We are still in the infancy of this revolution. As I have discussed in previous posts we all need to start making individual changes on a regular basis.
You want to do your part, but how? Are you still struggling with how to initiate this change?
Well, I recently stumbled across an interesting challenge that encourages a way YOU can make your local community more sustainable all the while still staying true to the capitalistic fabric of the red, white and blue.
It’s called the “100-Mile Diet” which means eating and buying foods that are grown and harvested within a 100 mile radius of your home.
Yes, it will be a challenge but it’s one worth investing in. Even if it’s just buying part of your grocery list from the local Farmers Market.
Alisa Smith and J.B. Smith the authors and founders of this process, started the process in 2005 while in their summer cottage in the Canadian wilderness. They took on a rugged way of living and decided to live off the land.
“Every ingredient had a story, a direct line they could trace from the soil to their forks”
As described on the website, “The 100-Mile Diet is about learning by doing... 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.”
The cliché is; that everything is better when you know the hard work that went into making it. That’s one of the reasons so many of us enjoy cooking, being fit, building and creating, etc. We love to see the fruits of our labor, or at least we used to.
“Most of us pay a big premium for out-of-season foods like cherries in winter or prepared foods like spaghetti sauce, usually with a long list of ingredients we might prefer not to have in our bodies. Eating locally, we bought fresh ingredients in season and direct from the farmer.”
How cool is it to shake the hand of the person who grew and harvested the ingredients to your meal? How much cooler is it having a conversation with that same farmer and realizing that he lives just down the road from you?
“A local diet is likely to involve lots of fresh produce and homemade meals, and not a lot of junk food, processed fats, additives and sugar. You’re also far more likely to know where your food came from, and what’s in it.”
This challenge echoes a theme from my previous post that we need to reduce our nation’s dependence—a foreign dependence that is prevalent in all industries. If we can start to live more self sufficiently and include our local communities’ economy instead of buying from the large corporations we are truly living in a more sustainable manner.
This challenge also raises interesting questions about how we’re consuming. Can we apply this thought of buying locally to more avenues of consumption?
Did you know that a regional diet consumes 17 times less oil and gas than a typical diet based on food shipped across the country or worldwide?
If we can contribute to our local economies instead of those of the corporate giants then the movement gains momentum—the exact kind of momentum that can set a more sustainable precedent.
This is exactly how YOU, as an individual, can start to make a difference: Buy local, eat local, shake your farmers hand because he may very well be your neighbor too.
1, 2, 3, 4 Action!
1. Visit your local Farmers’ Market and BUY SOMETHING! Then go tell your friends how good it tastes
2. Ask if your local grocery store can label the locally grown produce
3. Reorganize your meal planning and ingredient shopping process
4. Make the Farmers’ Market a community event and a more available and appealing to working professionals as well as families.
-GB
And I plan on attempting this diet as soon as I stop traveling...
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