100 Mile Diet:

The low carbon diet is a diet based on reduction of greenhouse gases resulting from energy use. While it focuses on using products produced locally it also avoids foods such as meat and cheese, as cows are major producers of methane gas. It also purports using local and seasonal food, eating less processed or packaged foods and reducing waste from food by proper portion size.

Authors, Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon (The 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating and Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally2007) , share their experiences with restricting their diet to 100 miles. Their book, while appealing to enough to become a popular book, is seen by others as extremist. Love their book, or hate it, it is a major challenge to follow the concept of eating a 100 mile diet. It is goodbye to coffee, chocolate, and even black pepper and countless other product you may be using every day. However, their point is worth considering.

Why are we sitting down to a table with food that has been transported thousands of miles, when we could be enjoying fresher local food?  Trying the 100 mile diet for 100 days is indeed a challenge that will escalate your awareness of what is local. At present, according to Lifestyles Project in Victoria, the average meal on a Canadian table is travelling 1500 miles. In all probability the average meal is less than 20% local. While it may not be necessary to become a purist that will not eat anything from more than 100 miles away, we believe eating at least 50 - 70% local is within the reach of the mainstream.

On two levels, the concept seems to need to penetrate more of our buying habits. Firstly, supporting the local economy and thinking beyond our food to include supporting local artists, and fashion designers.

Choosing local food, gives your more control of the process between harvest and your table. It gives you the option of choosing food that is indigenous, fresher and if you desire -- also organic. You are choosing to support our community, and isn't that another good reason to buy local food?

The goal of the low carbon, or 100 mile diet, is to give consideration to the distance traveled and method used to transport the food. The North American diet emits four greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons. Ships, trucks, airplanes, and trains emit Co2 the primary gas attributed to global warming. Methane gas is 23 times as powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Livestock is the primary source of methane gas. Nitrous oxide, produced by landfills, traps 200 times the heat as carbon dioxide. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are emitted by mechanical refrigerating and freezing mechanisms -- a primary factor in importing fresh produce from Florida, California or elsewhere.

However, given all these environmental reasons there is another reason for opting to participate in a 100 mile lifestyle. Why are we supporting other economies at the expense of our own? Isn't it important to support local farmers and entrepreneurs? Isn't it important to be self-sustaining as a society? What happens if for some reason we suddenly find food supply threatened by labour disputes, a US recession or in a worst case scenario if political issues interrupt our food supply.

Recently, Japan experienced a food shortage because of their dependence on imports for their food (see quote in side column). Are we any different? We too could set ourselves up for food shortages if we neglect to support our local economy and local farmers.

Shouldn't sustainability include economic sustainability at the local level? Every choice we make to buy local products, supports our local economy and reduces greenhouse gas caused by long distance transportation. How much are you willing to do to do your part? Eating local is going mainstream - it is here to stay.