forwarded email. No names or origin of photos was attached to the email. Peter Menzel has contacted me personally right after I published this post and I have given proper attribution above as requested by him.
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excellent post, I’ll be blogging about and link to this ^_^
how much do I spend in my household?? $75
wow, that’s amazing. It’s also interesting to note the size of the tables of food/amount of food for the amount each family is paying…in Sudan for example it looks like a bag of barley, rice and peas, a gallon of water and a few limes and nuts…not exactly Round Table or Red Barron Pizza like in some of the other pics.
Take out a lot of that junk food you see and the prices drop fast. I wonder if they thought about that after seeing these photos.
Hello Hyder,
Excellent Post!!!
Perfect for Charity Week for Orphans that my team are promoting.
on JustGiving Dot Com / CharityWeek
Do you mind if I use those pictures?
Those photos are from the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats credited to photographer Peter Menzel and author-journalist Faith D’Alusio. It’s an excellent book if you’re interested in this subject. I gave several copies of it as Christmas presents last year.
Thanks Nikchick for the info. I’ll edit the post later on to credit the photographer.
Instead of just posting credit for the photographer, how about actually asking permission to publish his images. They ARE copyrighted, and publishing them without permission is infringment.
Barbara,
If you had read the text in the article about the images you would probably not have asked this question.
Also, what makes you think that me and the photographer haven’t already had an exchange about giving credit where credit is due for the photographs.
wow that is crazy
damn how people keep taking pictures from this book, and posting them out of context.
Wow, this is really amazing. If I was to have a picture like that, there would be about 75 bags from Wendy’s. That’s really gross.
The difference in cost between #2 (North Carolina) and #8 (California) is probably largely due to the ages of the children. Two teenage boys can eat significantly more than two young children!
I’m a single mom in the US-I spend exactly $71.00 a week on food for three and it buys right around enough for one. Thanks for the reality check-I was feeling sorry for myself till I hit halfway down.
You know what I take from this? More packaged foor = more money. It’s really no secret that if you buy more produce it’ll be cheaper than if you buy Texas Toast and chips. If you hunt or raise your meat it’s cheaper than buying it. I think it would be cool to know what proportion of the food people grew/hunted for each photo.
The teenage boys in NC probably do account for some of the cost difference between the two American families, but also the fact that the CA family didn’t have any fast food on the menu means that they will spend significantly less. The NC family had meals from KFC, McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Burger King in front of them, as well as two large delivery or take-out pizzas. That’s probably well over $50 right there, if not more. The homes that spent less featured more fresh, real food: more vegetables and fruit than meat, and what meat they had they intended to cook themselves instead of buying prepared meals. I spend about $100 on food each week for just myself, and while that includes a fair bit of dining out, I enjoy cooking at home as well.
Those sudanes people have it pretty good. They get to eat for cheap!
I hope you are joking about the Sudanese family. If not then maybe you should read a newspaper or watch the news sometime!
How come those ******* dont have any hotwings or watermelon?
Edit by author: Please do not use derogatory terms.
‘******’ is such a ugly word. i hate it when people refer to the coloreds as *******.
what i find really interesting is that there are no dirty **** up there – they really know how to stretch a buck.
Like “coloreds” is any better… You both need to get your heads out of your butts and read a newspaper… or maybe go make an african american friend and then tell me what you’d call them.
I don’t understand how the family from China had 4 people.
Last I checked you are limited to one child there. Did they get a special voucher for extra children? Does that voucher include hotwings or watermelon?
I believe the way it works in China is if a family has one child, school, daycare, and health care are provided for him/her. If the family has another child it is taken away. This is how a Chinese woman explained it to me.
Only the Han Chinese are limited to one child. Other ethnic groups in China can have more.
I believe you can only have one girl. The other girls are usually taken away. I don’t know of any restrictions about boys.
the one child policy ended in ’99 due to pressure from human rights activists and economic threats from both the USA and France
Wow, that Kuwaiti family has a huge kitchen!
The German family is not a true picture of reality, most of the Germans have only 1000$ to live, how can they spend 2000$ only for food?! But may be he is an entrepreneur…so then you can show entrepreneurs from africa, they have the same level of living.
