Within 100 Miles (or about 160 Kilometres)

“Eating locally isn’t just a fad like the various diets advertised on late-night TV–it may be one of the most important ways we save ourselves and the planet”

~ Dr. David Suzuki, chair, The David Suzuki Foundation

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. Call their experimental eating 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, MY "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...