New York City Metro Coalition
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See Below For:Who We Are:Purpose, Mission and Goals:Initiatives:Leadership:About our Icon:Who We Are: We are a Coalition of metropolitan New York region networks and organizations whose missions and goals are similar to those of WiserEarth.org and the vision of Paul Hawken and his associates. ...learn more
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Created: Apr 01, 2008
Updated: Nov 27, 2009
Membership: Open To Apply
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100-Mile Diet
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100-Mile Diet: Local eating for global change
http://100milediet.org/category/about/
When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically travelled at least 1,500 miles—call it "the SUV diet." On the first day of spring, 2005, Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon (bios) chose to confront this unsettling statistic with a simple experiment. For one year, they would buy or gather their food and drink from within 100 miles of their apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Since then, James and Alisa have gotten up-close-and-personal with issues ranging from the family-farm crisis to the environmental value of organic pears shipped across the globe. They've reconsidered vegetarianism and sunk their hands into community gardening. They've eaten a lot of potatoes.
Their 100-Mile Diet struck a deeper chord than anyone could have predicted. Within weeks, reprints of their blog at thetyee.ca had appeared on sites across the internet. Then came the media, from BBC Worldwide to Utne magazine. Dozens of individuals and grassroots groups have since launched their own 100-Mile Diet adventures. The need now is clear: a locus where 100-milers can get the information they need to try their own lifestyle experiments, and to exchange ideas and develop campaigns. That locus will be here at 100MileDiet.org—turning an idea into a movement.
Why Eat Local? 13 Lucky Reasons.
1. Taste the difference.
At a farmers’ market, most local produce has been picked inside of 24 hours. It comes to you ripe, fresh, and with its full flavor, unlike supermarket food that may have been picked weeks or months before. Close-to-home foods can also be bred for taste, rather than withstanding the abuse of shipping or industrial harvesting. Many of the foods we ate on the 100-Mile Diet were the best we’d ever had.
2. Know what you’re eating.
Buying food today is complicated. What pesticides were used? Is that corn genetically modified? Was that chicken free range or did it grow up in a box? People who eat locally find it easier to get answers. Many build relationships with farmers whom they trust. And when in doubt, they can drive out to the farms and see for themselves.
3. Meet your neighbors.
Local eating is social. Studies show that people shopping at farmers’ markets have 10 times more conversations than their counterparts at the supermarket. Join a community garden and you’ll actually meet the people you pass on the street. Sign up with the 100-Mile Diet Society; we’ll be working to connect people in your area who care about the same things you do.
4. Get in touch with the seasons.
When you eat locally, you eat what’s in season. You’ll remember that cherries are the taste of summer. Even in winter, comfort foods like squash soup and pancakes just make sense–a lot more sense than flavorless cherries from the other side of the world.
5. Discover new flavors.
Ever tried sunchokes? How about purslane, quail eggs, yerba mora, or tayberries? These are just a few of the new (to us) flavors we sampled over a year of local eating. Our local spot prawns, we learned, are tastier than popular tiger prawns. Even familiar foods were more interesting. Count the types of pear on offer at your supermarket. Maybe three? Small farms are keeping alive nearly 300 other varieties–while more than 2,000 more have been lost in our rush to sameness.
6. Explore your home.
Visiting local farms is a way to be a tourist on your own home turf, with plenty of stops for snacks.
7. Save the world.
A study in Iowa found that a regional diet consumed 17 times less oil and gas than a typical diet based on food shipped across the country. The ingredients for a typical British meal, sourced locally, traveled 66 times fewer “food miles.” Or we can just keep burning those fossil fuels and learn to live with global climate change, the fiercest hurricane seasons in history, wars over resources…
8. Support small farms.
We discovered that many people from all walks of life dream of working the land–maybe you do too. In areas with strong local markets, the family farm is reviving. That’s a whole lot better than the jobs at Wal-Mart and fast-food outlets that the globalized economy offers in North American towns.
9. Give back to the local economy.
A British study tracked how much of the money spent at a local food business stayed in the local economy, and how many times it was reinvested. The total value was almost twice the contribution of a dollar spent at a supermarket chain.
10. Be healthy.
Everyone wants to know whether the 100-Mile Diet worked as a weight-loss program. Well, yes, we lost a few pounds apiece. More importantly, though, we felt better than ever. We ate more vegetables and fewer processed products, sampled a wider variety of foods, and ate more fresh food at its nutritional peak. Eating from farmers’ markets and cooking from scratch, we never felt a need to count calories.
11. Create memories.
A friend of ours has a theory that a night spent making jam–or in his case, perogies–with friends will always be better a time than the latest Hollywood blockbuster. We’re convinced.
