Hi -
I was wondering if anyone here is trying the 100-mile diet, or something similar.

Thanks,
jo

I try to buy local if at all possible, but I don't know if I could fully do the 100 mile thing. I love coffee and I live in Pennsylvania! I buy Fair Trade organic coffee though. It's an interesting idea, though.

I'm reading the book!

Jen and I were discussing this over the weekend. We just signed up for an organic CSA and get our first box tomorrow


I was thinking it might be fun to start a 100 mile challenge! But I think having a few wild cards would make it more realistic. I would still need tea and rice, for example, neither of which are grown around here.

Not sure what the book is, but I just read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which is the account of her family's attempt to eat locally for a year (though they did buy things like coffee, tea, etc.)

I'd have to do a little more than 100 miles though, or I'd have a VERY limited diet. We do grow our own veggies, as well as strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb, and my DH fishes so we have lots of salmon. There is an organic farm about 1/2 mile from us, and I get things I don't grow there (and at a farmer's market), but so much stuff is just not available locally for 8-9 months of the year.

Wow, WaterRat - I guess you WOULD have it tough in Alaska! I admit I will have a relatively easy time on the central coast of CA - an agricultural and fishing and wine producing area! So maybe I am lucky that it won't be too hard for me, but still -- there are so many "default" foods that people get that are trucked in long distances, many of them nasty processed things that I don't need to be eating anyway, so this will be extra motivation to avoid them.
Suzanne, you will love your CSA boxes!

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's book, and really enjoyed it. For me, I'm trying to just be more conscious of buying local, while realizing that I'm not quite up to being entirely local. What's been interesting for me it to realize that my food purchasing is also a political decision, as well as being good for me.

I also joined a CSA for the first time this summer, and it has been fabulous. I highly recommend them, as well as farmers markets.

Also, have you all heard of the slow food movement? I'm now reading Carlo Petrini's latest book.

Lauren - Thank you! I had not heard of the slow food organization and had to look it up. Now I am completely enchanted. I'm printing out the "slow food companion" right now. This is very much in line with my thinking. thanks again.

I don't have the latest slow food book, but I have Slow Food: Collected thoughts on tast, tradition, and the honest pleasures of food, and also have Slow Food: The case for taste. Both are by Carlo Petrini.

My copy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle still hasn't arrived

Mine is still on hold at the library!

The 100 mile thing is a GREAT concept - but I can't live without cranberries, pomegranates, avocado, bananas, mangos and Australian wines Not to mention the wonderful decadence of fresh cherries from Chile in the winter.

Glory, they do have a website www.animalvegetablemiracle.org that might hold you over (and thanks for supporting your library!)

I'm doing a CSA with my roommates in Nashville for the summer... the differences are just incredible! The only thing is that right now we are all very tired of squash! But onions and tomatoes and green beans and cucumber and eggs and milk (the cheese- mmmm!)... it's all just delicious.

It's easy to do int his part of the country, but a bit harder to pull off in a place like Denver- I'm definitely looking into it when I get home, though!