Study of Book, OUR HUNGRY PLANET

So this week we studied the book, Our Hungry Planet.  It depicts one family chosen from each of a variety of different countries and then shows what each family eats in a week, as well as where the food comes from and how it is prepared.  The little ones had a great time trying to figure out which country looked most like our week of food.  We took a picture of our week's worth of food and then had the kids compare the photo to the families in the book.  The kids could not agree on which was closest to our diet.  Tom Sawyer thought we looked most like Italy, which was close, but I think he was just in love with the pasta.  He simply adores pasta!  Little Red Ridinghood and Goldilocks went back and forth between Poland (problem ~ they had a lot of candy bars) and Bosnia (problem ~ they had a lot more potatoes and not as much fresh fruit).  They finally decided on Poland because of the concentration of yogurt and lots of carrots with very little meat.  The big teen leaned toward the family in Australia that concentrated on eating healthily.  They all agreed that we didn't eat like any of the American families in the book.  They also thought trying the week's worth of food from Mexico looked yummy (heavy on coke and chips) and were completely grossed out by the diets of Mali and Chad (they are used to meat in a package, not freshly slaughtered).  Here is our week's worth of food ~





The contents are as follows:  yeast, 2 lbs peanuts, popcorn, two cans tomato sauce, 1 lb hamburger, two packages lunch meat, 1 lb bacon, 1 lb hot dogs, 14 apples, 20 eggs, two frozen pie crusts, ketchup, 3 lbs of cheese, two packs of croissants, 1 lb noodles, 1 lb of spaghetti, 3 cups sugar, 12 tea bags, about 5 cups of canola oil, 1 gallon milk, 15 cups of oatmeal,  two cans of chili beans, 3 cans tuna, honey, peanut butter, 64 oz organic yogurt, 5 lbs of flour, 2 lb of spaghetti sauce, 1/2 gallon of cookies and cream organic ice cream, 3 lbs of vegetable melody, a large bag of salad, two large containers of strawberries and blueberries, 4 cups of raisins, two 96 oz containers of apple juice, 32 oz of salsa, bag of corn chips, two sticks of butter, and 18 bananas (mayo and ranch dressing not shown).  We are so blessed to have this much food! 


I don't think we have cheated from this list of food yet, except for eating chocolate ice cream with sprinkles as is our tradition when my dd's tooth fell out.  We will probably not use the fixings for chili and do something else, since it is already in the high 80's here.  As you can see, there is a lack of any bread.  I made my own bread, rolls, cupcakes and muffins this week.  We also do not like oatmeal until it is turned into granola, so we made that as well.  My kids would eat fruit all day if I let them, so I spend a good portion of our grocery budget on that.  We also try to eat only organic free-range meat, so we only have meat a few times a week and in small portions (1 lb of meat for all six of us).  Meat is used more like a flavoring in our home.  Also, the bag of peanuts were donated by a friend, and we ended up making peanut butter out of them (which got mixed reviews). 


This turned out to be a really fun study, and I think the kids did learn some of the goals I hoped they would.  For one, they got to see how little food some people get to eat and how lucky they are to have so much food to eat.  Remember when you were a kid sitting over that dish crying about not wanting to eat it, and your mom said, "Somewhere in Africa some child would love to eat that"?  Well, I have the book to prove it, and I hope my kiddos remember that for awhile.  They also got to learn about lots of different cultures, which is always a good thing.  Next week ~ pen pals!


Blessings, Dawn