So Misguided

CBC has reported a couple of times on a Vancouver couple who are observing a special diet that restricts them to eating foods that are grown and produced within a hundred mile radius of their home. The authors Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon are actually writing a series of articles for The Tyee. The diet is really less about dieting than about the politics of food, recognizing where things are grown, the amount of fuel used to transport food, and our disassociation with the food production process.

Quill and Quire reported today that Random House Canada has acquired the rights to publish The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating. It will be interesting to see whether two authors interested in their ecological footprint will be able to ensure the book is printed on 100% post-consumer, recycled paper, vegetable-based ink, non-bleached paper, etc. I certainly hope so because the good work they did decreasing their consumption of foods requiring long-distance transport (fossil fuels) might be quickly undone by the rather environmentally heavy act of publishing thousands of copies of a book using virgin paper (paper from trees as opposed to paper two or three times removed from the original tree).

Random House has signed on with Markets Initiative and I hope that means the book will be as eco-friendly as the diet. Watch for the book in Spring 2007. 

The Tyee, a popular, west-coast news site has the full series of the articles on the 100-mile diet: http://thetyee.ca/Life/2005/12/02/Grain100MileDiet/ (links at the bottom of the article, before the comments, for the full 100-Mile Diet series). I’ve followed the articles since they appeared and applaud the effort. I’m not able to conform my diet as strictly as the authors but I try to make my choices based on the same principals: nearer over further, organic over conventional, clearly sourced rather than vaguely sourced, artisanal rather than industrial. Sometimes it takes more effort but I think it’s worth it. You are what you eat.

I’ve been following some of their posts on the 100 mile diet and think it’s quite interesting. I wonder how they’ve had done if they lived in one of the prairie provinces or in Quebec.

The 100-mile diet is a nice concept but practically ridiculous and elitist.  It’s a nice concept that you can spend your whole life thinking and planning for if you have no other things to do but think about what you are going to eat and where and how you’re going to get and cook it.  The basic rationale for this diet is that you would like to save on the tons of fossil fuel that are used to transport food.  But do you consider how much fuel you are using when you have to personally drive long distances to get each of your ingredient?  If every individual in your city does the same thing, then every individual would be driving miles and miles to gather all their locally grown food ingredients. You would need to have a car or a bike to do that.  How would that be applicable to many people who do not own cars or any other type of vehicle?

You would also need to set aside time to prepare and cook your food for the winter.  Who has the time to do that?  Many people work 12-h work days, not including the time already spent doing housework.  You would also need more money (aside from the money you would need to buy a car or a bike) to pay for locally grown produce which are sometimes more expensive.  Do you expect a mother, working 2 or 3 jobs, to choose to spend $11 on honey as a substitute for sugar which costs $2.50?

This is a “theoretical solution” akin to discussions that we have in the hallowed halls of universities.  It’s a lot of theory with minimal practical value.  This is not a real solution if you cannot make it applicable to members of the lower economic groups of your society.

Maru, I think you make some valid points. This couple has taken an approach most wouldn’t. But what I appreciate is the reminder of what I’m eating and how it got to the grocery shelves. I consciously decide to buy locally whenever possible and to eat fresh ingredients instead of processed or packaged. It’s a small contribution to my overall health, to the local economy, and to the health of the planet.

There is a saying about our times: we can afford more than we can handle. People now have a lot of options for feeding and they usually chose the worst ones. Getting food is no problem for almost 90% of Earth populations but we still eat crap. We end up by keeping hard diets or taking diet pills and we never learn anything. We are the fattest generation ever walked on this planet. Well, there were the dinosaurs but they get extincted. Will we have the same fate?