Photo credit:
kevinmarsh, flickr
You've heard about the "eat local" movement, right? Locavores are people who try to eat foods grown locally, supporting local agriculture and economy and soaking up the nutrition and energy of foods grown right where they live and breathe. And the epitome of the eat-local movement seems to be the 100-Mile Diet. Conceived by two writer greenie-types, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, living in the Vancouver, Canada area, it was a one-year experiment in eating nothing but foods grown within 100 miles of their home.
I live in that area myself and I know there are things in my regular diet (rice, for example, and chocolate) that aren't grown locally. It would be a challenge to eat purely locally for any of us. But that shouldn't be too daunting. Smith and MacKinnon recommend we begin simply with a 100-Mile Meal. One meal. One fabulous, outstanding meal. One meal to invite friends to, and expose them to the delicious possibilities of eating truly locally.
Hey, we used to do that all the time. It can lead to interesting revelations about where our food comes from, even something simple like salt. Creating one meal and finding everything that goes into it, especially when it's not an abundant harvest time, is a truly worthy challenge. And it can lead to the world of eating locally every day, one bite at a time.
So how about it? I will if you will. Even if there's no chocolate.
How to foster green biodiversity
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that's a great idea. i might join the local co-op for produce. it dawned on me after i bought seaweed in chinatown that the fact that it was made in china means it's traveled almost halfway across the globe so i can have nori in my soup. oops.
I love this idea, too; though I've been pretty focused on eating locally for the past few years, I haven't really been analytical about the individual ingredients (I live in Portland and define "local" as within the Pacific Northwest -- a pretty huge area -- and accept grains from California :). but I can imagine all kinds of delicious things I could whip up for friends without going much more than 40 or 50 miles. thinking about a celeriac and potato soup with shallots and Tillamook cheese!
so is there an existing '100-mile meal' potluck dinner club? are there meetups already in place? if not, we should start one ... /smile