What do other people eat?

Journalists Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, authors of 2006's Hungry Planet, have collaborated again on a book coming out next month and titled What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets (Material World, $40). In the book, they focus on people. Through vivid photographs and descriptions, What I Eat documents a typical day's diet for 80 people of varying age, occupation, size, income and nationality.

From a Maasai herder who subsists on 800 calories a day to a mother in Great Britain who binges on 12,300 calories in a single day, What I Eat includes testimony from a sumo wrestler in Japan, a model in New York, and Millie Mitra of India, who each morning drinks a glass of her own urine.

What I Eat offers a new perspective on nutrition, the relationship between diet and culture, and how globalization has changed how we look at food. “Our goal is to raise awareness so that people who are fortunate enough to be able to make choices will hopefully make better, healthier choices for themselves and, ultimately, for the planet,” Menzel writes.