Who said they get paid 1000$ in Germany? There are managers, secretaries, waiters, cops, teachers, doctors, lawyers, professors… like in all the rest of the world. I agree 500$ per week is a lot, but some workers can afford it. Of course that amount is due to all the alcohol they got.
MOST people in Germany make MORE than the average person in the US…
GOOGLE it.
As LL said, more packaging == more cost, same as with more takeouts. Avoid processed and prepared foods, and good eating is possible almost anywhere for very little expense. As wandering Californians, we find some Canadian foods absurdly expensive (maple syrup cheaper than milk!?!) and some Central American foods absurdly inexpensive (eggs cheaper than rice!?!). We hope to get to India soon, where it’s reportedly easy to live on US$3 per day. For thrifty munchers, that’s hard to beat.
Fresh produce also depends on where you’re located and what season it is as far as pricing goes. I’ve spent as much as $30 on fresh produce just to make vegetable soup (I live in Missouri and it was the middle of winter), as opposed to less than five on frozen vegetables which makes the same amount of soup. Yeah, I had just moved away from my parents and learned a lot about grocery shopping that day . . .
Just some perspective on the American diet. Yes it is cheaper to buy meals and make them yourself, but I think fresh produce can be more expensive here. That’s why most Americans buy frozen or canned fruits and vegetables.
Also most Americans buy from supermarkets where fresh produce has to be shipped where they have to keep it fresh (which also probably contributes to the cost especially if it’s out of season) as opposed to, say, the people in Egypt or Ecuador where they were more likely to buy from a farmer or grow it themselves.
Most of the cost for American food is convenience.
I personally spend about $50 a week on groceries for two (sometimes more) people. I also like to buy in bulk and cook extra for leftovers the next day so I don’t have to spend as much on meals. Most of my money goes on frozen goods, especially vegetables. And we probably eat fast food once or twice a week.
Just FYI, frozen veggies usually are more nutritious and have just as much flavor, if not more, than fresh, so they’re better for you anyway. They’re frozen at the peak of freshness, right when they’re picked, whereas fresh produce is picked and transported, sometimes all the way across the country, or from another country. It might take a week or more for it to get to your grocery store, by which time it’s not really fresh anymore and some of the nutrients and flavor have degraded.
I own a daycare in the southeast. I can feed my family and 30 some odd kids under 5 plus 10 other adults (my employees) for less than $300 a week. So, it behooves me to think that a family of 4 needs that much money for food. Take into consideration that I am buying about 13 gallons of milk a week and at $4.00 a gallon, that seriously cuts into that $350. So, again, how does it take that much for 4 people when obviously they don’t need 13 gallons of milk a week? Just something to think about.
Well, it’s a toss up as to the worst dietary habits between UK and California. I think UK takes the cake with those bags of chocs and not much fresh fruit and veg…
It is assumed the researchers of this book have based this study on comparitive wealth per family unit, and of course what dollar value are we using? US I guess. Whilst it is fun to see what others are eating, I’m feeling this comparison is not completely realistic due to variations in dollar value. However I have not read the book, so perhaps I’m being cynical for no reason… I note the Australian family has not been included in this study, and I will add a rural family of 5 including 3 teenagers, will spend AUD $400 per week and there is no takeaway included because it is not available here.
Isn’t it strange how the poorer families further down hve larger smiles on their faces and the more affluent don’t smile at all. It seems the more one has, the more discontent they are. . .
Thank goodness for the cheap groceries in Dearborn, MI. I can easily buy for two each week between $30 and $40. We’ve gotten it down to $18.
Something I gotta wonder is in pictures like the Egypt one and the Bhutan one, are they really feeding *all* those people with that amount of food? It seems like there’s more than one family shown in those pictures.
And I’m amazed at the people who commented about the Sudanese family saying that they must have it good spending so little on food. Seriously, look at how much food is there… they aren’t living it good spending so little on food, they’re feeding 5 people and a baby off of that small amount for an entire week.
More than interesting, this is eye-opening.
Very interesting and eye opening. It’s crazy how different things are across the globe. I’ll keep my eyes open for that book.
