What The World Eats

The thing that shocked me the most about this passage was the ratio of food to family members in certain countries. For example, an American family of four could spend nearly 350 United States dollars a week on food while an Egyptian family of twelve could spend close to 70 United States dollars a week on food. It didn't take very long for me to find a pattern in food spending across the entire world. There was a British family of four who spent 250 United States dollars on food a week, a French family of four who spent 400 United States dollars a week on food and a Norwegian family of five who spent 370 United States dollars a week on food.
I realized that America, along with most European countries spent more money per week on food than other countries. Pretty shocking? Right? I didn't think so either, but I wanted to know why, so I decided to research the subject for an answer.
After pages of google results and news article after news article I had a thought. In countries such as Chad, Egypt and Ecuador, most families ate fruits and vegetables while American and European families ate mostly packaged food. Could this mean that certain families were growing their own food while American and European families were just buying their food at a store? I looked up the decline of the small American family farm and found out that there are nearly 4 million less farms in America than there were 100 years ago. This lead me to believe that most Americans and Europeans are too dependent on big industries for their food. I think that if more people grew their own food or bought food locally they would probably be healthier, spend less money, and support more local business.