The 100-Mile Diet is simple. It’s a living experiment in local eating that will reconnect you with your food, your local farmers, the seasons, and the landscape you live in. You can start with a single meal, a 100-Mile day, a one-week commitment. Most people partner up, or do the 100-Mile Diet as a family or group.  Make your 100-Mile Diet experiment a challenge. If you’re trying it for a day, consider getting tough: every ingredient in every product has to come from within 100 miles

WHY EAT LOCAL?   Know what you’re eating.
Buying food today is complicated. What pesticides were used? Is that corn genetically modified? Was that chicken free range or did it grow up in a box? People who eat locally find it easier to get answers. Many build relationships with farmers whom they trust. And when in doubt, they can drive out to the farms and see for themselves.  There are twelve more reasons...

Source: 100 Mile Diet website.

View from Hickory Heights: Eat Where You Live!
By Ann R. Swanson, reprinted from the Times Observer, March 29/30 2008

Ann Swanson is a writer and popular columnist for the Times Observer.   Visit her website, hickoryheightsbooks.com for information on her books and articles. She can be contacted at hickoryheights1@verizon.net.

Even coffee beans were picked before their peak to be brewed to perfection upon importation. At one gathering we had coffee from Guatemala. Just when was it picked to be able to arrive ready to brew?

For some items we are dependent on foreign countries for production. There is no way to grow coffee around here. Cocoa also must be imported. Then, there are those bananas, pineapples, oranges, and grapefruits. The list goes on and on. Americans are used to going to the grocery store and finding what they want to eat available.

They tell us that fruits and vegetables lose as much as 50% of their nutritional value during transportation. Those strawberries in those plastic bubbles that were shipped from California are looking less and less attractive. Even the fresh lettuce and spinach seem to lose some of their appeal at that rate.

Couple all of this with the massive recalls that have recently taken place and the whole situation is quite scary. What can we eat and feed our family safely?

It will not be long before local farmers are out in their fields with equipment getting ready to plant seeds. I hope to tell you that if everyone in this area decided to participate in what is commonly called the "100 Mile Diet" there would not be enough food.

The "100 Mile Diet" means that you choose to eat nothing that travels more than 100 miles to market. You eat what is in season, when it is ready. Even restaurants plan menus around what is ready at the time changing the menu with changes of seasons. Would that be so bad? What a pleasant surprise it would be to find chefs who were inventive enough to plan menus around the seasons. We would not get tired of the entrees and every restaurant menu could be unique.

Americans are asking for what they get. They want food to be cheap and plentiful. That often leads to obesity. What we are putting into our mouths is anything but healthy. While potatoes are great in the nutrition department, once we are finished processing them, there is little nutritive value left. Those muddy spuds that were just dug out of the soil at the nearby farm have the most nutrition. Those less than perfect apples contain all of the nutrients we need even if they have a slight blemish on the skin.

My son who produces eggs is frequently asked how come the shells on his eggs do not slip off easily after they are hard boiled when store bought eggs peel so easy. Well the farm fresh eggs are no older than five days old. The law says that eggs cannot be sold when they are more than five days from laying. I am not sure I have the wording quite right, but that is the gist of it. How old do you think the store bought ones are? Even the cartons show use dates that are greater then those five days that are the standard for farm fresh eggs.

The supermarket displays overwhelm me. Just take the cereal aisle for example. Where there used to be a few brands and a few choices, today the choices are more difficult than ever. If you care at all about what you eat, you are forced to read labels - very carefully. If the first ingredient listed is not a whole grain, you are getting mostly sugar and preservatives. Even the term whole grain, is not always what we would like to think.

I find I am a more educated consumer today. Someone told me, "If your Grandmother would not think of it as food, you should not eat it." There are many products that do not look like food and the ingredient list does not seem like food. When I find more things that I cannot pronounce, I know it is something I should not buy.

The farm situation is not at the crisis point yet, but it could be in the near future if we do not support the farmers. Older farmers are retiring. Some farms are simply taken out of production because a buyer cannot afford to purchase the farm and buy equipment to continue production. Some young people who grew up on farms do not wish to continue the cycle. They are ready to do something else.

A large Pennsylvania tomato producer recently announced that he can no longer afford to plant his crop. Last year when the tomatoes were ripe there were not enough laborers to pick the crop and get it to market. Will we miss this producer? You bet we will. When it comes time for bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches or juicy slices for our hamburgers will there be fresh tomatoes at the marketplace? It is hard to tell. Of course, we still have local producers who will have tomatoes for us to buy at the Farmer’s Market.

What we teach our children and what we show them by example influences their future. If we teach them to eat healthy food that is grown locally, they will continue to do so as they age and have children of their own.

Ann Swanson writes from her home in Russell, PA.  Email comments to hickoryheights1@verizon.net

Copyright © 2008 Ann R. Swanson.   All rights reserved.  Used with the permission of the author.

The Opportunity to Support Local Farmers is All Around You!
A listing of local growers, area farmers' markets, and natural food stores compiled by and used with the permission of Quiet Creek Herb Farm.  An Adobe Acrobat ® document. File size: 269K.