That German family is going 30 beers and 4 wines a week? Nice
I am from Italy but I have never seen anyone eating that much bread in a week! Anyhow, very interesting.
it is terrible to see the difference between the first world countries and 3 world countries. it brings home the reality of how fortunate we are
This is amazing to see. The different amounts of money and the different qualities of food are rather astounding. Thank you for sharing.
well, they have great britain wrong for certain.
i live here …. 221 dollars? Sorry charlie.
that $221 converts at the current rate of exchange to $400, not 200. actually it would be 441 in usa dollars.
also not mentioned ….we haven’t a clue how much state aid in food some of these places get to augment food supply shown here.
i am not saying it’s all bogus but certainly open to questions. for example …Bhutan – $5 a week for food. none of those pictured look to be starving, rates of exchange need to be taken into the picture and i find it hard to believe that the food shown is all there is in that family. i could go on but will end it here simply saying, take another closer look and question.
woops …. had my conversion wrong. thinking in pounds and dollars sometimes gets twisted.
but stand by other comments.
Very Interesting. I wanted to know about this for a long time. Good post.
I find it funny that so many of you are focused on stereotypes. It’s pretty pathetic actually. You’re looking at pictures from across the world and all you can see is their skin color and the country they come from. Some of your comments are disgusting.
Great post. It shows that no one on earth should go hungry if we all cared a little, and helped out.
Very interesting and amazing photographs.
The Mexicans go 12 share size cokes a week? No wonder their kids are so fat.
Heart touching post! So this tells that of people from Germany, japan, china, itly, USA .. so on. if donate a little bit from their weekly budget of food it can do a lot of good for Breidjing Camp. So what is UNICEF doing ?
Cheer up Mongoloid Dad!
i apologize for my comments
that dad is not a mongoloid
and mexican kids are not fat
busca lucerito pedo
if i see those families
i think
I NEED TO BUY MORE VEGETABLES
Great post! Linked you from my site. Perhaps I could send you one such photo from India.
Found you thru StumbleUpon btw.
Sid
Sure, be my guest
Amazing! :0 When you see it all laid out that way… it’s quite humbling.
I live in Germany and, honestly, if I filled my cart with everything in that picture I wouldn’t pay much more than 150 Euro (That’s around $219 with today’s rate of exchange). It’s possible that they drink a very expensive wine, but unlikely, as wine here is cheap when compared with U.S. prices. The beer isn’t a factor in expense as beer is about as cheap as water or soda (cheaper, in some cases.) Even if everything they bought is 100% organic I couldn’t imagine it costing more than double my original estimate.
Lots of stereotypes and actually wrong observations.
The prices for the German family are far too high, also there are much less beer on the table than cited earlier on. And alcohol is indeed very inexpensive there as well.
The $ figure on food is totally irrelevant anyway as you have to compare food prices in relation to income and the average prices of staple food. If there is hardly any cabbage available, but you want fresh cabbage than you would spend a higher percentage of income on cabbage. Also: if you live in NZ you pay around $3-4 for one fresh capsicum. In Oz you will get away with $2/kilo. Income average in NZ is significantly lower than in OZ!
Comparing the nutritious aspect of food and the environmental impact of what one buys would be a far more interesting subject.
Food is NOT about spending little money on it (or even as little as you possibly can) but about quality and environmental consequences!
Excellent post… interesting research work done!
Nice Pics, but that’s rubbish. Check our the exact amount the people would have to eat or drink – Germans would drink 6 bottles of wine and app. 12 bottles of beer per week.
Food in Italy is far more expensive than in Germany, just as an example
I wish the family size was consistent for better comparison. As others mentioned, two small children in CA don’t eat as much as one adult whereas ONE teenage boy can eat 1.5 the amount as a mother (and the NC family has TWO of them).
I’m in CA, and $150 a week feeds our household (husband, wife, 3 cats, and 1 large dog) without any packaged or take out food. This includes both lunch and dinner at home plus any typical household comsumable items such as laundry supplies, paper goods, shampoo, etc., and we hardly eat out. It is tight at $150, but if we cook everything from scratch, it’s very doable. Without pets, $150/week would be pretty comfortable for two even in S. CA.
I’m from Germany. My family spends 300€ A MONTH for food
Those photos and numbers are AMAZING!
wow this is serious stuff. also take in account the number of people to the amount of food available. I mean for instance in Bhutan and Egypt there’s 12-13 people with that little amount of food whereas in Germany 4 people have $500 dollars worth of food. Thats insane and thats the reality of this world..