In order to obtain a picture of a stranger's refrigerator I reached out to one of my friends, Sam. As I have just met Sam this year I have never met her family before and asked if she would mind giving me her mom's contact information. After a phone call explaining my project her mom willingly sent me a picture of the inside of her fridge, as you can see on the left!
From just taking a quick glance at this picture I can infer a lot of information. For example, the fridge is almost completely empty, making me realize that since Sam and her older brother both aren't living at home anymore her parents don't need nearly as much food. This makes me wonder if they often go out to eat or order take-out often. It is also possible that I simply have caught the family at a time before their weekly shopping trip. Another possibility of the lack of food is that perhaps someone has a variety of dietary concerns that limits what they can eat, causing a small supply of food. There are also a variety of dairy products including yogurt, feta cheese, and milk. All of which are relatively healthy and provide a good source of protein. There also aren't a lot of unhealthy foods or alcohol, making me think they are conscious of what they put in their bodies.
In terms of the pictures we looked at in class of the selections from Hungry Planet, Sam's family doesn't really fit in with the American family's photograph. They don't have a lot of soda, sugary items, or processed foods as the American family did. This shows that although a lot of Americans do eat a lot of processed foods it doesn't mean that we all do. This proves that we can't stereotype countries as a whole, as individuals among the nation often vary in their eating habits.
Another element of this picture that caught my eye was all of the containers and packaging. I couldn't help but to think back to the podcast we listened to, Outside the Box: The Story of Food Packaging. All these containers are all shapes and sizes and contain different forms of labeling and advertising. Before listening to this podcast I would've never paid attention to these packages but now I'm realizing just how specialized they are to each product. Each package is used to make these products recognizable and visible at first glance. For example, I instantly recognized the feta cheese based on the Greek-inspired font. It is really quite interesting how much packaging has changed over the years.