Flip of the Coyne

As some of you may already know I have been on a quest ever since I read “The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating” by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon winter 2007/08. Well that and a combination of other things that were taking place in my personal life at the time. I had been reading a lot the couple of years leading up to that book. Books like Urban Meltdown that looks at how we build our communities to books on global warming and sustainable economy.

I had gardened before in fact growing up on our family farm the garden had played a large roll in my early memories. I grew up with eating locally but had never paid it much attention until I moved back to Princeton. It had become noticeable that the local food economy had started to disappear but it wouldn’t be for a few years until I really understood the consequences of what was happening around me.

So back to my quest, when I was reading the 100-Mile Diet I had already decided to plant a garden that year. So when I read the book it solidified my resolve to start eating locally. There was one little flaw in my plan but unlike the authors in the book I was not about to jump into this project blind, nope I had read the book and saw how hard it was for them to find food other than potatoes when they had decided to start their 100 mile journey. The biggest problem for me is, well Princeton seems to be in the middle of no where.

Luckily for me and the rest of us on this 100 mile quest you do not use road miles rather you draw your circle as the crow would fly,

meaning straight line. This was a great relieve when I learned this because unlike living in Greater Vancouver Area where there is the dairy farms of the Fraser Valley or their potato production, and other basic necessities I am in Princeton and all of these areas would be out of my reach by the highway mile method.

So here is what I am going to do and I will document it along the way, I am going a 100 mile diet quest. I am not going to jump into this without educating myself first and I am not about to start in the dead of winter with nothing local other than some canned cherries, beets and some frozen pumpkin. Nope I am going to find what grows and is produced within my 100 mile range, what I cannot find I will try to grow myself. And I am going to change the rules a little since we live so close to the US border much of my 100 miles is south of the border. With so many regulations and restrictions on what you can bring to Canada from the US I am going to make some allowances in other areas to cover some of the mileage that I am going to lose to the south. Another rule I am going to make is that if you go on a trip your food should be within 100 miles of the place you are visiting, if you visit an area for more than a day then you can bring home food from that area. For example if I visit Vancouver Island for a few days then I can bring home some food that was produced on the Island.

If you do follow my quest I hope it encourages you to join me.