25 Kids From Around The World Photographed With What They Eat In One Week

"Daily Bread grew out of another of my projects on consumption and waste called 7 Days of Garbage," Segal said. "I asked family, friends, neighbors and anyone else I could convince to save their garbage for one week and then lie down and be photographed in it. It's impossible to ignore the problem of consumption and waste when you're lying in it! To me, the most disturbing thing about the garbage I photographed was the packaging that comes with our food. We've grown totally dependent on the industries of eating and cooking and the result has been a massive increase in waste. I began to ask, "How have our diets and local foods been impacted by this revolution in the way food is produced and consumed?" It struck me that we don't give enough thought to what's in our food because we're not the ones making it! We've outsourced the most vital ingredient of life, the connective tissue of families and culture. I thought, "What if we keep a journal of everything we eat and drink for one week to bring our focus onto diet & take ownership of the foods we eat?"

In total, Segal worked with about 60 kids, 52 of whom he included in the book. "I began photographing my son and friends of his from school in my backyard in Altadena, CA. I broadened the piece to include kids from other neighborhoods in Los Angeles and then decided the documentary photography project would resonate more deeply with a global scope. I needed a producer in each country to find the kids. The goal was to represent a diversity of diets in each location. If the rate of obesity in a given country was 25%, I aimed to reflect this percentage in my small sample of kids."

The photographer said that one of the biggest challenges working with many of the kids was the language barrier. "In many cases, I had to rely on crew members to translate and interpret for me – and hope they were accurately conveying what I wanted them to." But there were more obstacles Gregg had to overcome, for example, finding the right mix of kids, an experienced crew, equipment and locations that met my needs. "I needed a studio space with access to a kitchen to prepare the food for kids and a ceiling height of at least 13 feet (the camera height needed to be a consistent 12+ feet above the subject). Organization was critical but sometimes lacking. Making sure that all of the kids kept thorough journals of everything they ate so that those meals could be accurately reproduced, for instance. Fortunately, I had competent producers in most countries. Sometimes, the equipment I had access to wasn’t reliable, which was challenging because the lighting for the pictures needs to be consistent, of course. Another major hurdle was money; this was a very expensive project to produce and generating the funds wasn’t easy. Much of the funding came out of my pocket. I could have really used a benefactor or sponsor!"

"Recreating all of the kid’s meals was a challenge of course, too! Kids kept a journal of everything they ate for one week. At the end of the week, producers collected the journals, checked to make sure they were complete and then handed them off to the cooks who’d shop for all the ingredients and reproduce all of the meals. I photographed as many as 5 kids a day, so the cooks were responsible for preparing over 100 meals. These were often 14-hour days for the food-preppers. It was demanding and exhausting! Once all the food was prepped and plated, I’d arrange the dishes and other elements in the frame. Sometimes I’d have the luxury of a food stylist to collaborate with, though often it was just me doing the styling."

"One of the surprising lessons of Daily Bread is that the best quality diets with healthy foods are often eaten not by the richest but the poorest. In the US, the poor are the biggest consumers of junk food because it’s convenient and cheap. But in Mumbai, it costs $13 for a medium Dominoes pizza, which is way beyond the means of most people. Anchal lives with her family in an 8 X 8 foot aluminum hut. Her father earns less than $5 a day, yet she eats a wholesome diet of okra & cauliflower curries, lentils and roti which Anchal’s mother makes from scratch each day on a single kerosene burner. Shraman, on the other hand, lives in a middle-class Mumbai hi-rise and eats very differently. His family’s extra income means he can afford Dominoes pizza, fried chicken and treats like Snickers bars and Cadbury chocolate."

"In 2015, Cambridge University conducted an exhaustive study ranking diets around the world from most to least nutritional. Remarkably, 9 of the 10 healthiest countries are in Africa. It seems counterintuitive that some of the poorest countries lead the healthiest lifestyles. But when you look closely at what they’re eating, it makes sense: fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, and legumes and very little meat (which functions more as seasoning) and few empty calories (processed foods)."

"The revolution in diet and sameness of what kids around the world are eating," the Gregg added. "Ultrprocessed packaged foods, empty calories. The children I met have distinct personalities and diverse hobbies, yet they’re often eating in eerily similar ways. Compare the diets of Paulo from Sicily and Isaiah from Los Angeles. In the past, a Sicilian boy would have grown up eating very different foods from his counterpart in the US, but now their diets are converging. Both Paulo and Isaiah eat French fries, burgers, pizza, pasta and white bread. They live continents apart, but it’s as if the boys’ parents have been shopping at the same global superstore!"