The 100-Mile Diet

When I saw this listed among ‘diets’ in Wikipedia, I thought it was going to be a weight-loss diet based on the reasonable supposition that one should walk or jog at least 100 miles each month. Most people could eat just as much as they do now, and lose substantially by increasing their exercise to that modest level. But no. It isn’t a weight-loss diet at all. Instead it’s a fad diet, posing as an ecological-diet.

Here is the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article:

The 100-Mile Diet refers to the buying and eating of food that has been grown, manufactured or produced entirely within a 100 mile radius of the residence of the individual who will be consuming the food. The average distance in the modern North American industrial food system of 1,500 miles from farm to plate. The 100-Mile Diet is aimed at reducing an individuals carbon footprint and ecological footprint while supporting local food systems.

Yes, let’s just abandon 1,000 years of progress, and go back to those fine ‘Middle Ages’ (aka the Dark Ages). I know, I know — the motives are good — but is like the ‘brick in the toilet’ approach to water conservation. It is based on false economy. Reducing the water in each flush may save water if the number of flushes stay the same, but in reality people end up flushing twice because once just wasn’t enough.

David Pimentel of Cornell University studied the greenhouse gas-cost of food production and transportation. Based on his research, it is far more ecologically effective to cut back on beef consumption than to boycott bananas and other non-local foods. The locavores don’t want to hear that though, because many of them live on farms where beef production is a big part of their income. No wonder they want people to eat locally produced food — they produce it! So who cares if the banana and coconut producers of central and south America starve?

It just makes common sense that a more varied diet will not only contribute to the trade balance (what if foreign consumers begin to boycott U.S. foods as non-local?), but also to health, since the more varied one’s diet the better the chances of meeting all our nutritional needs. I’m sure the instigators of the 100-Mile Diet mean well, but they are barking up the wrong tree.