Hungry Planet - Turkey

Here is a family from Istanbul, Turkey and their food for a week, from the book Hungry Planet by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio.

You can see the PICTURE of the Çelik family here (5 members + grandmother). They live in a one-bedroom apartment.

Turkish cuisine is traditionally high in carbohydrates. Today's Turkish diet differs from the traditional diet: the modern diet is higher in refined carbohydrates and in sugar. Turkish desserts are usually sweeter than European ones.

Let's see how this family eats (9.4 kg of food per person, per week).

• 36% starches (a lot of white bread, rice, pasta, etc.)
•   3% sweet foods (sugar, jam, honey, etc.)
•   8% dairy (yoghurt, feta cheese, butter)
•   4% meat, fish, eggs
• 16% fruits (oranges, dates, bananas, pomegranates)
• 33% vegetables (zucchini, tomatoes, olives, cabbage, carrots, eggplants, spinach, onion, etc.)

If we group the carbohydrates and fruits, we get:

• 55% starches + sweet food + fruits (about 2/3 of this amount is a white flour product)
• 45% vegetables + dairy + meat, fish eggs

Surprisingly the proportion of sweet foods is not very high.

Beverages (almost 2 litres per person per week):

•   8% milk
• 92% soft drinks and alcohol

Most of their drink is Coca-Cola and beer (1.7 litres per person per week). They only drink 1 small cup of milk per person, per day. It is very little compared to the amount of soft drinks consumed.

This a high carbohydrate diet with a lot of white flour and sugar from sweets and soft drink. The meat and dairy portion of this diet is very little: 12% of the whole diet.

The consequences of such diet in this country:

• Overweight population: 48% male, 65% female.
• Obese population: 11% male, 32% female
• Diabetes (age 20 or older): 7.3% of the population

A favorite Turkish recipe: Puf Böreği. Enjoy!

Puf Böreği