By Stephanie Kale
No soy milk cappuccinos or spiced chai. Granola for breakfast? Forget about it. And that Friday afternoon pint of Guinness? Also out of the question.
These are only a few of the absences I will lament during my trial weekend of the so-called 100-mile diet.
My week-long experiment began with a question: is it possible for an eastern Ontario vegetarian, like myself, to follow the 100-mile diet – or the 160-kilometre diet here in Canada – only eating food that’s been grown and processed within a 100-mile radius? It’s the start of winter and I didn’t spend hours at the end of harvest pickling beets and canning tomatoes.
In the last year or so, the term “localvore” has made its way into popular discourse and is now used by environmentalists and foodies alike.
Localvores draw attention to the eco-footprint our food habits make on the environment. In a nutshell, they examine how much energy was expended transporting the food from farm to fork.
A recent study estimated that the food we eat typically travels between 2,500 to 5,000 kilometres before it reaches the stores where we buy it.
In other words, my food takes more vacations than I can even dream of.
Could I live the 100-mile diet? To start, I Google my 100-mile radius, and discover a local family farm that does city deliveries. Bryson Farms, just outside of Shawville, Quebec is within my reach.
I arrange for a local organic produce box to be delivered to my Centretown doorstep, and as it turns out, it is a good place to start. The staples of a northern winter diet – typically root vegetables – aren’t all that’s in the box. Bryson Farms has extensive greenhouse operations that provide off-season veggies like lettuce, micro-greens, Swiss chard, bok choy, and broccoli.
My fears of meal after meal of boring potatoes are trumped by a bag of delicate fingerlings.
After rummaging through my produce box, I venture to the local independent grocery store, Herb and Spice, in search of other 100-mile approved foods to supplement my diet.
Gerard Labelle, the produce manager for Herb and Spice, says he brings in as much local produce as possible.
The mid-November selection includes cherry tomatoes and squash, adding a wider selection to my box-o-veggies.
Any local diet pretty much vetoes prepared food since there is no way of knowing where all those processed bits came from. No pre-packaged bread or pasta for me.
Even the bulk bins stacked full of wholesome looking oatmeal are nixed. Getting grains on this diet is definitely a problem.
“You can eat the honey. It’s from Lanark,” says Ilona Jones, a manager at Herb & Spice. Good thing, because sugar is off the list.
A stroll through the dairy section leaves me more optimistic. The butter almost made the cut, but the creamery is 140 miles away.
Cochrane’s milk, however, is from 20 miles away in Russell, Ontario. I have a choice of white, chocolate, or the seasonal eggnog. The free-range eggs come from Bekings poultry farm, located 40 miles from my house.
I’m excited to find that Forfar Dairy is in Portland, Ontario, only 65 miles away from my Centretown abode.
Four-year-old cheddar, goat’s milk mozzarella, and sheep’s milk caraway-flavoured feta are a few examples of the fine cheeses available.
There is only one problem: a crucial ingredient in cheese is salt, and the nearest salt mine is in Goderich, Ontario, almost 400 miles away. I might have to turn a blind eye to that ingredient – take it with a pinch of salt, as they say.
Taking stock of the local food I’ve gathered, I’ve got an array of veggies, cheese, milk and eggs. Not bad for an amateur localvore. I’m sure this list would only grow with more research, and a change of season.
And presumably, the carnivorous localvore would have more local meat options.