How is Sustainable Development in Practice?

There are actually quite a few examples of sustainable development in practice. Earthships (sustainable homes made from recycled products that can treat wastewater), the Kootenay Grain Community Supported Agriculture, and the 100 Mile Diet are a few examples.

I’m going to review the 100 Mile Diet. The 100 Mile Diet was created by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, a couple from Kitsilano in Vancouver. The idea for the diet came to them when they were hosting a dinner party at their cabin, but were running low on food. For the meal, they decided to find local items around their cabin such as cherries, apples, mushrooms, dandelion leaves and trout. After this experiment, they decided to try a similar diet in the city for one year. They knew that it might be a challenge from what they had learned at their cabin, so they decided to use a radius of 100 miles for where they were allowed to collect food from. This distance allowed them to be fairly sustainable, and still provided them with enough resources. The concept for the diet is based on eating only local food within 100 miles, including the ingredients of the food. For example, grain used to make bread should be produced within 100 miles. Therefore, foods such as sugar, coffee, and rice must be eliminated from a person’s diet. There were a few exceptions to their rules, including eating meals prepared by other people (i.e. friends or business lunches) and meals eaten during travel. (Wikipedia, 2010)

http://100milediet.org/get-started/map

I first saw this idea on Oprah when she featured Alisa and J.B.’s reality show, “The 100 Mile Challenge”. The people featured on the show were required to participate. At first, there were many who cheated and who questioned the sustainability of the diet, as they had to drive quite far to retrieve food for their meals. However, at the end if the diet, the people started to enjoy the drive to go and get their food. There was even one couple who made real pasta and cheese along with a boxed version of macaroni and cheese. They got their children to try both, and in the end, no one wanted to eat the boxed pasta so they gave it to the dogs and the family decided to stay on the diet with maybe a few less rules.

There are sources that state this diet could not work in our society on Vancouver Island. This is because of the restricted land area and number of people that inhabit the island. There would simply not be enough room to grow all of the crops we would need to feed ourselves and our livestock (i.e. salmon, chickens, cattle, etc.) with the amount of meat and fish they consumed in their diet. Also, it is unsustainable to produce fruits and vegetables from conventional farming practices as this requires a lot of fertilizer and fossil fuel. (http://www.earthsave.ca/files/2007_0708.pdf)

However, this isn’t to say that this diet cannot be made to be fairly sustainable. It just has to be done the right way, which means consuming less meat and fish, and obtaining produce from home gardening practices. Also, the amount of fossil fuels that are used to obtain the food from other sources should be minimized.
I'm almost certain my parents participated in this diet without knowing. Both of my parents grew up on farms where they produced their own grain, meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables and their trips to the grocery store were limited because they didn't have the resources or money to travel to get food. They were self-reliant. I also would venture to guess that they ate less food than we do now.
Therefore, if the diet was done with all participants producing their own food, much the same as how my parents used to live, it would be closer to achieving sustainability.

Check out the 100 Mile Diet and find your 100 miles.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_100-Mile_Diet

Canada Earthsaver http://www.earthsave.ca/files/2007_0708.pdf