New "100-Mile Diet" website

[jpak]

http://100milediet.org/

from today's Energy Bulletin...

http://www.energybulletin.net/15600.html


On the first day of spring 2005, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon made a commitment to live for a full year on food and drink drawn from within 100 miles of their home in Vancouver, British Columbia. The 100-Mile Diet was born -- and response to the local-eating experiment was overwhelming.

"We heard from people as far away as Norway, France and Australia," said MacKinnon. "This is what it's like to witness the birth of a movement."

Today, Smith and MacKinnon launched 100MileDiet.org, an online guide for anyone looking to dig into local eating. The site features a unique mapping tool to instantly find your own 100-mile 'foodshed,' tips for tracking down local markets and farms, unusual food facts, and the couple's 11-part series on a year of local eating.

First published on TheTyee.ca, the 100-Mile Diet column attracted 40,000 readers and was linked, reprinted and blogged across the internet. The yearlong experiment has appeared in media from BBC Worldwide to Utne Magazine.

[htuttle]

1. I've been trying to favor locally grown foods for several years

I can't get everything I'd like from nearby, but we do have quite a cornucopia here in Central WI, so it's not too hard to buy local stuff.

No Oranges or Bananas, but plenty of Apples, Cranberries, Cherries, etc...Free-range poultry, dairy products, and plenty of vegetables are also widely available within 100 miles from here. Our weekly Farmer's Market has been really great for finding this sort of thing. And beer, of course...plenty of that being brewed around here. :)

It's one of the reasons why I'm glad I don't live somewhere like Phoenix, AZ.

[phantom power]

2. We have prickly pear fruits.

And javalina. The other dark and gamy meat!

[htuttle]

3. One thing I've noticed as I've tried to stick to local foods

I can see now why the spice trade used to be so important! Not to mention things like coffee and tea.

Even in a potential post-petroleum "dark age", I think people would come up with a way to trade some amount of coffee, tobacco and spices relatively long distances. They travel well, and there's always going to be a demand for them. But fruit and meats? Not so much.

[phantom power]

6. I get the impression that many flavors we "like"...

started out as preservatives. Hops for beer, vinegar for pickling, etc. I wonder if the people who originally used them would laugh at us for eating them voluntarily. I picture this scene:

What? You eat vegetables soaked in vinegar, and you have refrigerators???
:rofl:


And for the love of god, lutefisk?? No way did anybody invent that because they liked the flavor. Reconstituted fish preserved in lye was better than starving in the off-season. If you're strong enough. We'll never know how many vikings chose death, as they didn't leave any descendents.

[Odin2005]

10. Don't get me started about lutefisk.

That stuff is just awfull.

[kestrel91316]

25. When my sister returned from a year in Sweden as a foreign exchange

student in 1975, she insisted on fixing and feeding us lutefisk, complete with boiled white potatoes and plain cream sauce. All white. All bland. And that DISGUSTING lutefisk.

Mom and Dad and I managed to gag down a couple of bites, and then I think we went out for hamburgers.

[phantom power]

13. By the way, the offworld colonies are looking better every year.

[htuttle]

19. Don't believe the hype!

They aren't all they're cracked up to be. Just ask a replicant...

:)

[phantom power]

20. But I'd get to see things you people wouldn't believe...

:evilgrin:

[kestrel91316]

24. Trading ships will always be bringing in goods like spices and tea and

salt and sugar and coffee, just like in the olden days. We will have to grow a lot more of our own food right here, like in our FORMER lawns.

If we want to water our crops here in Lost Angeles we will need to dig a hell of a lot of cisterns to capture our floodwater from our 5 annual rainstorms.

[kestrel91316]

23. You also got nopales/nopalitas, the prickly pear paddles.

Corn will grow there (with some care) and I think tepary beans, and squash, and maybe jerusalem artichokes (native American sunflower-like plant with tasty roots, grows as a perennial).

All is not lost, lol!

[TallahasseeGrannie]

5. Oh, man!

I wouldn't be able to eat apples! Or applesauce! And salad greens only in cold weather. Same with cabbage. Virtually nothing grows in August and September. But I guess it would be really hard up north in the winter.

[jpak]

8. There is great interest in greenhouse farming up north...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x52129

In the 19th century, the Boston area had a thriving "hot house" farming industry that supplied fresh veggies to The Hub for much of the year.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, large livestock drives brought cattle, swine, goats, sheep and even turkeys hundreds of miles to New England urban markets - sometimes all together. The advent of (initially wood-fired steam engine) railroads brought this practice to an end...

