Low Impact

The 100 Mile Diet is an enjoyable and educational read

The concept of being a “locavore”, or of trying to eat only what is produced locally is now pretty well known. Eating local produce greatly reduces your environmental impact due to the reduced transport, packaging and refrigeration required. This is particularly relevant in Australia where any food that has been flown or shipped from overseas is likely to have traveled literally thousands of kilometres. Green factors aside, it can also have you eating fresher, tastier, healthier food as well as reconnecting with what is produced in your corner of the world.

This book is about the Canadian couple, Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon, who almost single-handedly brought this concept into the mainstream. It documents their experiences in trying to eat only food that came from within 100 miles (160 kilometres) of their front door for one year.

I’ve built up quite a library of environmental books over the years on a range of topics, from permaculture gardens to studies in the economics behind community-owned power generation. This book has turned out to be one of my favourites on my “green shelf”.

A big part of the reason, plain and simple, is the sheer readability of this book. A lot of the books I own are written by people who are passionate about their material. “The 100 Mile Diet” is written by two people, passionate about their material….and who are journalists by profession. They know how to write, and have come up with chatty style that tells a story as well as teaches a few lessons.

The authors take it in turns - one chapter each - which is not only a cute storytelling device, but also educational. Alisa and JB each have their own perspective, and level of commitment to reducing their impact on the environment. I found myself reading passages to my partner where their conversations echoed ones that we had shared a few weeks before. Reducing your impact on the environment can spark some lively debate on the home front!

Being based in Vancouver, the foods that are available to the authors differs a fair amount from what is available here in Australia, but their journey is instructive by itself. Their efforts to find both a reasonable variety, as well as reasonably priced food have them travelling around their local area, and meeting a range of characters who run nearby farms. Simple ingredients that you wouldn’t normally think of, like flour (and thus bread), turn into veritable odysseys of discovery!

This is a pretty glowing review, but I think it deserves it. This book is a page turner, as well as a valuable resource for anyone interested in lowering their environmental impact through the foods that they eat. On that note, the Acknowledgments at the end (a section I have been known to skip over!) is well worth reading - buried within are a number of great local eating websites, as well as useful reference books.

Highly recommended.

Categories: book, community, environment, reduce, transport

Tags: book review, food, locavore