News
Sports
ENLARGE
RIFLE, COLORADO - Who knew that a Canadian couple’s decision to only eat food grown within a 100-mile radius of their home for a year would lead to a new word to describe their diet?
The New Oxford American Dictionary named “locavore,” meaning one who eats only (or mostly) locally-grown food, the 2007 Word of the Year.
Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon of Vancouver, British Columbia chronicled their year-long effort in a book, “Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100 Mile Diet,” that was chosen for the Colorado Mountain College and Garfield County Library District’s “Valley Read” program. The authors were in Rifle at CMC’s West Garfield Campus on Tuesday evening, Nov. 18 to meet students and others who took part in the program and had read their book.
MacKinnon said in a phone interview that the biggest change to their lives was “a much stronger sense of place that we live in,” he said.
“That was the most powerful connection,” he said. “The direct human-to-human connections with the people who supply us our fish, grow our wheat and all that.”
MacKinnon said he and Smith felt healthier once they began the eat-local diet.
“You’re eating foods much closer to their harvest date, and when they’re in season,” he said. “Plus we ate smaller portions because our food was more nutrient dense. Most of the people we know that tried the local diet lost weight, too. But there’s no calorie counting involved.”
During their diet, they researched the origins of the items that stocked the shelves of their local super market. They were shocked to find that a typical ingredient in a North American meal travels roughly the distance between Toronto and the Yukon before it reaches the plate. Smith and MacKinnon were already trying to live more lightly on the planet, but their “SUV diet” added to the world’s greenhouse gas problem.
The term “100-mile diet” became well known, since the couple also documented their effort on a blog, 100milediet.org.
“There have always been people who eat locally,” MacKinnon said. “It’s really how everyone lived throughout 99 percent of human history.”
MacKinnon and Smith were vegetarians before the diet change in 2005, but now eat “more meat than we ever did before.”
“We didn’t trust where the meat was from and the conditions of the livestock,” MacKinnon said. “Now, we know the farmers and ranchers that raise the animals and how they raise them.”
“Locavores” have helped spur a “huge explosion” in local farmer’s markets and the food sold at those markets has grown, too, MacKinnon said.
But some people have criticized the couple, mainly those in the transportation industry and big, industrialized food companies, he said.
“But we haven’t really heard a lot” of complaints, MacKinnon added.
Farmers and ranchers have been supportive of the 100-mile diet, too, he said.
“They like the idea of selling to local people,” MacKinnon explained. “They get the appreciation of farming from the people they sell to, instead of the anonymous market that comes with the global food market. No one says thanks.”
Even in areas devoid of agriculture, MacKinnon said they have found local crops and livestock were once abundant.
“So if there’s enough demand for local food, you get a more diverse agricultural scene,” he said. “On a smaller scale, those farmers can flourish. So if a lot of people there in Rifle wanted to eat local, they’d help build their local economy.”
MacKinnon said if a few hundred people in a community create a demand for local food, local farms can make a living selling their crops locally.
The couple have continued to follow their 100-mile rule with the foods they eat, “with a few exceptions,” MacKinnon said.
“We’re probably 90 percent local food,” he said. “We try to do our best when we travel, but it’s kind of hard.”
MacKinnon is the author of “Dead Man in Paradise,” which won the 2006 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Nonfiction. He is the winner of three national magazine awards as a freelance writer, and is a former senior editor at Adbusters. Smith is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Reader’s Digest, Outside, Utne Reader, among other publications.
The New Oxford American Dictionary named “locavore,” meaning one who eats only (or mostly) locally-grown food, the 2007 Word of the Year.
Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon of Vancouver, British Columbia chronicled their year-long effort in a book, “Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100 Mile Diet,” that was chosen for the Colorado Mountain College and Garfield County Library District’s “Valley Read” program. The authors were in Rifle at CMC’s West Garfield Campus on Tuesday evening, Nov. 18 to meet students and others who took part in the program and had read their book.
MacKinnon said in a phone interview that the biggest change to their lives was “a much stronger sense of place that we live in,” he said.
“That was the most powerful connection,” he said. “The direct human-to-human connections with the people who supply us our fish, grow our wheat and all that.”
MacKinnon said he and Smith felt healthier once they began the eat-local diet.
“You’re eating foods much closer to their harvest date, and when they’re in season,” he said. “Plus we ate smaller portions because our food was more nutrient dense. Most of the people we know that tried the local diet lost weight, too. But there’s no calorie counting involved.”
During their diet, they researched the origins of the items that stocked the shelves of their local super market. They were shocked to find that a typical ingredient in a North American meal travels roughly the distance between Toronto and the Yukon before it reaches the plate. Smith and MacKinnon were already trying to live more lightly on the planet, but their “SUV diet” added to the world’s greenhouse gas problem.
The term “100-mile diet” became well known, since the couple also documented their effort on a blog, 100milediet.org.
“There have always been people who eat locally,” MacKinnon said. “It’s really how everyone lived throughout 99 percent of human history.”
MacKinnon and Smith were vegetarians before the diet change in 2005, but now eat “more meat than we ever did before.”
“We didn’t trust where the meat was from and the conditions of the livestock,” MacKinnon said. “Now, we know the farmers and ranchers that raise the animals and how they raise them.”
“Locavores” have helped spur a “huge explosion” in local farmer’s markets and the food sold at those markets has grown, too, MacKinnon said.
But some people have criticized the couple, mainly those in the transportation industry and big, industrialized food companies, he said.
“But we haven’t really heard a lot” of complaints, MacKinnon added.
Farmers and ranchers have been supportive of the 100-mile diet, too, he said.
“They like the idea of selling to local people,” MacKinnon explained. “They get the appreciation of farming from the people they sell to, instead of the anonymous market that comes with the global food market. No one says thanks.”
Even in areas devoid of agriculture, MacKinnon said they have found local crops and livestock were once abundant.
“So if there’s enough demand for local food, you get a more diverse agricultural scene,” he said. “On a smaller scale, those farmers can flourish. So if a lot of people there in Rifle wanted to eat local, they’d help build their local economy.”
MacKinnon said if a few hundred people in a community create a demand for local food, local farms can make a living selling their crops locally.
The couple have continued to follow their 100-mile rule with the foods they eat, “with a few exceptions,” MacKinnon said.
“We’re probably 90 percent local food,” he said. “We try to do our best when we travel, but it’s kind of hard.”
MacKinnon is the author of “Dead Man in Paradise,” which won the 2006 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Nonfiction. He is the winner of three national magazine awards as a freelance writer, and is a former senior editor at Adbusters. Smith is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in Reader’s Digest, Outside, Utne Reader, among other publications.
