A new diet is drawing in converts all across the country with its promise to entirely alter the way we consume our food. The 100-mile diet challenges consumers to eat food grown within 100 miles of where they live. The 100-mile diet began in spring 2005 when Vancouver residents Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon decided to start eating and drinking only things produced within 100 miles of their home.
The experience of eating a meal with local foods they collected while at their summer cottage lead them to make local eating a more permanent fixture in their lives.
According to their website, 100milediet.org, they chose the radius because they thought it was a good starting point to thinking locally. They said a 100-mile radius is large enough to reach beyond a big city and small enough to feel truly local.
Smith and MacKinnon claim local eating will not only change your view on how much is available locally but will initiate global change.
The diet has been featured in the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, and on CBC News and by all s is taking the nation by storm.
Betsy Donald, an assistant professor in geography, believes a lot of the positive change associated with the diet is how it tries to change food distribution.
“Our current conventional food system is increasingly globalized and increasingly consolidated by a few key distributors,” she said. “Eating has become very disconnected from the production of food. The 100-mile diet is a radical way to force us to see where [our food] comes from.”
Donald said most people don’t think the way we receive our food is a problem.
“In North America we assume that we don’t have problems with the food system because everything is cheap and readily available,” she said. “But in the last five to six years we’ve begun to see cracks in agroindustries with things like mad cow, salmonella, and the [genetically modified foods] debate. It’s leading to different ways of growing produce and eating food.”
Another aspect of the 100-mile diet garnering attention is that consuming locally helps reduce food distributor’s carbon footprint. A carbon footprint is the measurement of carbon dioxide emitted through the burning of fossil fuels—something we use to transport our food.
“When you consider that the average fruit or vegetable travels an average of 1,500 miles on planes and in trucks to get to you, even driving less than 100 miles isn’t so bad,” Donald said. “Our current system is so unsustainable that anything that improves it would certainly be a help.”
Emily Dowling is the head farmer for Root Radical, a Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) farm on Howe Island. Community Shared Agriculture is a food distribution program in which local eaters participate in growing their food by making a payment to a farm at the beginning of the season. In return they receive a weekly share of the harvest. They can also volunteer manual labour by picking and washing vegetables in exchange for taking produce home.
Dowling said CSA not only helps reduce the miles your food travels, but it connects you to what you’re eating.
“We had a young guy here, around eight years old who was helping [with the harvest] and he was quite proud of his work,” she said. “I think those feelings are important to people. They appreciate more where their food comes from.”
“[Even adult] community have told me how satisfying a morning of hard work outside on the farm can be,” Dowling said.
Although eating locally can be appetizing, trying to do so as a student is particularly challenging because of the planning and financial commitments required.
Monica Garvie, a second-year student at the University of Ottawa, decided to take the diet challenge beginning this winter. Although she has found the experience rewarding so far, she said it might be hard for the average student to undertake.
“It would be difficult for students to try this diet challenge because it takes a lot of dedication and students need to study,” she said.
Her solution was to stock up before officially starting the diet in the winter.
“I want to do all my cooking, canning, preserving, and gathering before September so that I can have a stock to pull from instead of going out and attempting to find food while I should be studying,” she said.
There are financial considerations for students as well, who may not have the means needed to eat locally. Jessica Chu, ArtSci ’07 and last year’s organizer of the Queen’s Farmers’ Market, said local produce might seem expensive, but it’s relative to the artificial pricing found in supermarkets.
“Our perception about local food being more expensive is skewed because food in grocery stores is low for artificial reasons,” she said. “The prices are comparable when you think about how your food is grown, where your money is going.”
Even if you aren’t quite ready to commit to a year of eating from your backyard, Chu said even trying it for a single meal can be a worthwhile experience.
“A project like that, a meal, can provide a lot of opportunities to integrate ideas and to get people together,” she said. “If you sit down at a table and know where your food came from, it can be a really educational experience.”
Donald said she believes the length of time committed to the 100-mile diet is not so much a factor as is getting people to think.
“Food is something that we can all relate to: we all ingest it into our bodies. Eating is a political act,” she said.
“Really, anything that gets people to think more critically about where their food is coming from, and that educates consumers is a good idea.”
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