The 100-Mile Diet (er, make that 160 km)
A typical diet consists of food that had travelled more than 1,500 miles from the original source… now that is a crazy thought! On the first day of spring in 2005, Canadian couple Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon chose to confront this disturbing statistic with a simple experiment. For one year, they would buy or gather their food and drink from within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia. They? documented their experimental eating in? The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating… the book, this amazing eco-adventure, has *finally* hit “local” bookstores! I first read about their venture in BC’s The Tyee when the couple were first starting out on their culinary quest. Since then, James and Alisa have dealt with a wide-range of issues from the family-farm crisis to the environmental value of organic food shipped across the globe. In the end, they have learned to appreciate the local land around them, sunk their hands into community gardening, and feel wonderful about supporting and developing a rapport with their local farmers (in a sense,? OUR “neighbours”!) The 100-Mile Diet is about eating locally and thinking globally…. and it certainly has made revisit my eating habits (I do believe my eat local challenge is on!) As a sidenote, be sure to check out Siel’s 100-Mile Diet Adventure diary on Treehugger…
What do you think of this idea? Could you do it?
Tags: BC
4.10.07 at 8:07 pm
crunchy comments:
I saw a bit about them on the news.
I think it is a great challenge.
I think that if everyone did it then stupid stores like CANADA Safeway would stock waaaay more Canadian produces than they do.
Being that we only have the chain Kins as a local alternative to grocery stores around here, I find shopping local a bit hard but have always tried and unless I really want something or need something, I tend to put it down and hunt for the local produce instead.
I don’t know how committed I could get to community gardening,etc…but I think we should all support the local companies for ANYTHING!
4.11.07 at 12:51 pm
Lisa comments:
Love this idea! The hubby and I watched a program with David Suzuki many years ago, who spoke of how he was teaching his kids the value of local foods and since having kids ourselves, this idea has stuck with us. We buy most of our produce when available from local farms, as well as our eggs, and some meats. We make a huge deal about when certain foods are in season (count down to berry season!) and freeze everything possible to enjoy year round! We always grow a small container garden every year.
We do cheat by buying bananas though!