There is a super cool exhibit at UW's Burke Museum right, called Hungry Planet. The guts of this mobile exhibit are made of Peter Menzel's cool photos of what families and their week's food look like around the world. No surprise--the US has a lot of fast food, a billion gallons of soda and beer and just four people. Japan's has a ton of plastic packaging. Ecuador's grocery shopping involves the family mom strapping 100 pounds of potatoes to her back and walking it home across a mountaintop. The photos combine voyeurism with liberal guilt in a compelling way.
I got rather spazzily excited about it all, and started a project for work about it, called Hungry City: Seattle. I took a photo of my week's food (with a TON of caveats). You might dig it. Find it here.
I don't mean for this post to seem all self-promotional bullshitty; it's just that I don't really want to rewrite the whole work-blog entry here, and the Burke really did get me all spazzily excited. You should go see the exhibit; it's around 'til the first week in June or thereabouts. I'm really glad I don't have to buy drinking water or schlep 100 pounds of potatoes on my back while my husband leads a donkey home from the store, which is many roadless miles away. Three cheers for first world problems, like my frustration regarding the cheese selection in my immediate neighborhood.
