I find myself weirdly fascinated by what other people eat — forget everything I tell you about not dieting or counting calories, I always read those articles in ladymags where people keep food journals. I’ve also done the food journal thing myself from time to time, though I always end up abandoning it because like bathroom scales, I think it can be a tool for both good and evil, and it gets hard to know where you’re drawing the line.

Anyway, I think I’m not alone in being fascinated by what other people eat, because just look how blogs there are where people document every bite they take. Sometimes it seems to be about demonstrating culinary genius, other times it’s a clear weight loss effort, other times it’s for reasons unknown (perhaps even to the person documenting). And now there’s this new photo book out called What I Eat, where a photojournalist and writer documented the daily diets of 80 people around the world.

Obvs, I’m a little obsessed with scrolling through all the pictures online. But I am also a little concerned about their decision to publish calorie counts alongside everyone’s picture. Yes it underscores the dichotomy of hunger and excess in our broken food system. But it also triggers all that weird, externalized food score-keeping… that is maybe what got us into so much trouble in the first place. Read more over on Never Say Diet. 

And, I feel this week’s Check Your Own Pretty Price coming on: Anyone else fascinated by what other people are eating? And are we fascinated a purely voyeuristic way, like how you totally do look in other people’s bathroom cabinets? Or is there something else going on?