12. Have more fun while traveling.
Once you’re addicted to local eating, you’ll want to explore it wherever you go. On a recent trip to Mexico, earth-baked corn and hot-spiced sour oranges led us away from the resorts and into the small towns. Somewhere along the line, a mute magician gave us a free show over bowls of lime soup in a little cantina.
13. And always remember:
Everything about food and cooking is a metaphor for sex.
Comments (1 - 7 of 7)
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Mike Morin, I have some comments for you:
"Secondly, mixed cropping implies more labor intensive farming, really extended gardening. While such a system would be much more healthy from many perspectives, it would be difficult for farmers employing such methods to compete with conventional farms."
Well, this would creat more employment. Nowadays, people are excited about "green jobs" that lift people out of poverty while protecting the environment; this would create some of those. The flip side is that small farms may not be able to hire as many people. One way to remedy this is to have people who buy into the CSA's volunteer at the farm, perhaps for a reduced cost. the Many Hands Organic Farm in Barre, MA has a program similar to this where shareholders can volunteer on the farm if they so choose, although I'm not sure of the discount part of it. Check them out: www.mhof.net.
"Third, there are distribution issues."
CSA's have different ways of figuring this out. If it's right in town, there's no problem driving there if you have a car. Shareholders who live in the same town can take turns driving to the farm, or carpool together. Many Hands gives people a list of shareholders so that they can arrange those rides. Some farms distribute to a central location, or a few, so it's a shorter drive for people to pick up. They might distribute to a local co-op, or park or parking lot.
"Fourth, in places like Oregon, and even more northern climes, the harvest season is very short. It, like the growing season can be extended slightly, perhaps, by building hot houses, but only slightly."
Well, I looked up some farms in Oregon, and the first one I found is a CSA that has produce in the Spring, Summer and Fall. Check it out: http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M366 And you can store some of the fall produce in the winter in any normal refrigerator. And greenhouses can extend that season throughout the winter for many kinds of produce. But the heating required for these houses causes more carbon emissions than it does to import produce for hundreds of miles. This can be remedied by placing barrells of water on the north side of the greenhouse. If you have time, you can check out the Rhizome Collective in Austin, TX: a model for urban sustainability - http://www.rhizomecollective.org/node/7. They have what they call a bioshelter where they practice this. Although it's easier to do in TX than in Oregon. Also, I live in New England and there are lots of produce grown during the winter: spinach, kale, mustard greens, swiss chard, squash, artichokes, beets, potatoes and other root vegetables. I think Oregon has a milder climate than New England. Check it out.
Also, Renaissance Farms in central MA, which also has a CSA, has a sister farm in South Carolina. CSA's at Renaissance Farms run year-round and whaterver Renaissance cannot grow in the cold weather they get from the South Carolina sister farm to give to its shareholders. It's not so local, but it's supporting small family farms.
"Fifth, the extra planning involved would probably be too cumbersome for farmers."
Well, I think it's a benefit when farmers have a definite income. And CSA's help them plan when they know ahead of time. They plant as much as they have shares. It's more secure than visiting farmer's markets and hoping enough people will buy your food, or suffering through a bad season. |
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Regarding your third issue, distribution, one example of a regional grassroots farmers distribution cooperative would be the Tuscarora Organic Growers http://www.tog.coop/
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Community Supported Agriculture
I am really, for the most part, borrowing the name Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) (or maybe I'm lifting it).
Maybe it would be better to come up with a new name like, Locally and Regionally and Inter-regionally Community Supported Agriculture (L&RIRCSA) ;-) .
What I'm suggesting should be clear if you read my original post carefully (with the above clarification considered). If upon re-reading, it is still not clear, please feel free to query me on this forum or directly at mlarosamorin@earthlink.net or (541) 343-3808.
"Conventional" CSAs are well intentioned in that they strive to have community members share the risks associated with farming with the farmers. Fair enough, and my plan shares that objective. However, the problem with CSAs and buying your food by the pound is that early in the season, you'd probably get more strawberries than you can eat (unless you have the luxury time and resources to make jam), there are varieties of tomatoes so those can be stretched out over at least part of the growing season, but most crops tend to come to fruition in relative batches, so the variety in food boxes probably is not optimal. I'm not a farmer, and have limited experience with gardening, so correct me if I'm wrong.
Secondly, mixed cropping implies more labor intensive farming, really extended gardening. While such a system would be much more healthy from many perspectives, it would be difficult for farmers employing such methods to compete with conventional farms.
Third, there are distribution issues. Who is responsible for getting the food box from the farmer to the "member"? It would be uneconomical for the farmer(s) to be responsible for the distribution, and it defeats the purpose of demand-side management relative to "consumer" activity to have the members drive all the way to the farm. Now, if members live in close proximity, then this would not be a concern.
