Why I Write About Food: Creating Community

What does—or could, or even should—it mean to write about food today?

I am honored to join more than 40 amazing writers in a conversation about this question as part of a multi-site discussion hosted by Food Editor Nicola Twilley, in honor of the re-launch of GOOD magazine’s food section.

It’s funny, in a million years I would never have imagined myself a writer. To be honest, I never really enjoyed writing. After graduating with a degree in Sociology and Environmental Science from the University of Wisconsin, I was sure that a life of green building was ahead of me.

Last February, I began developing a concept for a networked food system that empowers better decision-making across the system with aggregated existing and real-time data. I spent months trying to figure where and how to begin. After the viral spread of my first blog post, a visualization of the global food system, which attracted 3,200 visitors from a wide range of disciplines, I discovered media as a powerful medium for promoting this grand vision.

I began using Food+Tech Connect as a place to explore the innovative ways that people are leveraging information technology to address problems connected to how we grow, prepare, and relate with food. The more I write, the more opportunities I have to connect with people and learn about who is actively involved or interested in the food+tech movement and why. It’s become clear that there is a hunger for information about this sector.

Writing is how I help build community for the growing food and information technology movement. Posts such as my interviews about Human Cheese, Windowfarms, and Real Time Farms have been an incredible way for me to connect, inform, and engage technologists, entrepreneurs, food advocates, farmers, public officials, and open government and data advocates, in a new conversation about how to address challenges throughout our food system.