Blog Action Day 2011: Let’s All Talk About Food · Global Voices
Diego Casaes

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. Its aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion around an important issue that impacts us all.
On Global Voices, we have covered past Blog Action Days and helped share stories about water in 2010 and climate change in 2009. This year the topic is food, as the Blog Action Day coincides with World Food Day, an event organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Global Voices authors have written a lot about food already. Most recently, its special coverage about the United Nations Millenium Development Goals in 2011 includes a series of posts about the struggle to end famine and alleviate poverty. Our community was also commissioned to create a series of posts on Food Insecurity with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Our reports draw on citizen media and are featured on the Pulitzer Gateway to Food Insecurity.
Acarajé is a dish made from peeled black-eyed peas formed into a ball and then deep-fried in dendê (palm oil). It is found in Nigerian and Brazilian cuisine. The dish is traditionally encountered in Brazil's northeastern state of Bahia. Photo by Rita Ribeiro on Flickr (CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 license).
An open invitation to anyone with a blog is on the Blog Action Day website. You can find a list of suggested topics here; some of them include famine in East Africa, hunger and poverty, malnutrition and conflicts over food.
But if you prefer not to get too serious for Blog Action Day, you can also write about your favorite foods, organic food or vegetarianism. There's a lot to say about food, and the topic breaks down in many different occasions and issues:
We use food to mark times of celebration and sorrow. Lack of access to food causes devastating famines, whilst too much is causing a generation of new health problems.  It can cost the world, or be too cheap for farmers to make a living.
The way we companies produce  food and drinks can provide  important jobs for communities or be completely  destructive to habitats and local food producers.  Food can  give us energy to get through the day or contain ingredients that gives us allergic reactions.
Food can cooked by highly skilled chefs with inventive flair, or mass produced and delivered with speed at the side of road. It can be incredibly healthy or complete junk and bad for your health. It can taste delicious or be a locals only delicacy.
Food is important to our culture, identity and daily sustenance and the team at Blog Action invite you to join us to talk about food
If you are interested, read more about food from the perspective of the Global Voices community.
And remember, October 16 is the time to blog about food, whether you want to write about complex issues involving food or just tell your friends about your favorite dishes. You can join this online rally and help raise awareness about the topic.
Register for Blog Action Day by filling this form, and don't forget to follow @BlogActionDay11 on Twitter.