Saturday, September 26, 2009

Close to the finish line

The following is a brief summary of my experience that was posted in the Imprint newspaper at the University of Waterloo last week. Hope everyone is doing better than ever!

Looking for a way to combine your desire to be a more conscious global citizen and the opportunity to include maple syrup in every meal? Sounds like a stretch I know but I’ve found the golden key in a growing movement called the 100-Mile Diet. Based on the principle that you only consume food and liquid that is grown and produced within a 100 mile radius (because 160 kms doesn’t sound as smooth) of where you live the challenge proves to limit your carbon footprint, connect you with local farmers and support your local economy.

Having caught word that the average meal in North America travels 1,500 miles to the dinner table and that a majority of the fruits and vegetable I eat can be grown in my own backyard was the fuel I needed to take this challenge head-on and do it vegan style. I’ve had a solid 7 years of practice living a nutritionally adequate diet as a vegan and maybe the fact that I’d proven my loved ones wrong and not died in the process gave me a bit more confidence than was safe to boast. While the days before the challenge flew by, emails and blogs went up about where to find local meat, eggs and dairy products and the fear began to set in. Was I in way over my head this time? Visions of a life without chocolate, caffeine, avocado rolls, hummus, bananas and rice began to haunt my weekly grocery visits.

Determined to go 100% local for the entire duration I stocked up on baby veggie sprouts, plowed through the weeds in the backyard and set up a garden and began to nurture my survival. I signed up for Baileys, a local food co-op, and in no time my fridge (there isn’t much unprocessed food that goes in the cupboard) was bursting and I was wondering what I was going to do with this cornucopia of foods, some of which I’d never even heard of. Starting one month ahead of time I stopped my purchases of foreigners and began to use up my abundance of planned WWIII food and took the final plunge on July 4th with the rest of the challenge takers.

Just as I was laughing at the simplicity of it all I heard the cruel whisper of bread and my heart stopped, or I cried, or something to the degree. This seemed like the end before the beginning as I scavenged my way through markets, health food stores and barns to find flour that was locally grown and wasn’t meant for animal feed. About one week to the challenge I found local flour and with just one lucky attempt the bread was in the oven and life was rainbows and butterflies again.

Now with just two weeks left before the challenge is over I am reflecting on the rollercoaster this challenge has taken me on. With the odd exception, most meals were made from scratch, which has left me equipped with kitchen skills I never would have learned otherwise. I now have a stronger and almost protective respect and admiration for local farmers and the traditions they have preserved over the decades of expanding imports. But the hardest part of the challenge can be summarized in the words of one of my good friends mothers on learning I was taking the challenge as a vegan ‘oh, she must be lonely’ she sighed. The life of a young 20something in University presents daily invites for social meals of which exist in restaurants that have never seen a local fruit or vegetable, something I hope this 100mile community challenge has influenced. It has been a challenge like no other I have ever taken, one that will forever influence my produce purchases. Only a few more dependency visits to St. Jacobs and October 11th will be here just in time for a Thanksgiving feast of Torfurkey and mashed potatoes (local of course).

If you are interested in hearing more about the challenge come out to the KPL Main Branch on September 29th at 7pm to hear other locavores discuss their experiences or check out these websites:

100milediet.org
Foodlink.ca – for a list of local farms and restaurants that provide local food
Healingpathcentre.com

2 comments:

  1. Yes you poor thing you!
    We used to have a nice vegetarian club on campus. It was refreshing to meet people who never knew anything but a vegetarian diet; those who choose a vegan diet and many others.

    Oddly enough my own step into a vegetarian and then vegan lifestyle didn't begin until a decade later. I never questioned anyone, more than superficially, as to why they were veg and clearly never found a compelling reason to adopt it myself .. until having read Diet For a Small Planet (that didn't work until I got married and my wife read it). I read more and went vegan.

    Oddly enough my children don't see our choice of diet as anything except what we do. They don't see a larger group of people with such a diet - they see friends devouring snack/junk food and tons of meat and fish (parents worry about protein).

    Logic doesn't work with 6 year olds; nor it many adults. Dr. McDougall just posted a video clip from his most recent Advanced Study Weekend and it's interesting because it goes at the core of the fear mongouring - this idea that you need lots of variety and training to make a balanced diet and that you need fish and and and.
    And none of it is true. A minimally processed starch based diet with fruits and vegetables is all you need - no planning, no protein "completing" - no nothing.

    While a vegetarian or vegan diet can be a good thing - Hagan Das is vegetarian and chips are vegan. First comes a "whole foods" diet with vegetables and fruits (for health). A local diet is good for the health of local farms - which helps everyone in the end. We've past Peak Oil and will be living more locally. Stepping off of the treadmill of consumerism (of being labeled and consumed by the label), of re-attaching not only to the community, but those that support it (farmers, organiziers) will root one and bring one back to life.

    Decades of technical triumph have disconnected us from what living is - the joys (cooking, growing, working together, helping each other, spending time just being as we are humanBEINGs not humandoings). We no longer have to 'suffer' the weather or local foods or even our neighbours. We wall ourselves off, live the advertised consumeristic ideal and slowly get sicker and go insane.

    In context 1/3 of our green house gases is roughly our food choices, 1/3 or transportation and 1/3 our living arrangements. Homes last 50 years, cars about 12 years and three times a day we make a choice about what sort of world we want to support - one with community, with roots, or one supported by massive quantities of non-renewable oil and gas to grow (fertilizers), kill (pesticides) and transport food.

    Lastly - to this place - this community, our university where questions are allowed and encouraged - where we accept that all answers are not absolute - where the whole point is to shove us closer together to interact because what matters is not absolute answers but being. Doing what is expected, what most others are doing is easy. It is hard to step from the path, question and choose ones own way to walk.

    In a way I am overjoyed to work at the University and meet those who stray from the path. Nearly three years ago one such student, Janet Yip, left us. How, I wonder, would she have tackled this challenge and what twist would she have added - because she was the sort to go beyond what was expected.

    Jenna, it sounds as if this challenge has taught you things that were not passed down to you - things not taken for granted such as the growing and cooking of foods. That is something that has interested some of us in the co-housing group here. Will I go forth and cook my Indian corn in Draino to see if I can make proper Nixtamal! I really really want to hear from anyone who knows where to get "pickling lime" - I'm not eager to cook with lye and don't have a trusted source for wood ash!

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  2. Hurray! A fellow canadian doing the 100-mile challenmge!
    Good for you!
    We are on day 17 of 2 months on the diet and although we are doing pretty well, we are already battling with some food items that we just really miss.
    I plan on reading through your blog come the week-end.
    here is my url if you'd like to check out mine :

    http://greentobe.blogspot.com

    Congrats again!

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