Food for Thinkers: Writing About Numbers to Hack the Food System

In her Food for Thinkers post, Food + Tech Connect's Danielle Gould admits that she began her blog out of a passion for data, rather than words. She was, she writes, inspired by the idea of leveraging new technology and open, real-time data sets to "empower better decision-making" across a "networked food system."

But, as it turns out, writing is the glue that builds the community of hackers, entrepreneurs, activists, farmers, and chefs who, together, can begin to make that smarter, more transparent food system a reality:

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. [...] Writing is how I help build community for the growing food and information technology movement.

Visit Food + Tech Connect to read Gould's story, and browse posts on building an urban agriculture database, mapping the food supply chain, and monetizing online food networks.

Food for Thinkers is a week-long, distributed, online conversation looking at food writing from as wide and unusual a variety of perspectives as possible. Between January 18 and January 23, 2011, more than 40 food and non-food writers will respond to a question posed by GOOD's newly-launched Food hub: What does—or could, or even should—it mean to write about food today?

Follow the conversation all week here at GOOD, join in the comments, and use the Twitter hashtag #foodforthinkers to keep up to date.