100 Mile Challenge - Page 2

[jillyofthevalley]

Originally Posted by proptart

So I just watched the first episode of "The 100 Mile Challenge" on Canadian Food TV. At first I thought "Could this be any easier? They're in one of the most fertile valleys in Canada during the summer months. Let's try this in Saskatchewan in the middle of the winter." Then I realized that some of the participants hadn't even gotten past cooking Kraft Dinner yet.

(Funny moment - the KD cooker tells her husband that they'll be able to make their own mac and cheese once she's made homemade noodles. The husband then asks "But how do we make the orange powdery stuff?")

From a TF perspective I'm sure I'd miss my coconut oil and bananas, but I think most of us would be far better equipped to handle the challenge than non TFers.

I've just started watching this online (2 episodes so far) and I love it! I live in Mission, BC so it's even cooler to watch and it gives me some great info on local sources for food. The one thing I really hadn't thought of was grains. It's very hard to find grain grown in this area. When I first heard of the 100 mile diet I thought "hey no problem, there's a great organic grain mill a half hour away from me. That's local. It never occured to me that while the mill was local, the grain was not and therefore not in my 100 mile diet. I had a good laugh over the orange powdery stuff comment too!

Originally Posted by proptart

I've been doing sprouts all winter just to have something green that wasn't home-canned or frozen. I finally broke down and bought fresh carrots the other day. I rationalized it this way - we eat 80% local for 75% of the year which has got to be 100% better than 95% of the population.

Awesome rationalization! I think we do way better than a lot of people as well, even if it isn't all local all the time.

[BedHead]

I watched this show when it was on and loved the idea. I would SO love to actually do it, but there are a few things in my diet that I don't know where they'd come from (I'm in Edmonton). Salt is one of them. In the show they evaporated sea water - not an option here! Another is many of the spices we like. Turmeric, ginger, pepper, cayenne, paprika - I don't think we can grow any of those. Another is sweeteners. We use maple syrup quite a bit but we'd have to give that up and use honey for almost everything. Which is doable I guess. Sugar would be out - they do grow sugar beets in southern Alberta but I don't think they do this far north. And of course seafood would be totally out. Freshwater fish it would have to be, and I know nothing about toxicity levels of fish from around here. Rice, couscous and quinoa would all have to go, also all the pulses. No tea or coffee, no kombucha since the tea and sugar are out. Unless I grew my own tea leaves - can you even do that?

We are steadily increasing our local consumption though, as I discover more and more local producers. I do like to experiment in the kitchen though, and the limited supply of local stuff would severely curtail that in some respects. I like to cook with my mood, and only being able to cook root veggies and eat ferments all winter would really suck.

It certainly is possible (as our ancestors proved!) and I think it would be fun to try, but I wouldn't want to live that way all the time, year after year.

[AngelBee]

Originally Posted by BedHead

I watched this show when it was on and loved the idea. I would SO love to actually do it, but there are a few things in my diet that I don't know where they'd come from (I'm in Edmonton). Salt is one of them. In the show they evaporated sea water - not an option here! Another is many of the spices we like. Turmeric, ginger, pepper, cayenne, paprika - I don't think we can grow any of those. Another is sweeteners. We use maple syrup quite a bit but we'd have to give that up and use honey for almost everything. Which is doable I guess. Sugar would be out - they do grow sugar beets in southern Alberta but I don't think they do this far north. And of course seafood would be totally out. Freshwater fish it would have to be, and I know nothing about toxicity levels of fish from around here. Rice, couscous and quinoa would all have to go, also all the pulses. No tea or coffee, no kombucha since the tea and sugar are out. Unless I grew my own tea leaves - can you even do that?

We are steadily increasing our local consumption though, as I discover more and more local producers. I do like to experiment in the kitchen though, and the limited supply of local stuff would severely curtail that in some respects. I like to cook with my mood, and only being able to cook root veggies and eat ferments all winter would really suck.

It certainly is possible (as our ancestors proved!) and I think it would be fun to try, but I wouldn't want to live that way all the time, year after year.

Salt is a BIG one for me too. I am in MN. Coffee is my other own.

Sugar would be hard, but possible. I also wonder about a wheat source.

The main thing is planning. Dh and i just found out about this book and challenge, and frankly, I think it is impossible in MN right now without extensive pre-planning.

But it is fun to dream or plan how we can do it differently next year.

Isn't it possible to have a green house that would produce even in cold temps?

[spughy]

Originally Posted by AngelBee

Isn't it possible to have a green house that would produce even in cold temps?

Yes, but you need to consider that it would take energy to heat it. Now, if you're running your own solar/wind/minihydro dam self-generated power systems, that might not be a carbon-footprint issue - but if you're getting power from the grid, or heating the greenhouse with a woodstove, running a greenhouse to give you veggies all through the winter might actually be more of a per-capita carbon hit than importing veggies from somplace like California or Florida.

The point to the 100-mile diet is to reduce the carbon/energy costs of what we eat, as well as to grow our connections to our food. Building your own greenhouse might fit with the spiritual message of the book but quite possibly not the environmental one!

Besides, it's not always necessary to have FRESH vegetables all the time. Frozen ones work just fine, too And I've been really enjoying my dried tomatoes, now that the supply of fresh has finished for the year.

[jillyofthevalley]

Originally Posted by AngelBee

The main thing is planning. Dh and i just found out about this book and challenge, and frankly, I think it is impossible in MN right now without extensive pre-planning.

But it is fun to dream or plan how we can do it differently next year.

I agree it would take a bit of planning. You really couldn't jump into it in the middle of winter. It was a lot easier for those families to do it by starting in June in the Fraser Valley. We have such rich farmland here and the food crops are so varied in the summer months. With a little planning you can can, dry and freeze a ton of local food for the winter months but it's definitely not available fresh in January.

[californiajenn]

There's a lady in Colorado that farms at 9000 ft. She only needs to heat the greenhouse when it's quite a bit below zero. Maybe you all can glean some info.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009...re-farming.php

I'm very jealous b/c I want to watch this show but can't b/c I'm in the US.

[proptart]

Originally Posted by BedHead

I watched this show when it was on and loved the idea. I would SO love to actually do it, but there are a few things in my diet that I don't know where they'd come from (I'm in Edmonton). Salt is one of them. In the show they evaporated sea water - not an option here!

For those of you in Saskatchewan, here's some info from Amy Jo Ehman's website (http://homefordinner.blogspot.com) :

Saskatchewan is blessed with salt, and some of it ends up on our dinner table. Sifto extracts salt at the town of Unity, where it is a major employer in a small farming community. It comes in fine, course and kosher grain. Try to buy Sifto salt to support Saskatchewan. You'll know it's from the Unity mine if there's a circle with the number 69 on the package.

Maybe not as TF as Celtic sea salt (I'm not sure what happens during the processing of it), but a lot closer than the nearest ocean!