5 The 100-Mile Diet

The Reading

Do you live in British Columbia [or Alaska]? Can you imagine living without coffee? Chocolate? Could you manage without pineapple on your pizza? In fact, could you manage without pizza? If you are following the 100-mile diet, these are just a few of the things that you will need to give up. The creation of Vancouver journalists Alisa Smith and J.B. (James) MacKinnon, the 100-mile diet is a way of eating that requires the consumption of food produced within 100 miles (160 km) of your home. If a food item was not produced close to your home, you cannot eat it.

For someone living in Vancouver, that means …

Now continue reading.

… no bananas, since these are not grown in B.C. Likewise, bread is off-limits as bread is made of wheat, which is not grown near Vancouver. The lack of wheat also rules out pie, cookies, and pasta. Rice is a no-no, as is sugar. No sugar means no ice cream, cola, or candy. Fruits from hot climates are ruled out, so no orange juice is allowed. Since the diet requires the consumption of local foods, followers of the diet in Hawaii or Saskatchewan would have different options available to them.

The idea for the diet

Alisa and James came up with the idea for the diet one day at their vacation home, a dilapidated cabin in the largely uninhabited town of Dorreen on the Skeena River in northwestern B.C. They had guests visiting, and the only thing left to eat was a three-week-old cabbage. Since the closest store was a grueling canoe trip away, going out to buy groceries was not an option. Instead, they improvised.

One of the guests caught a large Dolly Varden char in the river. Another found several varieties of wild mushrooms in the woods. Growing on their property in a neglected vegetable garden were potatoes, garlic, and dandelions; their orchard yielded apples, cherries, and rosehips. They fried up all these ingredients in a pan and had a thoroughly delicious meal.

As journalists, Alisa and James were aware that many food items travel up to 3,000 miles (4,800 km) to
reach Vancouver. They started to wonder whether living entirely on locally produced food would be possible. This would, they reasoned, be a way to both reduce their ecological footprint and to ensure the quality of the food they were eating. They decided to experiment, to see whether they could live for a year only on food produced within 100 miles of their Vancouver apartment.

Starting the diet

The couple first set some ground rules. They would stick to their 100-mile rule at home in Vancouver, but they would not worry about it if they were traveling. They also agreed to be flexible if they were invited to dinner at someone’s house, or if they had to eat out for business. They cleared out their pantry and started their experiment. When they cooked their first 100-mile meal, a dinner for four, they were shocked at how much it cost. All of their ingredients had been bought at specialty stores rather than the local supermarket, with the result that a single meal had cost a staggering $128.87. They wondered if the experiment would even be affordable. Many foods travel miles to reach B.C.

However, as time went on, Alisa and James got used to their new way of eating. As non-meat eaters, they were limited in what proteins they could eat now that chickpeas, lentils, and tofu were no longer on the menu, but they found alternatives. Fish was allowed, so they sourced prawns and clams from the Salish Sea. They drove or rode their bicycles out to the farmlands around Vancouver to buy local eggs,
cheese, and nuts. They found a regular supplier of honey, which stood in for sugar. They experimented with vegetables from the Fraser Valley, mostly bought from farmers’ markets. They picked their own fruit. In time, they found that they were eating a more varied diet than ever before.

Their biggest challenge was that they could not buy flour, which meant no bread. With no bread, both felt hungry, and both unintentionally lost weight. One day, when Alisa was craving a sandwich for lunch, James promised to make her one—and he did, using “bread” made out of turnips. They also found the experiment hard work, especially when it came to putting food away for the winter. They learned to can vegetables, they filled their freezer, and they despaired when a potato blight hit the Fraser Valley. Still, they persevered.

Spreading the word

A few months into their experiment, Alisa and James wrote an article for a local website called The Tyee. They were surprised at the number of like-minded people who responded; suddenly they felt like part of a community. Their popularity grew, and within a few months, invitations to attend conferences and give interviews were coming in. They traveled to meet other people across North America who were
living close to the land.

The year ended, and Alisa and James kept to their plan and continued to eat locally. They added a few items to their kitchen—lemons and rice, for example—but they did not bring back sugar or bananas. Their book, The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, was published in 2007 and spent 20 weeks on the Vancouver Sun’s bestseller list.