You Are Where You Eat

Struck with the fact that the average ingredient on a North American plate has traveled an average of 1500 miles via fossil fuels and packaging to get there, writers Alisa Smith and James McKinnon embarked on an experiment last year: they would only eat and drink foods grown and produced within 100 miles of their home in Vancouver.

Not surprisingly, eating locally is a challenge:

We walked into the diet cold turkey for a full year, and it was hard. For example, we live on the West Coast, so it took us seven months to find a rogue local farmer who actually grows wheat. Meanwhile, we ate an unbelievable number of potatoes. Doing the diet the hard way taught us a lot about the current food system, but it isn't for everybody. A more realistic approach is to plan a single, totally 100-mile meal with friends or family, and see where you want to go from there.

The 100-Mile Diet is about learning by doing. Getting to know the seasons. Understanding where our food comes from, and at what risk to our health and to the environment. Sorting out how we all ended up eating apples that taste like cardboard and cakes made with petrochemicals. It was a challenge, but a good one–a genuine adventure.

Against a backdrop of globalized food distribution, their experiment underscores deep, interesting, and often ignored connections between environment, climate, place, and consumption. Planners might be interested in evaluating how their regions would fare in the face of such a shift in production and consumption patterns. Read more.

Related: the most sustainable large cities in the US.

Comments

[Abendigo Reebs]

Wow, thanks for sharing. I'm going to have to pick up that book. Appreciate you linking to our SustainLane rankings. But even moreover, I'm in awe of your blogroll! You seem to be a great resource for 'new urbanism', if I may call it that.

Warren Karlenzig, the director of our city rankings, recently launched a blog on the health and sustainability of US cities, which covers many topics you might find pertinent:
http://www.warrenkarlenzig.com

As for now, I'm going to let him know about you guys and see if he can't get a link to this blog.

Ben

[Chris]

Ben, thanks very much!

And I will be certain to check out Warren's website. As should everyone else!