100-Mile Diet
A Year of Local Eating
By Alisa Smith & James Mackinnon
Random House Canada, Toronto; $32.95
When Alisa Smith and James Mackinnon started their year-long experiment in local eating they didn’t plan on writing a book. As a result, The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating is full of candid tales of their personal journey, rather than an account of questionable business practices or columns of statistics. The book is a reflection of personal curiosity built on a unique and naïve challenge, and the desire to explore the boundaries of the local food system.
Inspired by a locally-sourced meal at their cabin in Northern BC, and by a study estimating that each ingredient on a typical North American dinner plate has traveled 1500 miles from the farm, Smith and MacKinnon decided to try to eat from within a 100-mile radius for a year. The experiment began on the first day of spring. While the day is symbolic, the two soon realized that early spring is perhaps the hardest time of year to find local food from within the boundary around Vancouver. Storage crops are coming to an end and spring crops are just starting to emerge, or are just being planted. This was not as easy as walking into a neighbourhood market and simply choosing the local over the imported. Powered by almost too many potatoes and a strong dose of determination, the two made it — bodies, minds and relationship stretched but intact — to the bounty of the summer season.
Alternating the writing for each chapter (one for each month), Smith and MacKinnon deftly take us through all the pitfalls and triumphs of their journey. The success of finally finding wheat to make flour for bread turns to disappointment when they discover that it has been contaminated by rat droppings and weevils. Wheat makes a triumphant return later in the season in the form of Red Fife, the celebrated heirloom variety, coming from a small farm on Vancouver Island. Other high points include the enviable experience of tasting the sweetness of fresh walnuts for the first time and finally finding a 100-mile source for salt. They make sauerkraut, can tomatoes, and even learn the subtle art of cheese-making, all in the tiny kitchen of their one-bedroom apartment.
Given that the marketplace supplies all the bounties of the agricultural world, allowing British Columbians to eat oranges, bananas and strawberries year round, it would be too simplistic to say that Smith and MacKinnon decided to live like their grandparents did. Surrounded by Twinkies®, frozen dinners, and power bars, most of us have lost touch with what the land around us can produce. This is not a story of turning back the clock, but rather a journey of reconnection.
There is simplicity in The 100-Mile Diet that makes it attractive and accessible. It is not about rules; it’s about the exploration of local regions and communities everywhere. Smith and MacKinnon are not breaking down a system or digging up the dark side of an industry. They’re celebrating – creating community. What starts as a struggle through the first spring grows into a quiet revolution around the dinner table.
The 100-mile diet has become a cultural phenomenon, and has struck a chord with people around the world. Smith and MacKinnon demonstrate how the daily need to eat can build lasting and sustainable communities by consciously connecting, in the most basic way, with the immediate environment. Throughout the year, people living in Scotland, Alaska, Sweden, even Antarctica, share 100-mile stories with them. While their journey is restricted by geographical boundaries, the movement transcends them.
Of special note is Smith’s post-diet century ride that took her the distance of their self-imposed limit. MacKinnon supported her along the way with 100-mile snacks, and Smith happily completed a life goal powered by local food.
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