Doesn't eating local sound great?
There are dozens of reasons — each one of them worthy [1] — to eat local, but this may be the best one: Ingredients frequently travel some 1,500 miles to get to your table, according to a website called 100-Mile Diet: Local Eating for Global Change [2]. That takes a tremendous toll on the planet.
In an attempt to really eat local, a Canadian couple decided to spend a year only eating food that was grown or raised within a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver home. They established the 100-Mile Diet and website [3] and have recorded their experiences in a series of stories on their site [4].
Reading through them (and they make for fascinating reading) I learned a great deal. For instance:
- Local eggs are easy enough to find, but try finding chickens that are fed locally-grown grains [5].
- Vegetables need be canned [6] and dried to prepare for the winter, and that includes making up vats of sauerkraut.
- Eating out is practically impossible. (For a year!)
- Forget about coffee, tea, green tea, chai, orange juice (and pretty much any other kind), lemonade, martinis, etc., etc.
- Dessert consists of locally grown [6] berries and honey; cake, chocolate and pastries become a distant memory.
I support the concept, and anyone who's brave (and crazy) enough to attempt this. If you're curious about trying it out, there's a Getting Started page [7] full of suggestions on the website. Newbies might want to start with the basics [7].
For me, it sharply focused the reasons I could never eat 100 percent local. (My total disinterest in canning the autumn harvest barely makes the list.)
The real reasons: Hmm...sushi, pizza, Mint Milanos [8], my spice rack, pomegranate juice, Thai food, Ben & Jerry's [8], cheap red wine, and the list goes on. And on....