{"id":658,"date":"2017-07-31T06:43:55","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T06:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/?p=658"},"modified":"2017-08-18T05:45:56","modified_gmt":"2017-08-18T05:45:56","slug":"processed-food-for-a-hungry-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/processed-food-for-a-hungry-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Processed Food for a Hungry Planet"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Hungry Planet: What the World Eats<\/em>, Peter Menzel captures the effects of our changing world in ways that words cannot. Significant cultural and economic patterns emerge throughout the collection of photographs. Industrialization, globalization, and international trade continue to influence culture, food practices, health, and consumption behavior at the local level.<\/p>\n

The effects of globalization among families in affluent countries were striking in Menzel\u2019s work. Invariably, each family\u2019s diet included processed food \u2013 characteristic of a Western diet. Through these photographs, it becomes clear that several large American food and beverage companies have come to dominate international markets, as well as domestic. Familiar brands crop up in photographs of families around the world; processed food has become an international dietary cornerstone.<\/p>\n

As processed foods are integrated into diets around the world, traditional diets and food practices are squeezed out. Menzel\u2019s photographs capture the insidious standardization of food consumption and preferences throughout the world, as the Western diet takes center stage in global consumption patterns. The consequences of a globalized Western diet extend beyond the losses to cultural diversity and resilience, however. In\u00a0In Defense of Food<\/em>, Michael Pollan explores the myriad of negative health outcomes associated with this pattern of eating. He writes, \u201c[P]eople who eat the way we do in the West today suffer substantially higher rates of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and obesity than people eating any number of different traditional diets.\u201d (page <\/span>90)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pictured: The Brown family of Riverview, Australia with a week’s worth of food.
\n\u00a9 2005 Peter Menzel \/ Hungry Planet: What the World Eats<\/em> \/ www.menzelphoto.com<\/p>\n

Given the correlatio<\/span>n bet<\/span>ween a globali<\/span>zed Wester<\/span>n diet and increased negative health outcomes, it\u2019s clear that something can be gleaned from populations in both industrialized and developing countries. Affluent countries generally present greater access to food and food <\/span>variety<\/em>. Food security is less sweeping of an issue in affluent countries, as compared to systemically poorer nations. Furthermore, populations in developed countries tend to enjoy better living conditions, with access to healthcare and critical social resources. That being said, populations in developing countries tend to practice \u201chealthier\u201d dietary consumption patterns, even if out of necessity or lack of alternatives. In adhering to traditional diets \u2013 absent of processed foods, excessive meat \u2013 these populations may avoid many of the health-related pitfalls associated with a Western diet<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Hungry Planet: What the World Eats, Peter Menzel captures the effects of our changing world in ways that words cannot. Significant cultural and economic patterns emerge throughout the collection of photographs. Industrialization, globalization, and international trade continue to influence culture, food practices, health, and consumption behavior at the local level. The effects of globalization among families in affluent countries… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,3,227,7,1],"tags":[276,35,162,277,278,275,158],"class_list":["post-658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumption","category-economics","category-hungry-planet","category-public-health","category-uncategorized","tag-developing-countries","tag-globalization","tag-hungry-planet","tag-industrialized-countries","tag-industrialized-food-system","tag-processed-food","tag-western-diet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.washington.edu\/ps385\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}