Over at the World’s Fair, David has a post with pictures showing a week’s worth of food for families in various countries. It’s pretty eye-opening– the total volume of food (less packaging) for a family of four in the US or England exceeds that eaten by fifteen people in Mali.
Damn, but we’re gluttons.
FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) has a baseline minimum diet which they use for things like post-nuclear war planning. It’s the minimum to keep an average sedentary person alive and more-or-less functional for a year. It’s something like 120 pounds of wheat, 60 pounds of corn, 60 pounds of soybeans, a pound of salt and a handful of vitamin C. The farmer’s cut for the wheat, corn and soybeans is around $24.00.
Now think how much you spend on food in a year. That’s how far you live above subsistence.