Have you heard of the 100 Mile Diet? The term became popular after Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon wrote about their year-long experience of eating locally in the Canadian bestselling book of the same name. The idea is one of the driving forces behind the growing local food movement. If you want to take the pledge for one meal, a meal a week, a whole week, or more, their website has a map to help you calculate your 100-mile circle of food supply.
For Vancouverites, this area includes the Fraser Valley, southern Vancouver Island, Courtenay, Pemberton, Hope, Everett, Port Angeles, and Neah Bay. You’d eat well during the summer.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Canada’s federal agency governing food safety and inspection, has a ruling on the definition of “local” that is stricter than Smith and MacKinnon’s definition:
“Local”, “locally Grown”, and any substantially similar term shall mean that the domestic goods being advertised originated within 50 km of the place where they are sold, measured directly, point to point ….
That definition of local would certainly limit food choices.
Yet, the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture estimates that “the average American meal travels about 1500 miles to get from farm to plate.” What a difference and what a staggering distance! At what cost do we enjoy avocados in the winter?!
Just so we know what grows locally here in Vancouver year-round, here’s a link to a seasonal chart of local produce put together by Farm Folk / City Folk on their Get Local site. So the next time you buy parsnips in Vancouver in February, you could be buying local. Read the small print on the packaging, and if the parsnips aren’t local, ask the grocery store why they aren’t.
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