Tuesday, September 1, 2009

50 mile diet

In a previous post I talked about my participation in the Powell River 50 Mile Diet. It was really difficult to stick to the challenge with grand kids, visitors and a wedding reception but I tried and I'm still trying.

Veggies, milk, some cheese, eggs and chicken have not been a problem but some of the other foodstuff has. Some good news in the meat department I just found a local farmer who might have some pork and beef for sale, it won't be for some time, but that's ok. After all, I truly believe the 50 mile challenge which ends on Sep. 27 is meant to bring attention to the many benefits of local eating but we should never stop eating locally, it really has to become part of our everyday life.

Some things I have not been able to give up are butter, sugar, salt and pepper and other spices, coffee, tea, beans, flour and other grains. However I bake my own bread, cookies and desserts, and cook dried beans rather than buying canned, so although not local, cooking from scratch is a much better alternative to buying processed foods.

For dinner tonight??? Chili.
Local ingredients: tomatoes, onion, celery, jalapeno and green pepper.
Not so local: ground beef, dried beans, salt, pepper, oil and chili powder.




Now take a look at these plums, there are many more on the tree, and these still need to ripen a little but I like them a little on the hard side, they are so good. I'll pick the rest in the next few days and make some plum chutney as well as freeze some for baking. And just a few little apples. I'll pick some more for applesauce but most of them have bugs in them, yuck!!! Still they won't be wasted, I'll pack them into a box and off to the pig farmer they will go.





4 comments:

David said...

I've been drying plums like a madman over here. And pears, and peaches. And soon, apples.

I'm supposed to do some canning with some friends, so that'll be good, because I still feel a little in over my head with that. Some more hands-on would be good.

In case you missed it, last night I posted about the challenges of going local year-round. We definitely have our work cut out for us, but thankfully there are a lot of people in the region who take the challenge seriously.

Betty said...

I try to buy as much as I can locally as I can we have a farmers market ao Sat.and Wed. Your Chili sound good I love jalapenos.

Scrappy quilter said...

WOW, 50 miles in our area would be really tough. I too try to purchase has much locally has I can. However there are many items I even have trouble finding in the 100 mile diet. Great job!!

Margaret said...

It's set at 50 miles because 100 miles from Powell River does not add any local food sources. It just puts us into the ocean or in the middle of a forest.

But it is very challenging indeed and of course I think it's challenging for most Canadians because of our Northern location.

But we have to keep trying.