As Danny mentioned, today is World Food Day- one of the few international holidays that I know of that affects everyone worldwide. With nearly one billion people undernourished worldwide, juxtaposed against an increasingly overweight population in the US, World Food Day is an opportunity to reflect on the sources of your food, how your food choices affect the world food crisis and the implications of our agriculture policies on domestic and international issues (such as the opposite forces of malnutrition and obesity competing for our resources).

According to the United Nations, this year’s holiday is an opportunity to recognize the relationship between global warming and food. As their site says, Food is Energy. The relationship between your food choices and global warming cannot be ignored food production, especially from livestock, is one of the largest contributor’s to greenhouse gases, the main global warming culprit. Learn what you can do to reduce your carbon footprint with eco-friendly food choices at Take A Bite Out of Climate Change. These include simple things such as skipping meat one day a week, buying reducing the amount of processed food you consume and not wasting food. Cumulatively, everyone’s actions will make a significant difference in reducing global warming, helping to develop a sound agriculture policy at home and addressing the international food crisis.

takepart with Take A Bite out of Climate Change

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This Thursday marks the 27th anniversary of World Food Day, a global event orchestrated to raise awareness and understanding of hunger, and to seek solutions to alleviate this worldwide problem.   This year’s theme is ‘World Food Insecurity - the challenge of climate change’ and events are expected to take place in over 150 countries, and in cities across the U.S. The focus of World Food Day is particularly vital now as we are seeing a dramatic rise of food shortages and sharp increases in food prices that are effecting people everywhere.   There are a multitude of factors that have led to these dire circumstances, and World Food Day brings together communities and organizations to coordinate dynamic and localized responses to the problems.

takepart by attending an event in your community or organize an event if there isn’t one planned already.

This morning, while listening to one of my favorite KCRW shows, Good Food, I learned about breadfruit and it’s potential to provide a nutritious, sustainable food source, particularly to those in need.   The funky-looking fruit not only serve as an excellent source of starch, protein, vitamins and minerals, but the trees offer construction materials, medicine, glue, fabric, animal feed, insect repellent and the list goes on.   Originating from the Pacific Islands, and often associated with The Mutiny on the Bounty, breadfruit has become a staple crop throughout the Caribbean, Africa and Southeast Asia.   A productive, fast-growing and resilient crop, breadfruit offers sustenance in the face of food shortages, self-sufficiency for aide-dependant nations, and watershed and wildlife protection as an alternative to slash-and-burn agriculture.

As useful as breadfruit could be, the crop is threatened by climate change and human negligence.   The Breadfruit Institute warns:

The cultivation and use of breadfruit has decreased in many areas and numerous trees have been lost due to drought, storm damage, and neglect. Global warming is a special concern to the low-lying coral atolls due to the increase in number and severity of devastating storms and salt water intrusion into the water table. A number of varieties of breadfruit have already disappeared or are becoming rare.

The Institute seeks to protect threatened varieties, encourage the cultivation of this remarkable, sustainable crop, and teach people it’s multitude of uses.

takepart by supporting the breadfruit conservation efforts of  The National Tropical Botanical Garden, home of the Breadfruit Institute, and learn more about this sustainable staple.

The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Nicole Hughes:

U.S. Media Ignores Link Between Midwest Floods and Global Warming

Top 10 Houseplants for Removing Indoor Air Pollution

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Andy Kondrat:

Dubai to Build Rotating Positive Energy Tower

Bioethicist Peter Singer Tackles World Food Shortage

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Jon Popham:

Americacorps Workers Assist Flood Ravaged Town

Australians “Out-Fat” Americans

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Giulia Rozzi:

Progressive Book Club

Oprah Recommends “A New Earth”

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Gina Telaroli:

Human Rights Watch 2008 Film Festival Update

SilverDocs 2008 Update

Peter Singer, possibly the world’s most renowned bioethicist (I mean, how many others can you think of?), found himself on NPR’s Marketplace today to discuss this food crisis we’re in the midst of. Dr. Singer starts with a very simple question: “Why are we in the midst of a food crisis when world production of food per person has actually grown steadily since the 1960s?”

There are a few reasons according to Dr. Singer, not least of which is our new forays into ethanol production, which takes 100 million tons of corn off our tables. But it’s the meat people eat that’s really doing it. Dr. Singer breaks it down old skool:

But most corn isn’t eaten by humans; it’s eaten by animals and that’s the biggest part of the problem. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 756 million tons of grain plus most of the world’s soybean crop are fed to animals and that amount has increased sharply in recent years as Asian nations have become more prosperous and their populations have started eating more meat.

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Gossip Girl Spoilers, Miley Cyrus, Mindy McCready, Roger Clemens, Dancing with the Stars, The Miley Cyrus Photo Shoot, Miley Cyrus’ Green Bra, are ten of the stories our country is obsessing over.

These 10 terms are among the 100 hottest trends on google trends, but for me they are the top 10 unimportant stories people shouldn’t waste their time and energy on. So here is a list of the top ten most important and inspiring stories that should be getting attention but aren’t. If we spent as much time thinking about these, the world would be a better place. So let’s try!

1. Is the Pentagon preparing for Iran?
2. Twenty-seven United Nations agencies are gathering today in the Swiss capital Bern to develop a battle plan to deal with the global food crisis.
3. Saudi Arabia’s most popular blogger has been freed after serving four months in prison without charge. Fouad Al-Farhan was detained in December after posting critical comments about Saudi government policies. Farhan is known as the godfather of blogging in Saudi Arabia. He defines his online mission as the search for freedom, dignity, justice, equality, public participation and other lost Islamic values.

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