In 2007, Time magazine published a photo story called What the World Eats. It’s a series of photos by Peter Menzel of families from different countries surrounded by one week’s worth of groceries for their household.
In the photo captions, Menzel lists some common dishes for the family and how much a week of food costs in each nation’s currency, as well as American dollars.
The families featured in Menzel’s three-part series come from places like Poland, the United States, Australia, and Costa Rica’s northern neighbor, Guatemala.
Because Menzel featured Guatemala’s popular foods, I thought it’d be interesting to delve into the eating lifestyle of a native Costa Rican, commonly called a Tico.
Black beans and rice are the staple of virtually all Tico meals. The Viva Costa Rica! site says these two foods are implemented into breakfast as “gallo pinto seasoned with onions and peppers, accompanied by fried eggs, sour cream, and corn tortillas.”
For dinner, Ticos might enjoy a soup or stew made of beef and several veggies. Other common foods are plantains, which serve as a tasty banana-like snack. Or roast pork, the primary meat in Costa Rican cuisine.
Similar to Americans, Ticos love their seafood and coffee. But most of the highly desired foods are expensive and found in the nation’s capital, San Jose. Outside of this central area, most Ticos rely on a variety of vegetables, and the two staple foods mentioned earlier.
The Guatemalan diet consists of many vegetables and crops because much like Costa Rica, it is an agriculturally based economy.
Mendoza Family, from Todos Santos, Guatemala. Photo by Peter Menzel.
What the World Eats: Part II introduces the Mendoza family (above) of Todos Santos, Guatemala. Their family recipe includes Turkey Stew and Susana Perez Matias’s Sheep Soup. They spend about 573 Quetzales, or $75.70 in U.S. dollars.
The CIA World Factbook estimates Guatemala’s GDP per capita is US $5,200, making it one of the poorest countries in Latin America.
If you consider they spend about $75 on food per week, and multiply that to 52 weeks per year, the average Guatemalan is spending $3,900 every year on food. That is 75 percent of their annual income going to groceries.
I was unable to gather an estimate on the cost to eat in Costa Rica, but I presume it is considerably higher than that of Guatemala because it is much more economically stable.
Globalization and Digital Technology 