The northern New England apple industry also specialized in so-called "winter apple" varieties (Baldwin, Black Oxford etc.) that exhibited peak ripeness during the winter months. IIRC, the Black Oxford was called "The 4th of July Apple". I have a few of these trees in my semi-neglected antique apple orchard in Maine (the tribulations of the absentee farmer). These varieties were shipped to European markets via sailing vessels.

A lot of these concepts and practices are going to re-emerge in different guises in the post-petroleum apocalypse...

[TallahasseeGrannie]

9. I've never seen an apple tree in Florida

and we are too far north for oranges. But boy, do we have peaches! No cherries, though. Lots of grapes. Man, I would miss cherries. I love those yellow ones.

[kestrel91316]

28. There is now a "tropical" cherry tree (a TRUE cherry, not faux)

that will produce here in the San Fernando Valley, so it probably would do in FL (it gets 115 here in the summer).

[kestrel91316]

27. You'll want to acquaint yourself with salt pork and salted beef, perhaps.

And try some New Zealand spinach - it grows in our hideously hot San Fernando Valley summers here. That will do ya for greens. Maybe you could find some dried corn shipped in from northern FL, lol?? For your cornbread.

[Blue_In_AK]

4. I'm afraid we'd starve in the winter...

...although I suppose we could go out and kill some animals, and Matanuska Valley potatoes and carrots seem to last well after the season. This kind of thing isn't really too practical for us white folks in the north land. Whale blubber is too gritty for my tastes.

[One_Life_To_Give]

11. Vegetabe Cellar

IIRC thats how our ancestors did it. Stored produce in cool places, like a cellar. Good for Potatoes and I assume other root crops. And doing alot of canning.

Now does anyone have a design for a solar powered canner?

[phantom power]

12. Pickling, salting and drying are "no-power" options.

Of course, you have to have access to vinegar, salt and/or drying.

Or we could make lutefisk.

[One_Life_To_Give]

14. Wouldn't turn any of it down

Except for the Lutefisk.
I'll risk PCB contaminated Carp first.

[Dead_Parrot]

21. Why not go the whole hog...

...and just eat soap? Lasts just as long and your plate will be easier to wash.

One of the few things even I won't touch... :puke:

Edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk

"Lutefisk is not food, it is a weapon of mass destruction. It is currently the only exception for the man who ate everything. Otherwise, I am fairly liberal, I gladly eat worms and insects, but I draw the line on lutefisk."

[jpak]

15. Back in the Day - all home canning was done on wood cookstoves

and apple butter was made over open outdoor fires (with a lot of elbow grease).

[One_Life_To_Give]

17. Thought to save the wood for heat on cold nights

Since canning was a summer activity, at least in my house.

The reason the fire was outdoors in the summer was to keep heat out of the house.

[jpak]

18. Many farms had an open "summer kitchen" for that very reason...

n/t

[kestrel91316]

31. On my teeny urban homestead here in Lost Angeles I could be

VERY HAPPY moving the summer canning jobs out to the carport. LOL

[kestrel91316]

30. I have a pressure canner that just needs SOME heat source to keep it at

a boil. They say not to use them over a wood fire (inconsistent temps??) but in a pinch I wouldn't hesitate to. That's why there is a pressure gauge on them.

And lots of things just need a boiling water bath, not pressure canning.

[kestrel91316]

29. You folks could live half the year on just sauerkraut from the

50 lb cabbages grown in the Matanuska Valley!

[Blue_In_AK]

32. Very true...

I still have cabbage from last summer. :)

[XemaSab]

7. Rice, walnuts, oranges, horseradish, and pot

Yum...

No, really, thanks for the link. It's a good starting point for exploring local foods.

[Blue_In_AK]

16. Well, we've got the pot here anyway. :)

[Oerdin]

22. Here in SoCal

We have a lot of different types of locally grown foods. Lots of fish, cattle, chickens, grapes, oranges, olives, veggies, and I could even get some grains grown in the Imperial Valley. That said there are just to many people in this area for everyone to eat only locally grown food.

[XemaSab]

26. Frankly, I think you could get along anywhere in California

Up in Siskiyou county they grow potatoes, horseradish, strawberries, and wild rice. In Lassen county ranching both cattle and sheep is huge. Tehama, Butte, Glenn, and Colusa counties have ranching, nuts, rice, strawberries, citrus, and olives, among other crops. Humboldt county fishes for tuna and they have oysters in the bay and crabs offshore. Many counties here have trout and salmon. And, of course, many surrounding counties have wineries. :D

At first I thought the idea was preposterous, but after thinking about it and reading the diary on the website, I think the idea has some merit. Right now not everyone could eat locally, but here in California we have it pretty good. Even if we just tried not to eat foods grown out of state or on a different continent, that would still have an albeit small global impact. :shrug: