you are what you eat.

midwife/middle school science teacher | san antonio, tx | 3-person household (including dog) | first week after deciding to eat locally grown vegetables.


bartender | san antonio, tx | 1-person household | goes to sleep at 8am and wakes up at 4pm daily.

you are what you eat by mark menjivar.

you are what you eat is a series of portraits made by documenting the interiors of refrigerators in homes across the united states. for three years, [mark] traveled around the country exploring food issues. the more time [mark] spent speaking and listening to individual stories, the more [mark] began to think about the foods we consume and the effects they have on us as individuals and communities. an intense curiosity and questions about responsibility led me to begin making these unconventional portraits.

a refrigerator is both a private and a shared space. one person likened the question, "may i photograph the interior of your fridge?" to asking someone to pose nude for the camera. each fridge is photographed as is: nothing added, nothing taken away.

these are portraits of the rich and the poor, of vegetarians, republicans, members of the nra, those left out, the under-appreciated, former soldiers in hitler’s ss, dreamers and so many more. we never know the full story of one's life. my hope is that we will think deeply of the ways we care: how we care for our bodies, how we care for others and how we care for the land.