We live in a country where, in order to stay healthy, many of us have to literally plan out ways to keep from eating all the food that is available to us. We are aware that starvation exists, but it can be a difficult concept to visualize - even though malnutrition is a prevalent issue in our own country.
When it comes to imagining what a scarcity or overabundance of food actually looks like, a picture says a thousand words - and as many as 12,300 calories. A new photography exhibit called "What I Eat: Around the World in 25 Diets," now open at the Boston Museum of Science, will depict normal people around the world, presenting their day's worth of food as well as a calorie count. The food presented ranges from 800 calories (the daily intake for one Kenyan herder) to the aforementioned 12,300 (a British woman whose diet is chock-full of junk food).
Though the photos in the exhibit may cast a shadow of guilt over those of us who regularly get enough to eat, the goal is not to make eaters repent, but rather to raise awareness of what eating looks like the world around. In a Well blog entry, one of the exhibition's contributors explains:
“It isn’t so much to point out problems as it is to open eyes,” [writer Faith] D’Alusio said. “We’ve been focused on food for a while because everybody has to eat. It’s a common denominator.”
