Amending the resolution

So…remember when I talked about one of my resolutions for the new year was to read one non fiction book per month? And the book for January was “Eat Pray Love”? Well…..I’m only half way through Eat Pray Love.
I had a few books on reserve at the library and one of them came in right in the middle of January. So….my January book was actually….

“Plenty—Eating Locally on the 100 Mile Diet”

This book fit in with one of my other new year’s resolutions, to live and eat as locally as possible.
The book follows a couple who live in Vancouver BC through a year of eating locally. They did not consume anything that was grown, sown, raised or grazed (I LOVE rhyming) outside of a 100 mile radius of Vancouver. Intense.

It’s a pretty good book, and talks a lot about how far we have come from agrarian societies that had to sustain themselves, to today when the apple I ate for my snack an hour ago, travelled from Washington to my plate. I can’t remember the statistic that the book gives now, but I think our food travels an average of 2500 miles to reach us. Ugh.
The book also delves into how the stresses of trying to sustain your self on food from with 100 miles, strains your relationship.

Ok, so..try this. Go to google, or some other search engine, although why anyone would use anything other than Google is beyond me, and figure out what a 100 mile radius is around where you live. It is not a lot, and those of us who are land locked? Fish is out. Well..I could probably get trout and salmon. I don’t like fish anyway, other than shrimp (def. out, and canned tuna, also out). I live in a very agriculturally rice valley, but I bet most of the food produced here is shipped somewhere else. There is a sugar beet factory down the street from my house, but damned if I can figure out how to buy their sugar.
Did you know that fish can be fished out of the ocean, and then sent to china for cleaning, and then shipped back to the northwest, and be labeled as local?

It’s an eye opening book, entertaining and an easy read. I would def. recommend it.