No big surprise here — the the citizens of richer countries do eat more food. The interesting thing is to ask what the actual numbers mean, in terms of health. Simply put, people living in the developed world eat way too much. Oddly, this might mean that the current poor will one day be healthier than the formerly rich.

On this map, white means 3400-3700 calories per person per day. The US Health and Human Services Dietary Guidelines 2005 includes a rather sophisticated chart recommending average daily caloric intake for men and women of different ages and levels of activity, but the maximum value on it is 2800-3200 calories/day for a teenage male who walks more than three miles per day. By comparison, the average sedentary 35 year old woman needs just 1800 calories per day. This means that many people in America must actually be eating twice as much as they need.

There are epidemic health problems with this, obesity and its consequences (heart disease, diabetes) being the most obvious. But there is a less well-known advantage to eating less: it might make you live longer. In 1935 it was discovered that rats kept on a very restricted diet lived 30% longer, four years instead of the usual three. Since then it has been established that that “calorie restricted” diets increase lifespan in mice, dogs, and, in the last few years monkeys. There is still no direct evidence that eating less will make a human live longer — that will take decades — but the early results of small, short term studies are highly suggestive that it will.

And yet all those underfed people in Africa are dying sooner than well-fed whites, as this map of global lifespan shows.

Contrary to research, you can see that global lifespan is more or less highly correlated with caloric intake. Why is this? One longevity researcher notes that “In experiments of nature, humans have been subjected to periods of nonvolitional partial starvation. However, the diets in almost all of these cases have been of poor quality.” In other words, there is a difference between eating less and starving; besides which, we rich people have access to all the wonders not only of modern medicine but of simple public health infrastructure, such as clean water.

Still, it’s not hard to imagine that one day, Africans etc. will be able to eat “high quality” diets and drink clean water. What then? Perhaps the formerly poor of the world will follow us into gluttony just because they can. Or, perhaps their frugal eating habits will persist, raising the strange possibility that the citizens of the developing world will actually begin to outlive us.

But I doubt it. While data from India over the last several decades actually show slight decline in overall per-capita caloric intake, the richest 30% of the population is definitely eating more. Like people, nations usually have to make all their own mistakes before they learn.

Aiesha finally asked me what the flavor on the meat was and I pointed to the bottles on her dirt floor. I’d scoured the town for condiments and managed to assemble a vinegar-chili-sugar marinade. She seemed incredulous. “There’s a whole bottle of vinegar in this meal!” she confided to a friend. Expensive, at least for Ghourma-Rharous, a town of mud houses for 3000 people on the edge of the Sahara desert.

The only other white person in town was my friend Rebecca, who was devouring the gourmet meal with an exquisite expression. Such subtlety of flavor, she seemed to be saying to me as she tore into her brochette. Such delicious fresh food – I’d hand carried the mangoes from 200km away, and we’d had to ask around to buy the tomatoes, like contraband goods. Such a feat of culinary invention in the most trying of circumstances. Such artful cooking. Such– refinement!

And the Africans were having none of it, munching on this ingenious masterpiece like it was nothing special.

Flash forward to the dark wood table of a modern penthouse. I could never afford to live here, but my friend can. The floor is marble. The wine is unpronounceable. It’s good. I like the taste. He’s spent years studying wine. This is a bottle of something expensive.

I am quite sure it’s lost on me.

I stare at the half bottle and wonder at the pleasures of his life, if I could only learn to appreciate them. Once I thought wine snobbery pretentious. Maybe it still is, but now I understand that the things you love are learned.

And yet I still have the urge to cook sophisticated trifles for my friend Baba in his mud-walled home. But be clear: this is not about guilt. This is not about affluence. This is not about pity on those who can’t afford the good things in life. That’s completely ridiculous. Drink your wine. Enjoy your food. I’ve seen Tamils dig into beautiful soft paratha, Songhai men wolf down steaming plates of liver and onions, Russians gobble up caviar. It’s hard for me not to like my pleasures complex, but every art has its own perfection.