100 Mile Challenge

8 more days to get in that last Big Mac, the last glass of pop, the last pre-packaged food, the last drop of sugar...

On May 15th, our family is joining a group of people from our church who will be doing the 100 Mile Diet Challenge, based on the book (and now, TV series). We will endeavour to eat only local foods, grown within 100 miles of our home for 100 days.

I've been the one doing the sourcing of local foods and ingredients in our area and, I have to say, I'm amazed at what we have here. It is the land of plenty in Ontario. Some provinces are unable to grow wheat, but we have a local farm and flour mill just 5-10 minutes from here. We have fruit in season, vegetables of all kinds and any type of meat you could want. The trick is just finding it.

I think the one more difficult aspect will be eating within the season because, while all the foods are available, we are used to eating conveniently, not seasonally. We can get strawberries from California anytime, we don't need to wait until they start growing here. We can get mangos, grapefruit, lemons, lime, olive oil, almonds, sugar and rice - all of which are not grown in our area. We are used to having whatever we want, whenever we want it, so the biggest adjustment might be just learning to say "no" to ourselves. We are a society who gives ourselves anything, whether we need it or not. This will be a tough lesson to learn, I think. Waiting for the season and telling ourselves it's okay to do without.

I'm excited. It will be challenging; cooking with what you have on hand, instead of buying what you want to cook. Hopefully it will help us grow in more ways than simply our health.

Live seasonally. Grow bountifully. Eat locally.

This is my mantra. 8 more days.