Beth Eats Local

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One year. One hundred miles.

From June 1^st 2008 to May 31st 2009 every item of food that I eat and every ingredient that goes into that food is going to come from a one hundred mile radius of my home in Brighton. If I’m travelling, food has to come from either a one hundred mile radius of where I am, or from one hundred miles of Brighton. I’m vegetarian, and I’m going to try to eat organic wherever possible. Am I crazy? Undoubtedly. Am I going to cheat? Not if I can help it. Am I going to starve? You’ve gotta hope not.

Why do this to yourself?

1. I like a challenge. Sure, I could just do the London Marathon like everyone else, but I generally prefer eating to running.

2. I want to raise questions about the food we eat and where it comes from. Who knows if I’ll find an answer but I want to find the questions.

3. I’m concerned about the world. Yes, another hairy hippy. Peak oil and climate change are going to drastically affect how we eat. It’s not just about flying mange tout from Kenya. A report published in the journal Food Policy found that road miles account for proportionately more environmental damage than air miles. It stated that “up to 40 per cent of UK road traffic is involved in producing or transporting food; 28 per cent of all freight on the roads of Britain is agricultural produce, and it’s being transported 65 per cent further than it was in the Eighties.”*

4. The carbon footprint of ‘long-distance’ food is not the only problem. The nutrients in fruit and vegetables start to decline from the moment they’re harvested and lots of the long-distance fruit and veg that you find in the supermarkets have been chosen because they travel well, rather than because they taste good. Long distance food is also generally surrounded by a good two layers of packaging which is largely (but not wholly) cut out with more local food.

5. I want to make new friends. Eating locally means you develop relationships with the people who supply that food. If you’re growing your own (we have an allotment) you start swapping tips (and produce) with fellow allotmenteers. I’m going to be having some regular local food soirees and getting friends and interested parties around for chats about canning rhubarb.

I am well aware that food and ‘food miles’ are not a cut and dry issues. There are so many variables to take into consideration. Was this tomato grown in a heated greenhouse? Was it sent to China to be packaged? This year is an experiment and a conversation, not an attempt to convince everyone to turn into an out and out locavore (though if you’re interested, why not try cooking a 100% local dinner to start off with).

I’m going to be building the website as I go along. I’m new to Wordpress and to code and also very busy (not least with cooking) so please forgive any hiccups or lulls that might be experienced along the way.

Beth

xxx

* Taken from Mimi Spencer’s article ‘Your Plaice or Mine?’ published in the Observer Food Monthly on Sunday May 15^th 2005.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.