Eating Local 100 Mile Diet - There's no plate like home
THE 100 MILE DIET
The everyday-American meal contains an assortment of foods that have traveled an average of 2,000 miles to get from farm to fork. For those concerned about energy conservation, greenhouse gases, and oil dependence, the types of food we choose to eat are as important as the types of cars we choose to drive (or avoid). Industrial agriculture and long-distance food transportation generate between 20-25% of all climate destabilizing greenhouse gases in the U.S. Given this fact, buying food that is locally or regionally grown can dramatically reduce energy consumption and greenhouse pollution.. The local food movement has received a recent boost with the new trend of the "100 mile diet," the brainchild of Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon. "We're the kind of people that ride our bikes everywhere, so we wondered why we were going to all this effort when our food was flying around the world," says Smith. The diet trend, which requires participants to only eat foods grown within a 100 mile radius, is catching on across North America. Philadelphia journalist Elisa Ludwig took up the 100 mile diet for 12 days to learn more about the foods she eats. "If eating local is a moral imperative, then every meal is an opportunity to do the right thing," says Ludwig, who kept a daily journal of the experience.
Read her journal entries here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1463.cfm