Access to recipes provides a good excuse to friend a fruit.

We recently joined Facebook and were feeling pretty smug about our social networking savvy — until we noticed that even strawberries had beaten us to the site! Yup, the berry, as represented by the Oregon Strawberry Commission, is on Facebook to let its friends know when ruby-red Totem, Tillamook and Hood fruit is ripe. The Commission’s page includes the latest strawberry news, such as area strawberry festivals. (There are also recipes, which everyone can enjoy, Oregonian and otherwise.)

Humbled by being one-upped by a strawberry, we set out to see what other foods dabble in social media. Holy cow! There are hundreds, including additional unauthorized strawberry pages set up by renegade fruit fans. Since Facebook has more than 200 million users in more than 200 countries, many of the food fan pages appear in other languages, Spanish and French to name a few. Some fruits, like palta (Spanish for avocado), have no commission behind them, just lots of fans, who have set up dozens of different palta Facebook pages, each one with varying numbers of fans. Poor fennel has only 219 fans when we last checked, while asparagus, represented by the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board, has more than 3,000.

Beyond fruits and vegetables, you’ll of course find brand-name foods ranging from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to Boca Burgers to Kashi. Who’s got the most fans? It’s Coca-Cola with 3.4 million fans, followed by Pringles with 2.7 million. Is your favorite food on Facebook?

Tags: Asparagus, Avocado, Botany, Doughnut, EAST OREGONIAN PUBLISHING CO, Facebook, Facebook Inc, favorite food, Food and drink, food fan pages, Fruit, Garden strawberry, Krispy Kreme, Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board, Online social networking, Oregon Strawberry Commission, Snack foods, Social information processing, social media, social networking, Technology/Internet