Fourth, in places like Oregon, and even more northern climes, the harvest season is very short. It, like the growing season can be extended slightly, perhaps, by building hot houses, but only slightly.
Fifth, the extra planning involved would probably be too cumbersome for farmers.
I envision, and it may be happening (I don't know), farmers within regions and from different regions forming unions to gain control over the distribution of their products, working with cooperating truckers, warehouse handlers and associated cooperating retail outlets (perhaps incorporating pre-order systems (wouldn't electronic systems be helpful)), in a system of community/worker hybrid cooperative associations.
Similarly, relationships could be built relative to the recycling of organic wastes (of course, the objective would be to minimize such, as it would be to minimize packaging).
Now, the issue of seasonal farm workers needs to be dealt with. Migrant farm-working should be eliminated. Seasonal workers need to be accommodated to their needs during the off-seasons, so that they can have the quality of life of a sedentary community. Again, I don't know the status of such a proposal. Maybe it is already happening... Certainly, a year-round living wage and educational programs so that the young can assume more progressively responsible and more highly compensated roles in the food system will occur.
That's enough for now.
Everybuddy, please feel free to comment in a constructive manner with regards to what I have written.
Thank you.
I'm a Work kin for peace and cooperation.
With much love and care,
Mike Morin www.peoplesequityunion.blogspot.com
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Agriculture and Food Issues
Hi Folks,
Since being the catalyst and one of the principal organizers of a four day conference, "Towards Self-Sufficiency", on local, regional and world food issues in 1976 (in the Amherst, MA area), I have had an interest in what you are now calling "food security".
I expand the concept of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) to the idea of regional/local community/worker hybrid cooperatives or at very least cooperating independent businesses. We need to vertically and horizontally integrate all down the line and across business sectors, with respect to growing, distribution, recycling organic wastes and educating about the need and benefits of relocalization, including equity and humanity with respect to workers and humanity with respect to animals, and responsibility with respect to the environment, with respect to eating healthily, and with respect to minimizing packaging. We also need to diversify risks relative to other necessities and our overall plans to rebuild our neighborhoods to make them walkable.
If we can't get direct cooperation and friendly participation from Capitalists who can be arrogant, self-serving, and dishonest about their historic and their perception and presumption of continuing "competitive advantage", then we surely need to be aware just how severe the competition will be, and we all better pull together with great solidarity, one way or another.
With regards to rice, are you aware that by flooding and farming wetlands to grow rice, we destroy the areas where FISH, birds and other critters spawn and sometimes make their home? Food for thought (pun intended)!
Also think about the use of planting/harvesting greasy machinery or defecating beasts and the use of any sort of fertilizer and competitive species control, be it non-organic or mythically organic, and their effects on the wetlands and associated riparian and ocean environments.
If you're one of these "back to human power" warners or advocates, think about just how hard that labor is/would be...
I suggest that we advocate the ingestion of "dryland" grasses (e.g. wheat, corn, rye), excluding alcohol products, minimizing processing, and packaging, and IF we make all the other necessary demand side management and transition away from tobacco and alcohol and corn syrup beverages THEN we should consider the use of biofuels as a small part of our supply side energy program. |
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Inspiring idea. I haven't looked into it yet but I wonder how hard it would be to find some of the staples locally, like flour and grains. Or maybe I'd just need to look for alternatives to these?
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I heard an interview with these guys about the diet and their book and it certainly made me think a lot.
The bit that most struck home to me was the part where they said that a farmer who couldn't sell his fruit in his home state would find them for sale thousands of miles away. I live in an area of Spain which produces lots of fruit and veg and yet there are virtually no farmers markets. Add to this the fact that one of the largest Spanish supermarket chains is one of the worst offenders for filling its shelves with plastic-wrapped fruit from Latin America. Meanwhile I see avocadoes and fruit grown within a 90 minute drive of my Andalucian home on the shelves of supermarkets in the U.K.
Seems to me that one of the biggest challenges we have is re-educating ourselves to eat only what is in season and is therefore by default, probably local. 100 miles circumference was an ambitious aim for a diet but I would be happy even to see people eating predominantly what is produced in their own state or (even within their own country when talking about European countries which may be smaller than a state in the U.S. or Canada.)
Only left to add that I think they should add spicy chutneys as an alternative to jam on their recreational activities list;-) |
Also:
"However, the problem with CSAs and buying your food by the pound is that early in the season, you'd probably get more strawberries than you can eat (unless you have the luxury time and resources to make jam),"
Well, share them with your friends! Have a strawberry party or whatever. and there may be ways to store it thoughout the season (freezing, mason jars) if you don't have time to make preserves. This will work for some produce, I don't know about strawberries.