Hungry Planet Exhibition at the Canada Science and Technology Museum

In 1994, in a popular magazine, I think it was ELLE I brought from France, I saw fascinating pictures from 30 countries showing people’s belongings put outside of their houses. It was Material World: A Family Global Portrait project, inspired by the UN International Year of the Family, implemented by a group of photographers around the world, and directed by Peter Menzel. I think I still keep this magazine among other “treasures” – books, periodicals, and newspaper cuts - for these impressive pictures: a global portrait of our cultures, values, and lifestyles.

Here is another project by Peter Menzel, who is showing this time our global dietary portrait - Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. And here is again this alluring liberty to look inside people’s private spaces and this shocking difference in human conditions.

Peter Menzel’s approach didn’t change: we see again “average” families of four or more people, like, for example, an American family, which in Material World project was represented with 2 TV sets, an American flag and a Bible in the foreground. This time again American family is at the "rich" end of the exhibition - $450 -$350 spent weekly on food: happy faces of two young men holding two extra-large “crunchy” boxpizzas are the first things you cannot help but notice. On the opposite wall an average Japanese family exhibits for a comparable weekly budget a contrasting visual result, with lots of fresh fish among other "stuff", which, seen from our North-American "remoteness", could be classified as “different”.

Walking from the $500 weekly ration of an averge German family to the “meager” end of the exhibition, where people from Guatemala, Mali, and Ecuador are shown with what they can have weekly for their food budget of $20-30, you will certainly notice the following:

- the progressive predominance of naturally grown vegetables and cereals, which breaks at the level of weekly $20 food budgets, where it all becomes just scarcity;
- the complete absence of industrial pizzas in the Italian kitchen, but a couple of pizza boxes on a Britain's table;
- an impressive number of buns and other bread products characteristic for Italy, Bosnia, Cuba, and India; actually, you could say that almost every nation in the world is a big bread eater;
- the average 1.5 bottles of wine on a French table will attest the statistical authenticity of the representations;
- a colorful variety of spices used in an Indian household will awake your imagination, and you might feel a bit hungry yourself.

For the sobering dessert: the very last picture showing a refugee family in Chad with their weekly supply worth $1.

I never forgot my own first “initiations” to the Western lifestyle by my friends in France having a very strong ethical code and a rich humanitarian experience. Among other things I remember that they would never order a Banana Split for the reason of its “aggressive luxury”, offensive for the sight and the mind, imprinted by this shocking number: 1.2 billion hungry people in the world. I cannot remember a single meal I had since then without thinking about it. Especially when I’m looking at the size of an average North-American restaurant order, or see how my party friends are throwing in the garbage generous leftovers. I cannot stop thinking each time when I’m cooking for my small family in Canada what my mother, who lives in a country where food is expensive for many, had on her plate this day.































On our way back from the museum, we reflected on the title of the exhibition: Hungry Planet. We thought that this is an exhibition about those most hungry whose pictures were not exhibited, but who are so strongly present, because once you acknowledge, you cannot forget. We thought that all people everywhere – rich, poor, average – get hungry and need food. And as it was time for us to buy grocery for the upcoming week, we decided to complete the global culinary portrait by our two-women-and-a-cat coalition, which suddenly became a thought provoking experience. We don’t buy any coke, juices, or other industrial beverages, having for all drinks filtered water and countless teas and coffees. We have fresh fruits, vegetables, fish and poultry rather than industrial pizzas, precooked food, or red meat. With 1 bag of Doritos, 4 cans of cat food, one sushi meal, 6 popsicles, one can of beer, and a glass of wine, we are, I think, pretty moderate in our consumption. And yet price-wise, our portrait would go to the “fatty” end of the exhibition. Well, the reality is that eating fresh and healthy is expensive. As Anna said: “Ten apples cost as much as 10 bags of potato chips”.

This week we didn’t buy our usual Kit-Kat – having a break waiting until they stop using the palm oil coming from palm plantation grown in place of cut rainforests in Indonesia. We didn’t buy tuna in spite of the failure of the ban to trade it at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Consumer choices will make the difference. And let's not forget: as Food Bank says, HUNGER HAS MANY FACES.

Bon appétit!